World History Fall 2018

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...