When you think of the year 1000 of the common era (whether you think CE or AD is up to you), what pops up in your mind? Is it Vikings sailing west? Cathedrals being built in France? Trade in China? For Valerie Hansen, she thought is connections, specifically trade, global trade! In The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the world beginning around year 1000 of the common era and up until about 1450. She chose the year 1000 since that is around when the Vikings stopped by North America and trade could theoretically be made around the world - from Asia to America and back again.
Valarie Hansen opens The Year 1000 with an overview of the world, briefly discussing Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas along with her argument for globalization beginning in 1000. She then proceeds to discuss the Viking voyages to Newfoundland and elsewhere in the Americas and the impact this had on trade. The third chapter of the book covers the trade routes that existed in the Americas among the local groups. Hansen then returns to the Vikings, but in Europe this time with their search for slaves and treasure in the east, especial among the Rus while also covering trade on the continent and with outside countries. The reader then travels south to Africa with its slave trade, its trade in gold, and in other commodities. From Africa, the reader travels to Central Asia with the Silk Road that connected Europe and Africa with the Far East. Religion and trade played a major role in Central Asia economies. Next, Hansen explores the sea routes from the Middle East and Africa to India, then Indonesia,and ending at China. In the last chapter, Hansen explores Chain and the role it played in global trade during this whole time frame.

Throughout The Year 1000, Valarie Hansen seeks to persuade the reader that globalization started much earlier than the 1500's - the time when most scholars agree global trade began. She provides ample evidence that trade, extensive trade was happening 500 years earlier. Whether the reader agrees whit her argument or not, The Year 1000 is an interesting and informative read.

Most people would be forgiven for thinking that globalization was the result of late 20th Century forces bringing the far-flung corners of the globe together into a global community. As historian Valerie Hansen explains in her new book, The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World — and Globalization Began, however, that would be a mistake. Instead, the processes that we associate with globalization, the exchanges of technologies and ideas, the homogenization of culture, the ease of travel and communication, have deep roots and, as the title suggests, the year 1000 BCE, as well as the years on either side of it, was crucial to these phenomena.
One of the key developments of this period was the gradual coalescence of many parts of the globe into membership of one of the major religions that would come to dominate the sacred landscape for the next several centuries: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Slowly but surely, these faiths solidified their hold on most of the populations of Europe, Asia, and North Africa, particularly as powerful leaders adopted religion in an effort to shore up their power. Then, as now, religion also impacted politics, and Hansen shows us how religious affiliation shaped the trading and power blocs of Asia.
Indeed, this slender book is packed full of fascinating historical tidbits for both the academic historian and the general reader. We learn, for example, of the ways in which the Vikings played a key role in the globalizing impulses of the year 1000, ranging both east and west in their explorations, ending up on the coast of Newfoundland and in the lands of Eastern Europe. While their influence in North America would be rather negligible, they would come to have an enormous influence in the east, where they often became part of the ruling powers, as well as allowing for the smoother transfer of goods back to their homelands.
However, one of the best things about this book is that it highlights areas outside of Europe. Thus, we learn that the Americas were far more tightly woven through trade than most (white) people assume, with contacts between such widely different groups as the Maya of Mexico and the Puebloan peoples of New Mexico. Hansen also shows how the various nations and peoples of Africa, both north and south of the Sahara, had a sophisticated network of trade routes that paved the way for later European exploitation.
Where The Year 1000 really sparkles, however, is in its final chapter, in which Hansen demonstrates how China was, arguably, the most globalized place on the planet at this period. It had trading contacts with numerous other polities across Eurasia and even into Africa, and its port cities in particular saw traders from numerous places. What’s more, China was also noted for its ability to produce large amounts of manufactured goods — particularly pottery — due in no small part to its enormous labor force (even at this point in time it was one of the most populous places on earth).
There’s quite a lot to love about this book, and Hansen keeps her story moving along a brisk pace. However, I do have a few quibbles with Hansen’s approach to her material. There were a few times where it felt as if she were trying to bend the evidence so that it met her conclusion, rather than the other way around. What’s more, she seems to be working with a rather flexible definition of “globalization,” so that it comes to mean basically what she needs it to mean at a given point in her story. Furthermore, the fact that she clearly wants to keep the momentum of her story means that sometimes she glosses over important details, so that we’re left rather breathless, and probably slightly confused, by the time that we get to the end of a chapter. To me, the book sometimes feels a bit too small, and as a result some of the arguments come across as being less developed than they might be in a larger, more substantive book. However, I also understand that this is intended to be a work of popular scholarship and that this imposes some limitations on what she can accomplish.
More egregious, in my view, are the moments when she gives in to the impulse to be sensationalistic in her approach to the material. The most glaring example is her rather tenuous claim that the pale figures in the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza may in fact be an indication that a group of Norsemen were blown off course, ended up in Mexico, and were offered up as sacrifices. Though she does cite two scholars of Mayan art who believe this might be the case, to my eye it seems like a bit of an attempt to drum up a bit of controversy to bolster the book’s popularity, particularly since this little snippet doesn’t seem central to the rest of the claims made throughout the book.
For all of that, The Year 1000 is a smart piece of popular scholarship, and a timely reminder that many of the things that we consider to be thoroughly modern phenomena have actually occurred at several other important points in history. What’s more, her work shows the value of this type of history writing, which is designed to bridge the often yawning chasm between the ivory tower of the academy and the general populace. Given that globalization continues to affect so much of our current world, Hansen’s work takes on a new urgency. As she notes again and again, we are still living with the developments that took shape in the year 1000. Religion remains one of the most important ways in which people fashion their identity, and China continues to grow as a true commercial superpower, with its influence being felt from end of the globe to the other.
As Hansen so amply demonstrates, the ways in which we contend with the forces of globalization now will continue to have ripple effects far into the future.

This was an interesting look at the rise of globalization and how it started in history. I enjoyed this fact filled history book and am excited to read more from this author.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

I ordered this for my library after reading it because I feel like it has excellent crossover appeal. There are lots of readers that I’m excited to recommend this book to,

The Year 1000, attempts to explore the rise of globalization, however it doesn't quite reach this ambitious goal. Written in an approachable style, regions throughout the globe are examined through political, religious, economic, and sociological lenses at this specific point in time. Unfortunately there is no real thread to tie all of these chapters together and show how the year (on or about) 1000 was the triggering point that helped lead to globalization. It was challenging to read of increased exploration and travel during pandemic and self-isolationism. It's an interesting read as a historical review at a specific moment but the reader will need to explore additional resources to piece together the rise of globalisation.

The author has very poor scholarship. She ignores facts that don't jive with her thesis and uses information from. 500 years later to "prove" assertions. She also mischaracterizes many people and trends of the period.

In addition, her thesis that somehow there was globalization in 100 is extremely tenuous just because there was trade among many peoples does not mean globalization. In the Nineteenth Century there was inarguably global trade, but nobody talks about that period being "globalized." This is in spite of the fact that "globalization can far more easily be proved for that period than for the end of the First Millenium.

Then there is the poor organization of the book. She appears to have taken the view that she should just throw everything about a people or area at the wall and see what sticks.

All in all, this makes for a confusing book, that has occasional glimpses oif interest.

Although publication of this book in 2000 would have made more sense, The Year 1000 is an ambitious attempt to demonstrate that the 21st century globalized society we are living in today has very real antecedents in prehistory. Hansen seems surprised by the extent of long-distance interaction in some areas of the globe in the past. She begins with the exploration of North America by the Vikings and proceeds on to long distance trade networks in Central America, the Silk Road, Asia, Africa, and everywhere else where archaeologists have demonstrated extensive trade networks existed. And that's probably why I didn't enjoy this book as much as I expected to: archaeologists have known for decades that prehistoric peoples traded extensively. Would Hansen be surprised to learn that Paleoindians moved obsidian around North America across hundreds and hundreds of miles? Perhaps not globalization in the more capitalistic definition she clearly uses as her basis, but ancient peoples were very much aware of other ancient peoples and societies, even at quite a remove in some cases. This is not new information to students of prehistory, although perhaps to the general public it is. I can't speak to the veracity of her sources, but I do have some particular concerns. I knew one of her sources, the late Mike Coe, personally, and read quite of bit of Mary Miller's published work (I even used one of her books as a supplemental text in a class I taught years ago), and I can assure you that most archaeologists who have worked at or visited Chichen Itza or studied the Maya do not think that the blonde, light-skinned people in the mural in the Temple of the Warriors might be Viking warriors. And she makes similar mistakes in other areas I know very well; for example, she mistakenly calls southwest kivas 'storage rooms.' They are ritual architecture which yes, may have also stored some seed used each year to start the annual planting rituals, but to call them storage rooms misses their main purpose by a mile. She refers to a prolonged period of drought in the Maya area but doesn't tell us what evidence suggests such a drought occurred (I know there are some pollen cores from Lake Peten Itza that suggest that, but there are hundreds of km between the lake and Chichen Itza, the site she's discussing at this point in the book). I don't know enough about the archaeology and prehistory of the rest of the world to feel comfortable voicing some of my issues with her reconstructions, but I found myself scribbling lots of questions marks in the margins. While I really wanted to like the book, because I liked the idea behind it, I hesitate to recommend it. There were just too many question marks in the margins.

Typically the topics of business and globalization of said businesses is dreadfully boring to me and I don't care. That is still true, except for when we are talking about said topics in relation to how they occurred in one of my most favorite periods to read about.

The one thing I truly disagree with is the author's semi-assertion that anyone still believes that the Vikings got no further than Britain before 1,000. It is fairly common knowledge now that this is, in fact, not true. We know they traveled much farther, reaching what is not Canada. She also makes references to how it is still believed that there were not major cultural developments in Europe prior to that, and all we have to do is look to Ireland's history to see this thought too is already accepted as being false. Quite a lot was actually happening in those so-called "Dark Ages". Otherwise, I enjoyed this book.

One of the highlights of this book for me is the idea that perhaps the Vikings got even farther than we have imagined - perhaps far enough to encounter the Mayan people. She discusses the existence of blond-haired people gracing the murals in the temple at Chichen Itza. Could the Vikings really have gotten as far as Mexico? Wouldn't that be an amazing discovery that we could actually find evidence to prove? Honestly, it would not surprise me if this truly happened. The Vikings were quite determined and driven. Who knows where else they might have gone, and what evidence we may find of those journeys in the future.

The book remains accessible as a popular history despite the obvious fact that many years of research went into the content and cultures explored here. We are privy to all the developments in technology that allowed for the cultures to collide, as well as the sweeping spread of religions far and wide. She makes a great point that at that time, all of these cultures were pretty equal in terms of the weaponry/warfare technology they possessed. This would obviously not be the case less than 500 years later when Europeans would once again return to North America in waves, this time capturing, subjugating, and exterminating hundreds of thousands of the native populations.

Now, certainly globalization to us and globalization then looked far different. But the case is made, and stands I believe, that this first round certainly paved the way for our world to become what it is today, for all the positives and negatives that includes. We are taken on a whirlwind trip crossing five continents, yet nothing felt rushed or glossed over. The narrative was also not bogged down with a boring slew of fact, fact, fact.

I quite appreciated the look at the travels of the Rus, into what would eventually become Russia, and find this culture particularly curious, as I feel like Eastern Europe is never quite as fully given its due as Western Europe is. I am especially intrigued by how Russia came to be, and it's development in this period on. Much like I find with most European history though, my interest wanes by the 16th/17th century - unless we are talking about the last of the Romanovs.

There is much to appreciate here. The author writes in an engaging way and does an excellent job giving the reader a feel for the place and time in each location as we jet from one location to the next. I never felt like anything was unclear, and places remained distinct despite the many cultures examined.

Recommended.

This is a must read for history lovers. Full of facts and intriguing theories.it keeps you thinking long after you have finished reading.

If I asked you when explorers connected the world for the first time, what would you say? A month ago, I would have said in 1492. Columbus sailed the ocean blue, a new exchange of food, ideas, animals, people, and microbes changed the world forever. That’s the first time the world was connected in any meaningful way. But with her new book, Valerie Hansen has convinced me of something that sounded illogical: the world had already been connected before Columbus. Columbus and the other 15th century explorers took it a step further, yes, but they were only continuing what had been started by the Vikings around the year 1000.
Valerie Hansen’s most provocative thesis (one which I don’t want to overstate because she doesn’t) is that the process of globalization began and the world was connected for the first time around the year 1000. That is not to say these explorers created a sustained connection like the one seen in the era of the Columbian Exchange, because that is important in itself. Even more provocative is not a thesis of Hansen’s but a subpoint to support it: the Vikings made contact and traded with the Mayans. If this blows your mind, it did mine too. And if I can summarize the two pieces of evidence to support it: 1) the Mayans drew blonde-haired people in their art (okay evidence but explainable if you’re skeptical), and 2) the Mayans drew Viking slatted boats that were visibly different than any that the Mayans ever built. If they had never seen a Viking boat, how would they draw one when no one around them built boats like that? This evidence convinced me that the Vikings did make contact with the Mayans and had more of an effect on the pre-Columbian Americas than I previously thought.
But to zoom in on this point of Hansen’s does not do justice to the entirety of the book. The Vikings’ travels are an important early point, but the larger argument is that the world was much more connected in and around the year 1000 than is often assumed by non-historians. To show this, Hansen takes the reader on a tour of the world focused around the year 1000. Usually, she goes back to about 800 or 900 to give context for each chapter, and she always continues the narrative in abbreviated form until ~1450 to show the effects of trade in the given region or civilization. However, she laser-focuses the narrative around the year 1000 as much as possible, giving credence to the book’s title.

Hansen is successful in convincing me that the process of globalization began around the year 1000 and that refusing to acknowledge the accomplishments of earlier societies in globalization leads to a history that is too eurocentric. The Year 1000, however, achieves a balance that highlights the achievements of almost all regions of the world. Most importantly, Hansen reveals and analyzes the economic, social, and cultural connections between these distinct regions.

For fellow teachers of AP World History: Modern, this book is a tremendous primer to enter the world scene in the year 1200. I almost want to call it “The Global Tapestry: The Book” (a reference to the much-maligned name of Unit 1), but it goes back much further in time and also includes many concepts from Unit 2: Networks of Exchange. Some of the people groups explored in The Year 1000 which also overlap with my curriculum include the Kitan/Liao, the Song dynasty of China, the Seljuk empire, Srivijaya, the Angkor empire, the Maya, Great Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Mali. I look forward to using the book to supplement my teaching, and I think it will be a fantastic resource for many others.

The Year 1000 taught me more about this specific period in history than all other books I’ve read combined. This is because of its relentless focus, yet the heavy emphasis on context and causation will help connect readers’ preexisting knowledge to subject matter they may have no background in. For that reason, I would recommend The Year 1000 to anyone even interested in world history. Anyone can pick it up and be successful, and it will serve as foundational knowledge for future learning as well.

I received an eARC of The Year 1000 courtesy of Scribner and NetGalley, but my opinions are my own.

Not bad. I haven't read many history books, but seemed less researched than I expected, and contain more conjecture than I'd prefer. However, similar approaches have resulted in more accurate history periodically. That doesn't mean it's not interesting. If you're not a serious history buff, I suspect this may be of interest to the curious who are OK with a typically dry read of history. 3.5 stars.

Thanks very much for the review copy!!

The Year 1000 by Valerie Hansen is an engagingly informative look at, well, the year 1000 (though Hansen move forwards and backwards from that date for context. Hansen argues that the trading relationships (and routes) created around this time were the first form of globalization, paving the path to our current world.

A non-exhaustive list of cultures Hansen covers includes the Vikings (particularly their travel to North America), Mesoamerica (such as the Mayan trade with Southwestern US cultures at Chaco), Scandanavian travels east where they were known as the Rus, connections between China, Japan, India, Korea, and more.

While Hansen points to some of the similarities beween our world and the one covered in the book, she also makes the important distinction that during this time when civilization met for the first time, their level of technological/military technology was pretty equal, unlike for example when the Europeans met Native Americans several centuries later.

While Hansen covers the well-known, she also introduces several less known cultures, and some that were wholly unfamiliar to me. I’m no historian, but I do read a lot of popular history, so that was a welcome bit for freshness. The same is true for some of the trade relations and items. Furs and gold, spices and amber were well known to me, but some of the “aromatics” were less well known.

Hansen’s style is always clean, lucid, and engaging. Despite covering a lot of ground (literally) and throwing a lot of regions, cultures, names at the reader, she keeps her audience well grounded in time and place and theme. An excellent popular history book.

As someone who loves history books, and especially history books examining the global big picture, I wanted this to be more of an absorbing and enjoyable read than it is. Some compelling ideas, but ultimately not a very compelling read.

Even though the author has a conversational writing style the subject matter of this book is often so dry that it overwhelms the conversational nature of the presentation. Having said that this does present a series of interesting year 1000 globalization issues. I found the argument that the Vikings (or Norseman) may have traded with the Maya or at least with members of “cities” or tribes living in what is now East St’ Louis, particularly fascinating. Recommended for history lovers.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.
I actually disliked this one. The organization of topics seemed off, the subject matter was repetitive, and the conclusions were drawn from a fair amount of guesswork, and were honestly nothing memorable. It added nothing new to the field.