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Write a 5-6-page essay that answers the following questions:Historians are always trying to understand causes and consequences. Causes tell us how things happened (or changed), and consequences indicate the size and scope of the change. One would expect the biggest changes to have the biggest consequences. What would you say were the three most important changes that occurred from 8000 BCE to 1450 CE? Why were they the most important changes? What were their consequences or effects (up to 1450 CE)? What were their origins or causes?Please note: when you discuss the important consequences or effects of developments you identify or what we can learn from parallel worlds, do not extend your discussion beyond the year 1450. For instance, do not discuss their significance for life today. The shape of the current world is beyond the scope of this class. The Final Exam in HIS 233 tests your mastery of course content, and this course ends around the year 1450, so your discussion of important consequences or “takeaways” needs to end around that year as well. The nearly 570 years since 1450 (which is the time period covered by HIS 234) have had more impact on the nature of the modern world in any case.The Integrative Essay does not ask you to do any outside reading. Answer the question using only the materials (textbooks, documentaries, primary sources, videos, discussion boards, etc.) that we encountered in class. At the bare minimum, your essay should refer to information from at least three different chapters in the textbook, three different primary sources, and three different documentaries. And the more of that material you cite, the richer, more nuanced, and more complete your essay will be. The point of this essay is to demonstrate your grasp of the materials covered in this course only. If you feel it is absolutely necessary to use outside sources (including websites), you must first contact your instructor to ascertain whether the sources you wish to use are acceptable for a formal history paper of this nature.Your essay should be at least 1500 words (6 double-spaced typed pages). Please use the textbook – The Human Journey, 2nd Edition and notes attached for the sources.
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WEEK TWO – MODULE 1 – ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
Required Reading
We will all read Chapter 2 in The Human Journey as well as other readings and videos specific to the Discussion Board topic you choose. Those readings can be
found in the Discussion Board itself. To access the discussion and required reading, select the following link:
Week Two Discussion 1
There are two topics for each Discussion Board this week, but you will only write on one topic. It should take you about a day to read the materials for a
Discussion Board. To help you follow what is happening historically to whom, by whom, and where, be sure to consult the timelines at the start of each chapter
and the maps printed throughout the book. They will help orient you to the main developments we are studying.
At the end of the module, students should be able to:
Determine the changes that led to the Bronze Age urban revolution
Explain the key characteristics of the Bronze Age
Determine the changes that led to the end of the Bronze Age and the start of the Iron Age
Explain the key characteristics of the Iron Age
Assess the significance of Bronze Age and Iron Age innovations
Lecture Notes And Key Terms
Lecture Notes From The Instructor: Being Civilized
For many years we taught history as a long narrative of progress ending in our own industrialized, market-driven democracy. We thought we’d reached the
pinnacle of civilized life.
We emerged from the 20th century with our thinking fundamentally changed. Industrialization led to cramped urbanization and urban sprawl. Pollution made
us question our stewardship of the wild and untamed aspects of life on earth.
After seeing the horrors of the Holocaust and other attempts at defining or creating a superior race, we realized that all people really must be seen as equal. In
the aftermath of civil rights and anti-colonialism movements around the world, we had to re-think how we categorize and classify people from all parts of the
world.
And so we grappled with the idea of “civilization” and of being “civilized” and had to consider what words like “primitive,” “barbarian,” and “savage” mean.
As you read the first few chapters of Reilly, you see his approach to this issue. There is a progressive pattern to some human development from nomadic to
settled, from hunter-gatherers to farmers, and from small villages to expansive city-states and empires.
The question is, does this progression necessarily classify one group as more advanced than another? Are people in the cities more civilized than people in the
villages? And most importantly, do advanced technologies, agricultural economies, monumental architecture, writing, and science make one group “superior” to
other groups?
Some scholars like Robert Wenke in his book, Patterns in Prehistory argue that pre-historic nomadic hunter-gatherer groups might be considered more
advanced than so-called civilized groups. They were egalitarian, they lived off their resources without depleting them, they had little war, and once food
production was taken care of, they even had leisure time left over for music, dance, and art. They did not overpopulate and managed to live for tens of
thousands of years like this.
Civilizations have a history of war, overpopulation, disputes over men’s and women’s roles, class struggles and oppression, poverty and want, and destruction of
habitat and resources. Which sounds more civilized to you?
Consider this as time goes by during the period of history that we’re studying. Groups of people advance to different stages of social organization and then
hold, fail, or move on. By the end of our timeline the earth will have every type of human social group imaginable, from hunter-gatherers to technologically
advanced civilizations. Is any one group inherently superior to another?
The following material pertains to the graded assignments for this course.
Key Terms, People, Concepts, Events, Periods, And Geographic Locations (Helpful For Weekly Quiz):
Key Terms:
Ahura Mazda
Akkadian
Bronze
Iron
Isis
Law Code of Hammurabi
Osiris
Satraps
Wheeled Chariot
Zoroastrianism
Key People:
Darius
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Gilgamesh
Hammurabi
Moses
Key Concepts:
Alphabetic Writing
Citizenship
Collapse of Bronze Age Empires
Horticulture
Irrigation
Monotheism
Pharoah’s Dream
Plow
Polytheism
Universalism/Universal Truths
Key Events:
Pastoral Revolution
Urban Revolution
Key Periods:
Bronze Age
Iron Age
Key Geographical Locations:
Babylon
China
Egypt
Greece
Middle East
Persian Empire
Phoenicia
Uruk
Study Questions
To get the most out of the textbook, you should consider the following questions as you do the reading:
Questions
1. How did cities come about? Where did the urban revolution begin? In what areas of the world did cities first
develop? What role did plows and irrigation play in the development of cities? How were the cities of the Americas
similar to, and different from, the cities of Eurasia? What were some of the “firsts” of the first cities?
2. How did cities change the ways people lived? What sorts of people benefited from cities? Who did not? What new
kinds of people did cities create? How did social relations change in the cities? How did religion change?
3. What was the difference between a city state and a territorial state? How did social inequality come to be
accepted in cities?
4. Did cities make people more “civilized?” Did the achievements of ancient civilizations outweigh the drawbacks?
What were the achievements? What were the drawbacks?
5. How were the lives of pastoralists different from the lives of city people and farmers? How did the lives of
pastoralists change during the first three thousand years of cities? What inventions or innovations do we owe to
pastoralists? How did pastoralists bring about the great ancient empires? How did the bronze-age empires
collapse towards the end of the second millennium B.C.E. (1300-1000)?
6. How was the Iron Age different from the Bronze Age? What advantages did iron have over bronze? What links
does the author draw between iron-age tools and weapons and changes in society and politics? How were these
new societies more likely to engage in trade? What does the author mean by “t is for trade?”
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7. What is the relationship between iron and monotheism or alphabets? Compare the iron-age societies of the
Hebrews and the Persians.
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WEEK THREE – MODULE 1 THE SPREAD OF NEW WAYS IN EURASIA, 200 CE TO 1000 CE
Required Reading
We will all read Chapter 4 in The Human Journey as well as other readings and videos specific to the Discussion Board topic you choose. Those readings can be
found in the Discussion Board itself. To access the required reading and Week 3 Discussion, select the following link:
Week 3 Discussion Board
There are two topics for each Discussion Board this week, but you only write on one topic. It should take you about a day to read the materials for a Discussion
Board. To help you follow what is happening historically to whom, by whom, and where, be sure to consult the timelines at the start of each chapter and the
maps printed throughout the book. They will help orient you to the main developments we are studying.
At the end of the module, students should be able to:
Explain “Southernization”.
Compare and contrast the rise and spread of the world’s major salvation religions.
Analyze the role of “Silk Roads” in facilitating the transfer of ideas and material goods across Eurasia.
Lecture Notes And Key Terms
Lecture Notes From The Instructor
Rome After People
The Roman Empire had its continuation in the east as the Byzantine Empire. But in the West, Europe was shattered by the destruction of Roman institutions. It
literally crumbled as people vacated the dying or destroyed urban centers and fled to the country and simpler rural lifeways.
In onsite classes, I like to show the History Channel program called Life After People to demonstrate what it must have felt like to watch a sophisticated, complex
urban civilization devolve back to nature in the post-classical era. It uses Computer-Generated Imaging to show that, in a scenario where people are removed,
time destroys the icons of our complex industrial civilization. Vines tear apart skyscrapers and algae clogs Hoover Dam. The lights go out, and nature and
wildlife cover the urban landscape. You can rent or stream this video from Netflix.
Rome’s collapse sent Europe backward into a simpler, non-urbanized period. Imagine all the complexities of urban life that we’ve discussed – diversified roles,
complex religions and rituals, and levels of classism from elites to slaves – falling apart. The population of the City of Rome itself was reduced from about 1
million to around 10,000.
Without slaves and overseers to maintain baths, theaters, aqueducts, and other public amenities of urban Roman life all over Europe, these structures and the
customs associated with them fell to ruin. Even literacy and theoretical knowledge fell by the wayside. Historians called it the “Dark Ages” because of an
absence of writing from this period to “illuminate” for us what happened then.
Janet Abu-Lughod in her book, Before European Hegemony, paints a picture of Europe as a virtual backwater in the post-classical period. Not so the rest of the
Old World! Trade and commerce, exchange of ideas, language, and culture, and a steady stream of travel took place during this period along the Silk Road
caravan routes and throughout the Indian Ocean from Africa to Southeast Asia. Persian was the trade language commonly spoken from China to Africa. In fact,
Swahili, the trade language of East Africa, has elements of Bantu, Arabic, and Persian mixed into it.
During the post-classical era, most of Europe remained outside this dynamic “world-system” of trade and exchange with the exception of a few intrepid trading
cultures like the Vikings or those nearest the influence of Byzantium and the Middle East.
The most dynamic innovators and conveyors of learning and trade living along the Afro-Eurasian axis during this time were the converts to a new religion,
Islam. Islam has its roots in the pagan beliefs of the Arabian peninsula and the Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Christianity, with influences from Greece,
Persia, and India.
When it came on the scene in the early 600s CE, its simple-to-follow tenets and practices appealed to people in a way that other religions with more
complicated laws, practices, and rarefied theologies could not. Islam spread from its center in Arabia west to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain), south to
Ghana, north into central Asia, and east all the way to what is now Pakistan. (See the map on page 131.)
One basic tenet of Islam is to honor the intellect and maintain the life of the mind. If it were not for Islamic scholars, much of classical Western learning would
have faded with the dying Roman Empire. Greek and Roman philosophy and literature were translated into Arabic and preserved for later centuries when it
could be translated into Latin. The Europeans, who centuries later revived this body of knowledge, looked upon it as a “rebirth” or renaissance.
The following material pertains to the graded assignments for this course.
Key Terms, People, Concepts, Events, Periods, And Geographic Locations (Helpful For Weekly Quiz):
Key Terms:
Buddhism
Daoism
Christianity
Gupta Dynasty
Han Dynasty
Hinduism
“House of Wisdom”
Islam
Judaism
Mahayana Buddhism
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Manichaeism
Nestorian Christianity
Quran
Silk Road
Theravada Buddhism
Zoroastrianism
Key People:
Buddha
Constantine
Faxian
Mani
Mohammad
Paul the Apostle
Key Concepts:
Dark Ages
Hellenization
Monotheism
Monsoon Winds
Nature of Jesus Christ
Nomadic Conquests
Plant Domestication
Salvation Religion
Southernization
Umma
Key Events:
Conversion of Constantine
Hijira
Faxian’s Journey
Key Periods:
Post-classical
Key Geographical Locations:
Abbasid Caliphate
Arabia
Baghdad
Central Asia
China
India
Iran
Nalanda
Roman Empire
Southeast Asia
Umayyad Caliphate
Western Europe
Questions
You should consider the following questions as you do the required reading:
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1. What was the Silk Road? What was exchanged along it? How did the population change in this period? How did
climate change?
2. What were salvation or universal religions? How were they different from those of the ancient or classical age?
Why were they so appealing in the post-classical period? What Iranian religion appealed to others? Why? What
was the appeal of Hinduism in Southeast Asia?
3. What is meant by “southernization?” What made South Asia so prosperous between 200 CE and 800 CE? How did
Iran serve as a bridge to the south? What did Iran produce that others wanted? Who were the Malay and MalayPolynesian peoples, and what did they contribute to Southernization? What did South Asia have that was new to
Europe and Northern Asia? What aspects of the Gupta dynasty attest to Indian prosperity?
4. How did Buddhism expand from India? How was the Buddhism that traveled south different from that which
traveled north? What obstacles did Buddhists face in China, and how did they overcome them? How did Buddhism
appeal to different classes of people? What role was played by monks, kings, and merchants?
5. What is meant by Hellenization? How did it prepare for the spread of Christianity and possibly also Buddhism?
6. What role did the apostle Paul play in the spread of Christianity? How about magic, miracles, and martyrs? How did
the Romans handle the Christians? What events brought success to Christians in Rome? How and where did
Christianity thrive east of the Mediterranean? Why did Constantine convert, and how important was that? How
did Christians win over the tribes of Europe?
7. What were the advantages and disadvantages of church councils that established orthodox beliefs? What was the
experience of Christians in Ethiopia? Why were Nestorian Christian missionaries in China so accommodating
to Daoism?
8. How was Islam a continuation of the Judeo-Christian religion? How was it a departure? What elements of earlier
Arab religions did it reject? What did it borrow or keep? What does the life of Muhammad tell us about early Islam?
9. How did Islam spread beyond the Arabian peninsula? What was the relationship between the Arab conquest and
conversion to Islam? What were some of the causes of a low or high conversion rate? How did Islam change after
750 CE? What made Islam a cultural, rather than political, empire?
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WEEK THREE MODULE 2 – THE MAKING OF AN AFRO-EURASIAN
NETWORK, 1000 CE – 1450 CE
Required Reading
We will all read Chapter 5 in The Human Journey as well as other readings and videos specific to the Discussion Board topic you choose. Those readings can be
found in the Discussion Board itself. To access the required reading and Week 3 Discussion, select the following link:
Week 3 Discussion Board 2
There are two topics for each Discussion Board this week, but you only write on one topic. It should take you about a day to read the materials for a Discussion
Board. To help you follow what is happening historically to whom, by whom, and where, be sure to consult the time lines at the start of each chapter and the
maps printed throughout the book. They will help orient you to the main developments we are studying.
At the end of the module, students should be able to:
Compare and contrast economic, political, social, and cultural developments in Europe, China, central Asia, and the
Islamic world.
Explain how Europe, Asia, and much of northern Africa became part of a unified network of trade and
communication between 1000 CE and 1450 CE.
Assess the importance of their different cultural contributions to the development of an Afro-Eurasian ecumene
between 1000 CE and 1450 CE.
Lecture Notes And Key Terms
Lecture Notes From The Instructor
The Shape Of Things To Come
The first Crusade took place at the end of the first millennium CE. With the promise of spiritual rewards afforded martyrs and the more real expectation of
acquiring wealth and political power in the Holy Lands, thousands left the European farms and small urban centers to head southeast.
On the way, they saw the splendors of Byzantium and the Islamic world: beautiful architecture, sophisticated cities, advanced learning, and – perhaps most
importantly – a rich trade exchange fully integrated into the lives of North Africans, Byzantines, and Asians. It’s no wonder that after this exposure, western
Europeans would never be the same. The simple life of agrarian manors, villages, and small trade towns began an irreversible change toward growth and
complexity in society, politics, and economics.
The Germanic tribes that overran the Roman Empire 500 years before valued parenting and family life and used marriage as a contract binding families into
one group of “kin” obligated to each other for mutual benefit. Among the complexities that came out of exposure to the Islamic world after the start of the
Crusades were political changes that entrenched feudalism into society, creating further class hierarchies and categories of elites.
This new degree of complexity played out in royal courts, the Church, and the new universities of Paris, Bologna, and other European urban centers established
long ago by the last great command system empire on European soil, Rome. But history did not play out in Europe the trend that should by now be familiar to
you. And that means something big is changing in the whole long history of humankind. Germanic tribes of the fifth century (Franks, Angles, Saxons, various
Goths, etc.) became the European monarchies of the second millennium. These monarchies spent centuries fighting and changing borders, gaining and losing
territory, but never again filled the space as a long-lived single empire along the lines of Rome, Alexander’s Greece, Persia, or even Babylon, Assyria, or Egypt.
We hear the very whispers of something new – the Modern Era — which will not fully form until after the Age of Discovery (circa 1500s). A monolithic
command system empire can’t seem to replace Europe’s descendants of tribal peoples — modern nation-states in competition with each other, market-driven,
technologically advanced, and increasingly democratic.
The following material pertains to the graded assignments for this course.
Key Terms, People, Concepts, Events, Periods, And Geographic Locations (Helpful For Weekly Quiz):
Key Terms:
Cairo Geniza Documents
Chinese Industry
Chinese Inventions
European City-states/Communes
Jizya
Judaism
Mechanical Clock
Medieval Islam
Northern European Agriculture
Slave-soldiers
Sufism
Swahili
Zakat
Key People:
Charlemagne
Genghis Khan
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Ibn Battuta
Mansa Musa
Rachid al-Din
Turks
Key Concepts:
Bureaucracy (civil service)
Capitalism
Industrial Revolution
Medieval European Civilization
Medieval Islamic Civilization
Ortogh
Science
Key Events:
Black Death
Mongol expansion
Key Periods:
12th-century Renaissance (Europe)
Dark Ages (Europe)
Post-Classical (Afro-Eurasia)
Key Geographical Locations:
Central Asia
Cairo
China
Europe
Hangzhou
Japan
Kaifeng
KoreaMali
Questions
You should consider the following questions as you do the required reading:
Questions
1. What is Afro-Eurasia? What does the author say happened to Afro-Eurasia between 1000 and 1500 CE? How does
the introductory story of Ibn Batutta show that change?
2. When did the Silk Road across central Asia prosper? When did it decline in importance? Why?
3. What Chinese products were most desired by merchants and wealthy people? What were some key Chinese
inventions?
4. What prevented Chinese iron (and steel) production from leading to an industrial revolution as occurred in Britain
in the eighteenth century? How did Tang and Song China contribute to the eventual industrial revolution? How did
it contribute to the development of capitalism? What prevented China from becoming a capitalist society? How
did Hangchow reflect this un-capitalist balance between commerce and state power?
5. Who were the Mongols? What impact did they have on the creation of an integrated Afro-Eurasian network? What
were the negative effects of Mongol expansion in the 13th century? What were the positive effects? What does
the biography of Rashid al-Din tell you about the Mongols? What was the environmental legacy of the Mongols?
Can we blame them for the Black Death? What was the impact of the Black Death?
6. How was the period between 1000 CE and 1450 CE one of both decline and expansion for Islam? Why did Muslim
rulers turn slaves into loyal armies and officers? How did Muslim military governments allow freedom and
independence? How controlling were Muslim religious leaders? How did they control non-Muslims? In what sense
was Islam “a merchant’s religion?” What elements of capitalism did Muslim society invent or develop? What
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documents were found in the Cairo Geniza, and what do they tell us about life in Cairo in this period?
7. What does the story of Mansa Musa tell you about the history of Islam? How did Islam spread to sub-Saharan
West Africa? How did it spread to East Africa? How did Islam spread to India and Indonesia? What role did Sufism
play in this process? What was the difference between Islam in the continental land empires and in the island
merchant cities?
8. How did Europe expand after about 800 CE? What was the role of water and wind mills? What was the role of
weather? Or even good luck? How did Europeans become part of larger trade networks?
9. What was the significance of new cities in Europe after 1000 CE? How were these cities different from those in the
Muslim world? How did Christian and Muslim ideas of law differ? What, according to the author, was the impact in
Europe of church and state as competing authorities? What were the “multiple sovereignties” in Europe?
10. What was the effect of the European rediscovery of Aristotle in the 12th century? How was European scientific,
secular, and humanistic thinking unusual in the world?
11. What is significant about Italian writers developing their own language? What is the significance of Japanese
women doing the same? How was the history of Europe similar to that of Japan and Korea? How were the reforms
of King Sejong in Korea similar to the Italian Renaissance? What did Europe add to the Afro-Eurasian network? In
what ways did it point that network to the modern world?
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