It was a genuinely scientific approach to knowledge, but one that was applied more to the study of the past and to practical applications of learning in medicine, farming, and industry than to fields like astronomy, physics, or anatomy, which were more prominent in Europe
It is interesting that we still make distinctions between the advancements "western" and "eastern" science, technology, and medicine when both "fields" emerged at a similar time, but used for different purposes.
These new scientists no longer relied on the external authority of the Bible, the Church, the speculations of ancient philosophers, or the received wisdom of cultural tradition. For them, knowledge was acquired through rational inquiry based on evidence, the product of human minds alone.
This is such an interesting definition of science. The idea that knowledge is acquired through "the product of human minds alone" is a definition I would associate with philosophy, religion, and theology more so than science.
Continued Islamization was not usually the product of conquering armies and expanding empires. It depended instead on wandering Muslim holy men or Sufis, Islamic scholars, and itinerant traders, none of whom posed a threat to local rulers.
I wonder if the gentler method of introducing religion that Islam used was more effective for spreading the religion to more people than that of Christianity and Catholicism. Does allowing your beliefs to adjust with the culture strengthen or weaken the collective faith of the people?
they set about correcting the abuses and corruption that had stimulated the Protestant movement by placing a new emphasis on the education of priests and their supervision by bishops.
It is interesting to see how the problems Martin Luther had with the Catholic Church, excluding criticisms of doctrines, were, in a roundabout way, fixed by his ninety-five theses. By unintentionally creating a rift in Christianity, it conversely restrengthened the Catholic Church and corrected the problems that had arisen.
Many of these Christians had welcomed Ottoman conquest because taxes were lighter and oppression less pronounced than under their former Christian rulers.
In hindsight it seems like so many of the cultures are missing the point when it comes to not facing oppression. The Ottoman Empire "switched" from majority Muslim to majority Christian. The goal shouldn't be to oppress the oppressor, but whomever is the dominant religion has political, economic, and cultural power.
Qing officials did not seek to assimilate local people into Chinese culture and showed considerable respect for the Mongolian, Tibetan, and Muslim cultures of the region
Did keeping cultural boundaries within the Qing dynasty help it gain power, or would immersion similar to Russia have lead to a larger empire?
Cross-racial unions accounted for only about 10 percent of all marriages, but the use of concubines and informal liaisons among Indians, Africans, and Portuguese produced a substantial multiracial population
It is fascinating that the mixed population came from not people marrying across race, but rather essentially cheating and having accidental children. However it is also telling to how mixed people were treated then; because of the stigma around their whole existence!
Intermarriage, prostitution, and sexual abuse resulted in some multiracial offspring, but these were generally absorbed as Russians rather than identified as distinctive communities, as in Latin America.
What were the differences between European countries and Russia, cultural or otherwise, that caused the mixed population to be considered Russian when their populations exist for similar reasons.
Long isolation from the Afro-Eurasian world and the lack of most domesticated animals meant the absence of acquired immunities to Old World diseases such as smallpox, measles, typhus, influenza, malaria, and, later, yellow fever.
It seems like a major factor European empires in America was chance. Because Afro-Eurasia just had animals that can be domesticated, they had diseases that could wipe out populations faster than their armies. I wonder what the present world would look like now if the roles were reversed, and the Americas had cities like London that created devastating diseases.