World History Fall 2018

In Ch.12 Strayer discusses the end of the Classical Era and the beginning of the Modern Era. The importance of this chapter is in how it details the differences between civilizations at this time. All around the world, civilizations were "living in different eras".  People in North and South America, as well as Australia, were often living in a Paleolithic era style settlement. These settlements were not agricultural settlements and still utilized the gatherer-hunter method to feed themselves. Throughout Asia and Africa as well as the Americas, were civilizations living in a typical neolithic style. They had small agricultural settlements, not civilizations. Largely in AfroEurasia, people were living in civilizations and empires, common of the ancient and classical periods. These differences around the world are highlighted because while western Europe was approaching the modern era, not everyone was. When looking back on history, it is important to look at all peoples, not j...

Ch. 11 discusses the Mongol empire. I found this very interesting because I had heard of Genghis Khan but new little to nothing else about it. I learned that the Mongol Empire was massive, taking over all of Eurasia, however, no new languages formed and there was not a spread of religion. The Mongols were a small population of people with a small economy. They did not have technological superiority over others, its main and basically, the only strong point was its military. The Mongols continued to conquer, using conquered people as slaves and military members. Those who refused to surrender to the Mongols were killed. Essentially they exploited all those who were conquered. It is really amazing how such a small and economically weak civilization was able to conquer such a massive amount of land. I was also surprised that Genghis Khan was not an elite, and his come to power was somewhat unusual. Overall, the chapter about the Mongols was very interesting and somewhat shocking to me. It...

Ch 8 discussed China in the Classical Era. China had been a major civilization since the Ancient Era, and continued to flourish into what is now called "The Golden Age" of China. During this time there was immense economic growth. This growth came from a variety of things, including trade, technologic/engineering developments, many new inventions, and Vietnamese drought proof rice which supported the growing population. During this time there was also a rebirth of Confuscionism, used to restore order in Chinese society. This also, however, had a negative impact on women - particularly elite women, who previously had been given more freedom. Foot binding was one of the popular traditions that returned. China also utilized a merit system, called the examination system, to select political leaders. This system was entirely based on your performance, and it no longer mattered what your family lineage was if you performed well. China also had a tribute system, which was a way of p...

Ch 10 discusses Christendom. Christendom began in the year 0 when Jesus was born. As Jesus accumulated more followers, the Roman Empire felt continually threatened by him and decided to kill him. Once Jesus was dead his followers were persecuted, yet his people still practiced. His followers held secretive sessions in basements and other hidden locations to continue to practice Christianity. Eventually, the Roman Empire made the drastic change to make Christianity the official religion. There was no separation of church and state at the time. Once they made this decision, the Roman Empire then also determined the dogma on what Christianity was, and what should be read and practiced, as well as peoples interpretation of it. People who agreed with these beliefs were then tortured and killed by the government. The second big change the Roman Empire made was by Constantine and his move of the capital to a new city named Constantinople around 400 AD. Moving to the East made it easier to def...

Ch 9 discusses the birth of Islam. While according to Western historians, the rise of Islam occured during the Medievil time period, evidence points otherwise. Defining the Classical Era are 4 major points, of where they were existentially, technologically, socially, and migration wise. Classical Era: 1. competition for dominance between civilizations 2. unique thinkers developed seminal ideas that are still used today 3. formation of complex empires and cosmopolitan urban centers 4. political units arise which straddle more than one continent. Islmaic Era: 1. Islmaic Empire in competition with China and other flourishing empires. 2. The main seminal thinker of Islam was born during this time 3. This was the formation of the Islamic Empire 4. Islam spreads across mulitple continents. Overall, Islamic history shows evidence that it was in its Classical Era. The exestential state of Islam, being in competition w/ China and other flourishing civilizations. The technological ...

The intro to part 3 basically describes how difficult it is to determine when one era of history ends and when another begins. I find this incredibly interesting because many people feel as though we are in a time like this right now. Many people consider now in 2018 as postmodern, and many disagree. The intro also discusses something old, something new, and something blended, which I also see parallels to with our situation today. It is hard to define the characteristics of major civilizations, as they vary so vastly across the globe right now. Life in America varies greatly from Communist China. Ch 7 mostly discusses 3 types of roads, sand, silk, and sea. The Silk Road was the only famous commerce path I had previously heard of.  Famous for connecting Eurasia and particularly in the transportation of the commodity of silk, this trail also spread many other things, such as ideologies. Buddhism was one of the main things spread via the Silk Road. Unfortunately, though not everyth...

Chapter 6 of the book discusses the similarities and differences between many different civilizations. Some of these civilizations include the Niger River Cities, the Teotihuacan people, the Bantu migrations, and the Pacific Islands. These are very interesting to read about because they are not what you typically think of when you think of a Classical Era civilization. It's important to realize the whole world didn't consist of only giant empires. Niger River Cities: Resembled the Indus Valley. Many cities with no set state structure. Each city has a specialized economy, and they traded with one another. Men and Woman appeared to be equals. There is no archeological proof of any sort of social hierarchy at this time (similar to Indus Valley). Teotihuacan: Largest urban complex in the Americas at this time, and the 6th largest in the world. They had a Street of the Dead, which contained the large homes of all the elite people, many temples, as well as two pyramids. There was...

Ch 5 Focuses mainly on inequalities in societies. It starts off talking about China, and how the government consisted 100% of men. It also detailed how peasants were seen as the backbone of society and of the utmost importance. Merchants, however, were looked down upon as they were known only to make money off of other peoples hard work. It also discussed Landlords and how profitable land was at this time. Next, the book talked about India. India had an original caste system that we know very little about, and a newer one which we do. It is likely that the lowest class of the caste system was formed by the darker skinned natives when an Aryan group took over, the top castes were the Aryans. The caste system contained outcastes, peasants, merchants, warriors, and priests.  The book the discussed Slavery in the Roman Empire. Slaves in Rome did what they could do to survive, but were very miserable. There are even recorded mass suicides of Roman slaves who just could not ...

Article: The article we read detailed the differences between Serving and Helping. While helping is done generally to people not of equal status, service is. Helping also is seen as something that needs to be repayed. Service is more of an action to an equal looking for nothing in return; there is no self seeking behavior, you are simply being of service. This made me think of the NDNU Hallmarks, and how important service is in our community. Ch 4 discussed various philosophical and important religious figures including Confuscious, Socrates, Buddha and Mohammed. Below is a chart detailing the similarities and differences between them: SOCRATES CONFUCIUS HINDU BUDDHA JESUS MOHAMMED where were they born? -  born in Greece -  China -  not a person -  arose in India -  in India -  born in Nasareth -  MiddleEast when were they teaching? -  400 BC -  500 BC - arose ...

Ch 3 Documents - Greek Historians on Persia and Egypt: The Persians, unlike the Egyptian people, did not believe in gods. They did, however, make many sacrifices to Zeus. They thought it was foolish to believe in gods and thought that they would not act like humans. Persians also acknowledged status by how they would greet people, if they were equal they would kiss on the lips, if slightly lesser, they would kiss them on the cheek, and is substantially lesser the inferior would lay on the floor. An interesting thing about the Egyptians is the status of women. Women actually had a substantial role in the community and were heavily involved in the marketplace and trade. The Egyptian men were actually the ones to regularly stay at the house. However, men did have certain role, only men could be priests. This was interesting for me to read because when you think of Persia and Egypt during this time you sort of imagine everything being so fancy and spectacular. In reality, everything wasn...

Intro to Part 2: The intro basically discusses the fall of the first wave of civilizations. These civilizations were described as fragile and basically set the stage for the empires that were to come. These empires included the Persian, Greek, Roman, and Chinese Empires. Chapter 3:  Chapter 3 primarily compared these empires, specifically the Persian to the Greek, and the Roman to the Chinese Empire. Both the Persian and Greek empires were massive, the Persian even larger than the Greek. The Persian Empire had very powerful monarchies, who could essentially execute anyone who was in the wrong in their eyes. The Greek Empire was made up of many city-states, which were constantly fighting one another even though they all worshipped the same god and spoke the same language. Both the Roman and Chinese empires flourished at the same time. They also were similar sizes, however, they had little to no contact and were not really aware of each other. Even though all of these empires had d...

"scholars inferring and observing that this 'dancing girl' was confident, good at what she did and she knew it, a queen or high-status woman"  What features of this statue may have provoked such observation?  The girl had her head held high, indicating confidence. She had jewelry which also indicated that she was of high status. She was tall and skinny, vastly different from the previous image of a woman, Venus, that we looked at. Perhaps this indicates that they had a different beauty standard. 

In Ch. 2 we enter the Ancient Era. The Ancient Era is defined by: 1) Homo Sapiens competed with each other, for wealth, status, and power. This lead to social hierarchy. 2) We developed more sophisticated technology, including writing . 3) Agricultural surplus leads to specialization, which in turn lead to civilizations and city-states. 4) The interaction between people from different continents increases due to trade. Some of the first civilizations included Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Aegean Greeks, Indus Valley, and in the Americas: Andes, Mesoamerica. In the Americas civilizations did not grow as large and strong due to the lack of agricultural surplus - they did not have the animals necessary. They were on a different timeline. This had a massive impact when the Europeans eventually came to conquer, as they were unable to defend themselves. Egpyt: had a very predictable river, and knew when it would flood. This allowed them to plan their lives around the flooding and...

This part of the chapter talks about the Neolithic Era, which began abour 12,000 years ago. It was a time of cultivation / intentional agriculture. Global warming had some effect on agriculture, causing people to settle in places with productive land. Agriculture was spread by both migration and diffusion. The Migration aspect was from the moving of people, particularly conquering people and their land. Diffusion refers to the spread of ideas, where people picked up on others farming. Agriculture was less developed in the Americas. There was a lack of migration and diffusion, primarily because farm work was a lot harder there. While there are only approx only 14 animals that can contribute successfully to farm work, the Americas had even less. The significance of the development of agriculture came from all the social and cultural impacts it had on the Neolithic people. With settled land came a sense of food security, as well as the ability to store food in surplus. This led to develo...

The beginning of the book starts with the Cosmic Era, which explains the Big Bang and all the up way up until the evolution of homo sapiens in the Paleolithic Era. After the big bang, slowly but surely our planet, the super organism Earth formed, in the Gaiac Era 4.5 BYA. This was eventually followed by more organisms, and then finally homo sapiens. In this 13.7 billion year process, humans have only been around for 200-250,000 years. Humans first evolved in Africa, where they remained happily for around 150,000 years. Around 60,000 years ago they began to migrate to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas. During the ice age, around 20,000 years ago people migrated to warmer areas to survive. They lived in bands of people, around 20-25. Men and women were relatively equal, especially compared to later years. However, work was still divided, with men being hunters, and women being primarily the gatherers. Paleo people are now referred to as gatherer-hunters, as they gathered...

I'm done!