1688: A Global History (2001)

Professor John E. Wills, recently deceased in January 2017 at the age of 80, is a wonderful writer and a great source of early modern world history. 

Like the Canadian historian Timothy Brook (1951-), they go far and wide, portraying for readers a world from bygone days, yet filled with so much life and even more vivid details. Under their pen, the world of the 17th century is as lively as the one we are living in now. 

The year of 1688 is Wills's focal point. He travels back and forth in time, journeying from continent to continent, from port cities to courts, from trade to religion, from material goods to metaphysical letters to bring us how the world looked like around that particular year...

Silver was pouring from Potosi in South America to other parts of the world, feeding a transcontinental trade route that sustained the life of so many, at the same time suppressing the life of Native Americans, turning the latter either into forced labor or into unregistered fugitives...

Jesuit Father Eusebio Francisco Kino (1645-1711) attempted to plant faith among the Pima (Hohokam) Indians, who nevertheless welcomed his crops, medicine, livestock and protection more than his words.

While inspecting the surrounding of his little Quaker colony, William Penn (1644-1718) noticed the Delaware Indians and published the following observation of undoubtedly a proud people with integrity,

"For their persons, they are generally tall, straight, well built, and of singular proportion; they tread strong and clever, and mostly walk with a lofty chin.... Their language is lofty, yet narrow, but like the Hebrew...But the liberality they excel; nothing is too good for their friend. Give them a fine gun, coat, or other thing, it may pass twenty hands before it sticks; light of heart, strong affections, but soon spent...they never have much, nor want much" (p. 204).

The buccaneer William Dampier (1651-1715) operated between the Americas and the Pacific. In February 1688, he anchored in the northwest coast of Australia, encountering the Bardi aborigines, who up to nowadays still cling to their ways of living (pp. 60-65). In another of his voyages, Dampier met the Miskito Indians of the Central American coast and was impressed by their excellent fishing skills.

On the subcontinent of South Asia, another war of religion - Muslim versus Hindu - was waging. In the midst of the conflict, the indigenous Bedar people secured a place with the help of their martial and situational logics. Their leader Pam Nayak found himself at home at the court of the Muslim king Aurangzeb (1618-1707), though others mocked him and thought him strange.

These are but a few pieces of the whole 1688 puzzle-map Wills offers his readers. I have deliberately highlighted the few paragraphs about Indians, aborigines, native or indigenous communities in the book for the sake of future research.

What historians like Wills or Brook demonstrate through their craftsmanship is one way of writing history. Such history can be understood as 'world history', 'global history' or 'connected history'. Though each said category can be further defined and differentiated, what each practitioner shares is the desire to enter the foreign land called the past.

To Wills, the writing of 1688: A Global History has been fun. For me, the reading of this book has been even more fun since it mirrors exactly what can be done next for indigenous history.  Oh, how I hope to return.