Byzantine Empire vs China
Immediately after the Classical Era of World History, the period that came along was the Postclassical Period. This period, within the year 500 CE and 1450 CE, was built up by “third-wave civilizations”. In other words, it was built up by large empires characterized by constant patterns of change, trade, and considerable changes in technologies. In 1492 CE these civilizations got global, meaning that the interactions among these different societies stopped being regional. Two empires who were very important during the Postclassical Period were the Byzantine Empire and China. Geographically these civilizations were far apart, but as they developed, they became two of the most influential empires of the time. Also, as they developed they showed patterns of change among themselves but which showed similarities as well as differences among the two. The Byzantine and Chines Empire were similar in economic aspects as both were huge centers of trade and promoted new technologies such as banking for the sake of good trade. These two empires were different regarding changes in their religion as the Chinese Empire became a cosmopolitan society letting Buddhism penetrate their empire and the Byzantines continued through the thread of Christianity. Furthermore, these empires differed when looking the way of government each society implemented such as scholar bureaucracies in China and caesaropapism in the Byzantine Empire. Trade was basically the main characteristic of the Postclassical Period. Because of this, even though in different ways, both the Chinese and Byzantine Empire were a huge influence in trade at the time. The Byzantine Empire, after the Roman Empire split into Islam, Byzantium, and Western Europe, maintained roads as they were before. Through these roads, the Byzantine Empire was linked to outside trade because due to its strategic location and its good and deep harbors, the Byzantine Empire became the empire that linked trade routes from Europe to