Western Civilization I / Unit 14 WC1 1317 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Shah Abbas and the Silk Monopoly
Captions available
The idea
Abbas I, fifteen eighty-seven to sixteen twenty-nine, seized real power, built a royal silk monopoly as the treasury's base, protected Armenian and Hindu merchants, and raised slave soldiers with firearms on the Ottoman model: a golden age beside the Ottomans and Mughals.
In practice
In sixteen hundred exceeded only by Ming China, the anchor says.
Where people slip
After Abbas, persecuting the merchant minorities ended it.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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