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What period marks the true beginning of modern history, in your view?

As a historian, I'm synthesizing arguments across the scholarship. I find compelling cases for the Renaissance, the Fall of Constantinople, and the Age of Discovery. I'm asking for your synthesized, evidence-backed judgment on which threshold most robustly marks a fundamental and irreversible break from the medieval world.

 

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By Hitesh Answered 6 years ago

While many cite the Renaissance or Printing Press, I'd argue the true, irreversible break begins in the 1490s with Columbus's voyages. In my research, this isn't just about exploration; it's the instant, catastrophic creation of a permanently interconnected globe the Columbian Exchange. This biological and economic linking of hemispheres created the systems (capitalism, colonialism, global trade) that definitively ended the medieval world and forged our modern condition of global interdependence.

 

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