ABSTRACT
The three centuries between 1450 and 1750, often called the early modern period, were dominated by wars of various sorts. New technologies were involved, notably the growing use of cannon and other guns and the advances in navigation that permitted growing global contacts, military contacts included. There was far less explicit discussion of peace, as East Asia, particularly, relied on traditional prescriptions for the most part. More sweeping efforts to promote peace, at the intellectual level, occurred as Renaissance spread to northern Europe, where it combined with important components of Christian tradition. A second new current soon added to the European interest in peace though still as a minority phenomenon: some unexpected side effects of the Protestant Reformation. In contrast the most important political theorist of the age, John Locke, writing as greater stability returned to Britain, highlighted the importance and possibility of peace. Connections among different parts of the world intensified during the early modern period.
