Divergence and Convergence in World History

Divergence and convergence—these are the two great tidal movements which have shaped human history. From the remote origins of humankind in Africa, the history of humankind was largely characterised by divergence, with the history of the great Polynesian diaspora into the uncharted seas of the Pacific forming the last major chapter of this great scattering of humanity. This great outward wave of human settlement found its furthest shore with the settling of New Zealand around the period 1000–1200 AD. But this was also the period when the tide of human outward settlement began to recede, drawing together an increasing number of peoples and cultures which had once existed in relative isolation. As Northrup, to whose 2005 article I am indebted for this way of looking at world history (along with the recent works by the McNeills and Fernandez-Armesto), argues, from 1000 onwards we are increasingly in an age of convergence as different societies were more and more linked together in what eventually became a global network. In Europe, for example, from the time of the First Crusade of 1096–1099, Europe was in increasing, if belligerent, contact with its Islamic neighbours and its contact with a still wider world grew as the rapid expansion of the Mogul Empire in the thirteenth century drew together chains of connection that stretched to the Far East.