Chapter 12

Chapter 12: The World's of the Fifteenth Century 

• Shapes of human communities
• Paleolithic persistence: Australia and North America
• Gathering and hunting societies still existed in Australia and parts of Africa and Americas
• Changed over time and interacted with neighbors
• Australian
• 250 separate groups
• Hadn't adapted agriculture 
• Firestick farming 
• Exchanged goods over hundreds of miles
• Northwest coast of North America
• Abundant environment allowed development of complex gathering and hunting culture
• Permanent villages, economic specialization, hierarchies 
• Agricultural Village Societies
• Predominated North America
• Avoided oppressive authority, class inequalities, seclusion of women
• Forested region in present day southern Nigeria
• Pastoral Peoples: Central Asia and West Africa
• Turkic warrior Timur tried to restore Mongol empire 
• Army devastated Russia, Persia, and India 
• Successors kept kept control of area between Persia and Afghanistan for a century 
• Gradually adopted Islam
• Civilizations of the 15th Century: China vs Europe
• Majority of world's population lived with a major civilization
• Ming Dynasty China
• China had been badly disrupted by Mongol rule and plague 
• Recovery under Ming dynasty 
• Effort to eliminate all signs of foreign rule
• Reestablisted civil service examination system 
• Created highly centralized government 
• Maritime adventures
• Chinese sailors and traders had become important in South China Sea
• Chinese government abruptly stopped voyages in 1433
• European Comparisons
• Similar process of demographic recovery 
• Europe's population rose again
• State building 
• Renaissance 
• European Comparisons: Maritime
• Portuguese voyages of discovery
• Columbus reaches Americas
• European voyages small compared to Chinese
• Europeans soaking wealth, converts, allies
• Islamic World
• Fragmented Islamic world crystalized into four major states
• Ottoman, Safavid, Songhay, Mughal
• Second flowering of Islam
• New age of energy
• Spread to new areas

This chapter was a lot of information in one.  I wasn't crazy about the chapter because I feel like it crammed everything together and didn't go into much detail.  I found it interesting that China covered more ground than Europe in their maritime voyages.  Europe's voyages are so much more well known and talked about when China was also making important voyages at that time.  Its crazy that Europe is so much more influential when history is studied.  I have heard about Europe's voyages, but never China's.

Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Pastoral Peoples on the Global Stage-The Mongol Moment

• The Mongol Empire
• The mongols formed the greatest land-based empire in history
• Extensive linkage of pastoralists of inner Eurasian steppes with agricultural civilizations
• Created greater contact between Europe, China, and Islamic worlds
• Mongol population was about 700,000
• No major cultural impact on world
• Did not try to spread to others
• Mongol culture today confined to nomadic state
• Rise of Mongol empire
• Created by Temujin
• Before unstable collection of feuding tribes and clans
• Temujin's rise
• As he grew up, drew together small following of friends allied with a more powerful tribal leader
• Won reputation as a great leader
• Began expansion to hold followers together 
• Major attack on China started 50-year Mongol world war
• Setbacks marked outer limits of Mongol empire 
• Mongol Moment
• Grew without any grand scheme
• Chinggis Khan saw conquests as mission to unite world
• Vastly outnumbered by enemies
• Luck and timing played a role
• Key to success was well-led organized, disciplined army
• Conquered tribes broken up and scattered among units
• All members of a unit killed if any deserted in battle 
• Leaders shared the hardships of their men
• Mongol reputation for brutality
• Resisters were destroyed
• Mobilized resources
• Encountering the Mongols
• China and the Mongols
• Mongol conquest of China took 70 years
• Began in Northern China, vastly destructive
• Conquest of Southern China less violent 
• Mongols unified a divided China
• Many believed Mongols had been granted Mandate of Heaven
• Mongols didn't know how to govern agricultural society, used China's methods
• Mongol rule was harsh
• Treated Chinese like slaves
• Few Mongols learned Chinese
• Rebellions forced Mongols out of China
• Persia and the Mongols
• Massive impact of invasion
• Unprecedented destruction
• Profound damage to agriculture
• Increase in wine and silk production
• Mongols transformed more in Persia than China
• Extensive use of Persian bureaucracy 
• Mongols in Persia converted to Islam
• Mongol elites learned some Persian
• Some Mongols took up agriculture
• Russia and the Mongols
• Devastation of Russia
• Couldn't unite against Mongol threat
• Destruction of cities, slaughter, deportation
• Did not occupy Russia
• Russian princes adopted Mongol weapons
• Broke free of Mongol rule
• Mongol Empire as Eurasian Network
• World economy
• Were not active traders
• Promoted international commerce as source of tax revenue 
• Diplomacy Eurasian scale
• Mongol encroachment into Eastern Europe 
• No diplomatic or religious consequences
• Cultural exchange in Mongol realm 
• Thousands of educated people forcibly relocated by Mongols
• Mongol religious tolerance and support of merchants drew foreigners 
• The Plague
• Spread across trade routes of Mongol 
• Likely originated in Central Asia
• Carried by rodents
• Periodic returns of plague for centuries
• Changed European society in long term 
• Primary reason for breakdown of Mongol empire

I found this chapter very interesting.  I find the Mongols fascinating, because they didn't have a major impact in the sense of their culture changing things, but they did leave such an impact on the world.  The impact they made for everyone else was lasting, even if their ideas didn't spread.  While they were rough, so was everyone else who conquered and spread their ideas.  That's how things were done at this time and the Mongols got things done.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8: China and the World

• Reemergence of a Unified China
• Han Dynasty collapse 220 CE
• 300 years of political fragmentation 
• Nomadic incursion from North
• Chinese migration to Yangzi River valley
• Golden Age of Chinese Achievement 
• Sui dynasty reunified China
• Vastly extended canal system
• Failure to conquer Korea alienated people, exhausted states resources
• Dynasty overthrown
• Tang and Song dynasties built off Sui 
• Established patterns of Chinese life 
• Regarded as golden age of arts and literature
• Tang and Song politics
• Six major ministries created
• Examination system
• Proliferation of schools and colleges
• Political positions went to sons of elite
• Large landowners continued to be powerful 
• Economic Revolution under Song
• Great prosperity 
• Population growth
• Women in Song Dynasty 
• During Tang Dynasty elite women in North had been allowed greater freedom 
• Song: tightening of patriarchal restrictions on women
• Foot binding
• Associated with images of female beauty and eroticism 
• Kept women restricted to house
• Textile production 
• Displacing women from traditional role in industry
• Prosperity of elite created demand for concubines, entertainers, prostitutes 
• Position of women improved in some ways
• Property rights expanded 
• More women educated, in order to raise sons better
• China and Northern Nomads
• China's most enduring interaction with foreigners
• Nomads felt threatened by Chinese 
• Great Wall
• Military attacks
• China needed nomads
• Horses and other goods
• Controlled much of silk roads
• Coping with China: Comparing Korea, Vietnam and Japan
• Had relationships with China
• Agricultural 
• Shaped by proximity to China, they did not become Chinese
• Korea and China
• Interaction with China started with temporary China invasion 
• States rivals
• Korea remained generally politically independent 
• Accepted much of Chinese culture
• Vietnam and China
• Similar to experience of Korea
• Vietnamese culture remained in place
• Greater roles for women
• Kept nature goddess and buddha in popular
• Japan and China
• Japan was never invaded or conquered by China, borrowing Chinese culture was voluntary 
• 2 capital cities modeled Chinese capital
• Elements Chinese culture took root in Japan
• Japanese borrowings were selective 
• China and Buddhism 
• India's most important gift to China
• China base of spread to Korea and Japan
• First entered via silk roads
• Comforting

The part of this chapter that stood out the most to me was how women were treated in China.  Its very sad that they were literally restricted to their house and their feet were bound.  I can't even imagine how painful that would have been.

Chapter 10

Chapter 10: The Worlds of Christendom-Contraction, Expansion and Division

• Christian contraction in Asia and Africa
• Islam spread driving force in contraction of Christianity
• Asian Christianity
• Within century of Muhammed's death, Christianity had disappeared in Arabia
• Islamic forces seized Jerusalem and holy sites
• Syria and Persia Christians converted voluntary 
• If they didn't they could practice their religion only if they paid a special tax 
• African Christianity
• Coastal North African largely converted to Islam
• Coptic Church survived in Egypt
• Tolerated by Muslim rulers until Crusades and Mongol threat
• Ethiopian Christianity was exception
• Rulers of Axum adopted Christianity in 4th century 
• Developed distinctive traditions in isolation
• Byzantine Christendom: Building Roman Past
• Byzantine Empire=no clear starting point 
• Continuation of Roman Empire
• Byzantine advantages over Western empire
• Wealthier and un urbanized
• More defensible capital (Constantinople)
• Shorter frontier
• Access to Black Sea
• Stronger defense 
• Byzantine State
• Arab/Islamic expansion reduced size of Byzantine state
• Territory shrank when Europeans and Turks attacked
• Byzantine Church and Christian Divergence 
• Church closely tied to state
• Emperor head of both church and state
• Orthodox Christianity influenced by all of Byzantine life
• Cultural identity 
• Common people engaged in theological disputes
• Eastern Orthodoxy increasingly defined itself to Latin Christianity 
• Sense of religious different related East/West political difference 
• Rise of Islam, Constantinople and Rome remained sole hubs of Christianity 
• Schism in 1054, mutual excommunication 
• Crusades worsened situation
• Conversion of Russia
• Prince Vladimir of Kiev
• Orthodoxy transformed state of Russia, central to Russian identity 
• Top-down conversion 
• Western Christendom: Rebuilding in the wake of Roman collapse
• Western Europe on margins of world history 
• Removed from growing world trade routes
• Geography of Europe made political unity difficult 
• Moderate climate enabled population growth
• Political Life in Western Europe
• Roman Collapse
• Large-scale centralized rule vanished
• Europe population fell by 25% due to war and disease 
• Diminution of urban life
• Survival of classical and Roman heritage
• Germanic people substantially Romanized
• High prestige of things Roman
• Several Germanic kingdoms tried to recreate Roman-style unity
• Society and the Church 
• New kingdoms
• Decentralized society 
• Local variation 
• Social hierarchies 
• Serfdom displaced slavery 
• Catholic Church was major element of stability
• Hierarchy modeled Roman Empire
• Became very rich
• Conversion of Europe's non christians 

This chapter was very eye opening to see how much religion impacted society.  Church and state went hand in hand during these times and often times people had to follow the same religious beliefs as those in political power.  Today, it is so different in the United States.  Church and state are completely separate and I can't imagine how hard it would be to be forced to practice something you truly don't believe in.

Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Worlds of Islam

• Birth of a new religion 
• Homeland of Islam
• Emerged from marginal region
• Arabian Peninsula
• Independent clans
• Variety of gods
• Arabia was important to East West trade routes
• On edge of Byzantine and Sassanid empires
• Arabs knew practices of these empires
• Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastriaism spread among Arabs
• Messenger and the message
• Prophet of Islam was Muhammad
• Beginning revelations from Allah 610 CE
• Orphaned
• Took to withdraw and meditation 
• Revelations recorded in Quaran 
• Radically new teachings 
• Monotheistic 
• Muhammad
• Return to old pure religion of Abraham
• Submission to Allah
• Five Pillars of Islam
• Transformed Arabia
• Rapid expansion
• Large scale conversion
• Fundamental differences between birth of Islam and Christianity 
• The making of an empire
• Arab state grew 
• War, conquest, tolerance 
• Long term raiding pattern
• New political organization greater mobilization 
• Limits of Arab expansion 
• Defeated by Sassanid Empire
• Conquered most of Spain, attacked France
• Reached Indus River
• Reasons for expansion
• Economic, communal, religious 
• Tolerant of Christians and Jews

I grew up Catholic and went to Catholic schools my entire life.  I learned all about Catholicism and what everything meant, however I was never exposed much to other religions until my senior year of high school.  I took a World Religions course and I loved it.  I truly enjoyed learning about the other religions, and while I didn't believe in these religions, I was always able to respect their beliefs and I enjoyed educating myself on those beliefs.  I enjoyed this chapter because it took me back to that class and learning about Islam.  I enjoyed learning about the history and spread of Islam, especially because it was such a radical change and new religion for the area it was born in.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Commerce and Culture

• Silk Road
• One of world's most extensive and sustained networks of exchange
• Especially influential in trade
• Growth
• Inner and outer Eurasia
• Products were exchanged for agricultural products and manufactured goods
• Trading networks did better when larger states provided security 
• Goods that travelled the roads
• Mainly luxury goods for elite 
• The high cost of transport didn't allow for the movement of staple goods
• Silk symbolized Eurasian exchange system 
• China had monopoly on silk
• Others began producing silk
• Symbol of high status 
• Small volume of trade, but economic and social aspects were important 
• Cultures
• Cultural exchange more important than exchange of goods
• Buddhism
• Spread through central and east Asia
• Appealed to merchants
• Conversion voluntary 
• Transformed during spread
• Disease in Transit 
• Long distance trade meant exposure to unfamiliar diseases
• Bubonic Plague 
• Killed 1/2 European population
• Death toll in Asia as well
• Sea Roads
• Mediterranean Sea
• Venice
• Controlled trade imports from Asia
• Indian Ocean network
• World's most important until after 1500
• Environmental and cultural diversity 
• Sea transportation cheaper than land transportation
• Bulk goods
• Trade between towns not states
• Trade began in 1st civilizations 
• India=fulcrum of trade
• Encounters
• Economic and political revival of China
• Rise of Islam
• Catalyst for change in Southeast Asia and East Africa
• Political change
• Introduction of foreign ideas 
• Rice production got more involved
• Indian culture spread
• Alphabet, art, religious ideas
• Sand Roads
• Commercial beginnings in West Africa 
• North Africa manufactured 
• Sahara copper and salt deposits 
• West Africa
• Camel
• 10 days without water
• Possible to cross Sahara
• Merchants wanted gold, ivory, slaves, kola nuts from W Africa
• Sahara major trade route
• Huge caravans
• Trade encouraged more political structures 
• Larger
• Monarchies with elaborate court life
• Slavery
• Most slaves women at 1st
• Male slaves used as officials, porters, craftsmen
• Captures from further south

This was a very interesting chapter to read.  It is so amazing to me how far our world has come in terms of trade, goods, and disease prevention.  Nowadays, if you want something from China in the US, it can get here in about two days.  At the time of these roads, things like silk was exciting and exotic, now we can just go to a store and buy it.  The way the Bubonic Plague spread is also insane to me...it took the lives of so many and now something like that happening is so unlikely because we have so many measures to prevent that.  Seeing the development and what humans are capable of is very impressive.

Chapter 6

Commonalities and Variations: Africa, the Americas, and Pacific Oceania

Continental Comparisons

• Basic similarities in development of human cultures everywhere
• Human migration
• Resulting in civilizations
• Important differences between civilizations in different regions
• Americas lacked animals for domestication
• Africa imported animals
• Writing was limited in Americas to Mesoamerica
• Fewer civilizations in Americas and Africa

Civilizations of Africa

• No common cultural identity in premodern era
• Great environmental variation
• Huge continent
• Most tropical super continent
• Nile Valley Civilization
• Ruled by all powerful monarch 
• Long distance trade source of wealth and military power

Mesoamerica

• Lack of interaction with other major cultures (including Americas)
• Rugged mountain terrain gave rise to micro-climates
• Extraordinary diversity of mesoamerican societies
• Maya: Writing and Warfare
• Mayan ceremonial centers
• Well known achievements
• Advanced mathematical system
• Elaborate calendars
• Most elaborate writing system in Americas
• Architecture 
• Maya economy
• Agriculture had large scale human engineering 
• City state political systems
• Frequent warfare
• Densely populated urban centers
• Rapid collapse after long term drought
• Teotihuacan: Americas' greatest city 
• Much is unknown
• City planned on a gridline pattern
• Little evidence of rulers 
• Deep influence on Mesoamerica
• Mysterious collapse
• Aztecs-"city of the gods"

Civilizations of the Andes

• Rich marine environment possessed endless supply of seabird and fish
• Most well known civilization was Incas
• Central Peruvian coast was home
• Moche: Civilization of the coast
• Flourished along 250 miles of Peru's north coast
• Agriculture based on complex irrigation system
• Relied on fishing
• Ruled by warrior-priests
• Wari and Tiwanaku: Empires of the Interior

Alternatives to Civilization

• Bantu Africa: Cultural variation
• Spread over Africa
• Wasn't a conquest
• Significant interaction 
• Advantages
• Numbers
• Diseases
• Iron
• Culture changed because of interactions with different people
• North America
• Village based societies
• Pit houses and great houses
• Establishment of permanent villages 
• Local trading networks
• Development of larger settlements
• Chaco
• Pacific Oceania
• Environmental impact of human life
• Diverse threats to Hawaii
• Pan-pacific similarities
• Religious 
• Had trade networks

I truly enjoyed reading about all the civilizations in this chapter.  I love diversity and think its a beautiful thing that so many of these civilizations co-existed and that the United States today is represented by so many of these cultures.