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Based on his book The Verge, Wyman argues that the period 1490-1530 was the most transformative in human history: Columbus, Luther, Machiavelli, the printing press, gunpowder empires, and global trade networks all converged in four decades.
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Canon
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Wyman argues that 1490-1530 was not a period of gradual change but a phase transition: printing enabled the Reformation, which destabilized European politics, which accelerated overseas expansion, which funded military innovation, which reshaped the state. Each change amplified the others.
Highlights
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The period 1490-1530 concentrated more world-changing developments than any comparable span in history
In just 40 years: Columbus reached the Americas (1492), Vasco da Gama reached India (1498), Luther posted his theses (1517), Magellan circumnavigated the globe (1519-1522), and the Aztec and Inca empires fell. No other 40-year period produced comparable civilizational change.Was this useful?