Essays/Short answer 2-20 – Flashcards
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In what ways did the Protestant Reformation transform European society, culture, and politics?
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1. It created a permanent schism within Catholic Christendom. 2.It provided the urban middle classes a new religious legitimacy for their growing role in society. 3.It did stimulate female education and literacy, even if there was little space for women to make use of that education outside the family. 4.Religious difference led to sectarian violence, to war, and ultimately to religious coexistence. 5.It fostered religious individualism as people were encouraged to read and interpret the scriptures themselves and to seek salvation without the mediation of the Church.
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In what ways was European Christianity assimilated into the Native American cultures of Spanish America?
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1.Native Americans frequently sought to reinterpret Christian practices while incorporating local elements 2.Christian saints closely paralleled the functions of precolonial gods, and the leader of the church staff was often a native Christian of great local prestige 3.Throughout the colonial period and beyond, many Mexican Christians also took part in rituals derived from the past, ex. Day of the Dead
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Why were missionary efforts to spread Christianity so much less successful in China than in Spanish America?
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1.In China missionaries metopposition from a powerful and organized cnetralized authority. 2.In Spanish America ,missionaries worked among a defeated population whose societies had been thoroughly disrupted and whose cultural confidence was shaken. 3.Missionaries to China deliberately sought to convert the official Chinese elite, while missionaries to Spanish America sought to convert the masses. 4.Missionary efforts in China were less successful because the missionaries offered little that the Chinese really needed, since traditional Chinese philosophies and religions provided for the spiritual needs of most Chinese. 5.In the Americas, local gods had in part been discredited by the Spanish conquest, and in any case, Christianity was a literate world religion, something different from what had been practiced in the region before.
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What accounts for the continued spread of Islam in the early modern era and for the emergence of reform or renewal movements within the Islamic world?
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1.Islam continued to spread because conversion to Islam generally did not mean a sudden abandonment of old religious practices, but rather more often the assimilation of "Islamic rituals, cosmologies, and literatures into . . . local religious systems." 2.Continued Islamization depended on wandering Muslim sufis, Islamic scholars, and itinerant traders, who posed no threat and often proved useful to local rulers and communities. 3.In part, the emergence of reform or renewal movements (Wahhabism) was a reaction to the blending or syncretism that accompanied Islamization almost everywhere and that came to be seen as increasingly offensive, even heretical, by more orthodox Muslims.
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Why did the Scientific Revolution occur in Europe rather than in China or the Islamic world?
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1.Europe's had unusually autonomous universities in which scholars could pursue their studies in relative freedom from the dictates of church or state authorities. 2.Western Europe was in a position to draw extensively upon the knowledge of other cultures, especially that of the Islamic world. 3.The Age of Exploration shook up older ways of thinking and opened the way to new conceptions of the world. 4.In the Islamic world, philosophy and natural science were viewed with great suspicion by the ulama . 5.In China, education focused on preparing for a rigidly defined set of civil service examinations and emphasized the humanistic and moral texts of classical Confucianism.
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What was revolutionary about the Scientific Revolution?
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1.The Scientific Revolution was revolutionary because laws formulated by Isaac Newton showed that the universe was not propelled by angels and spirits but functioned on its own according to timeless principles that could be described mathematically. 2.A corollary of this view was the idea that knowledge of the universe could be obtained through human reason alone, without the aid of ancient authorities or divine revelation. 3.Above all, it was revolutionary because it challenged educated people to question traditional views of the world and humankind's place in it.
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In what ways did the Enlightenment challenge older patterns of European thinking?
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1.It challenged the aristocratic privileges of European society and the claims to authority of arbitrary governments who relied on the "divine right of kings" for legitimacy. 2.The Enlightenment challenged the authority of established religion, accusing the Church of fostering superstition, ignorance, and corruption. 3.It also challenged older patterns of thinking through its promotion of the idea of progress. Human society, according to Enlightenment thinkers, was not fixed by tradition or divine command but could be changed, and improved, by human action guided by reason.
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In what ways was European science received in the major civilizations of Asia in the early modern era?
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1.In China, European scientific knowledge was sought after selectively. Qing dynasty emperors and scholars were most interested in European astronomy and mathematics. However, they had little interest in European medicine. 2.Scholars in the Ottoman Empire were broadly aware of European scientific achievements by 1650, but they took an interest only in those developments that offered practical utility, such as in making maps and calendars.
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How would you define the major achievements of Ming dynasty China?
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1.Under the Ming dynasty, China recovered from the disruption caused by Mongol rule and the ravages of the plague to become perhaps the best-governed and most prosperous of the world's major civilizations in the 1500's 2.China also undertook the largest and most impressive maritime expeditions the world had ever seen. 3. The Ming continued to improve and restore the vast canal network that was developed in previous dynasties
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What political and cultural differences stand out in the histories of fifteenth-century China and Western Europe?
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1.Political consolidation occurred in both China and Western Europe, but in China this meant a unitary and centralized government that encompassed almost the whole of its civilization, while in Europe a decidedly fragmented system of many separate, independent, and competitive states made for a sharply divided Christendom. 2.While both experienced cultural flowering, Europe's culture after the Renaissance was rather more different from its own recent past than Ming dynasty China was from its pre-Mongol glory. 3.While both sent out ships to explore the wider world, their purposes in doing so were very different.
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What motivated Chinese maritime voyaging in the fifteenth century
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1.Chinese exploration was undertaken by an enormous fleet composed of several hundred large ships 2.China, needed no military allies, required little in the way of trade, and had no desire to convert foreigners to Chinese culture or religion. 3.China ended its voyages abruptly after 1433; the European explorations continued and even escalated. 4.The Chinese believed in the absolute superiority of their culture, and felt that, if they needed something from abroad, others would bring it to them.
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What typified and drove the European voyages of exploration?
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1.European explorations were undertaken by expeditions made up of a handful of small ships 2.European motivations for exploration included the desire for wealth from trade, the search for converts to Christianity, and the recruitment of possible Christian allies against the Muslim powers. 3.The Europeans sought to monopolize by force the commerce of the Indian Ocean and violently carved out empires in the Americas 4.The fragmentation of political authority in Europe, ensured that once begun, rivalry alone would drive Europeans to the end of the earth. 5.The Europeans were seeking out the greater riches of the East, and they were highly conscious that Muslim power blocked easy access to these treasures and posed a military and religious threat to Europe itself.
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What distinguished the Aztec and Inca empires from each other?
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1.The Aztec Empire controlled only part of the Mesoamerican cultural region, while at its height the Inca state encompassed practically the whole of the Andean civilization. 2.The Aztec rulers largely left their conquered people alone, and no elaborate administrative system arose to integrate the conquered territories or to assimilate their people to Aztec culture. 3.The Incas, on the other hand, erected a more bureaucratic empire. 4.The Aztec Empire extracted substantial tribute in the form of goods from its subject populations, while the Incas primarily extracted labor services from their subjects. 5.The Aztec Empire had a system of commercial exchange that was based on merchants and free markets, whereas the Inca government played a major role in both the production and distribution of goods.
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How did Aztec religious thinking support the empire?
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1.The ideology of state that gave human sacrifice great religious importance shaped the techniques of Aztec warfare, which put a premium on capturing prisoners rather than on killing the enemy. 2.Priests and rulers became interdependent, with human sacrifices carried out for political ends. 3.Massive sacrificial rituals served to impressand create fear in enemies, allies, and subjects alike with the immense power of the Aztecs and their gods.
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In what ways did Inca authorities seek to integrate their vast domains?
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1.The emperor was an absolute ruler and was regarded as divine. 2.In theory, the state owned all land and resources. 3.Subject peoples were required to acknowledge major Inca deities, although once they did so, they were largely free to carry on their own religious traditions. 4.The Inca Empire played a major role in the production and distribution of goods.
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In what ways did pastoral societies differ from their agricultural counterparts?
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1.Pastoral societies supported far smaller populations. 2.Pastoral societies generally lived in small and widely scattered encampments of related kinfolk. 3.Pastoral societies generally offered women a higher status, fewer restrictions, and a greater role in public life. 4.Pastoral societies were far more mobile.
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In what ways did pastoral societies interact with their agricultural neighbors?
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1.Economically, nomads sought access to the foodstuffs, manufactured goods, and luxury items available only from their agricultural neighbors. 2.Politically and militarily, pastoral peoples at times came together to extract wealth from agricultural societies through trading, raiding, or extortion. 3.Culturally, members of some pastoral societies adopted the religions of their agricultural neighbors
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What accounts for the political and military success of the Mongols?
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1.The Mongol army was better organized, better led, and better disciplined than the armies of its opponents 2.The Mongol army was organized to diminish the divisive tribalism of the pastoral clan structure, partly by spreading members of tribes among different units of the army. 3.The Mongols made up for their small numbers by incorporating huge numbers of conquered peoples into their military forces. 4.The Mongols quickly acquired Chinese techniques and technology of siege warfare, which allowed them to overcome the elaborate fortifications of walled cities. 5.The Mongols drew on conquered peoples to fill advisory and lower-level administrative positions. 6.The Mongols welcomed and supported many religious traditions as long as they did not become the focus of political opposition.
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How did Mongol rule change China? In what ways were the Mongols changed by China?
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1.The Mongols united a divided China. 2.The Mongols took a Chinese dynastic title, the Yuan, and moved their capital to a new capital city the "city of the khan" (present-day Beijing). 3.The Mongols made use of Chinese administrative practices and techniques of taxation and their postal system. 4.Mongol khans made use of traditional Confucian rituals, which returned the favor with strong political support for the invaders.
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How was Mongol rule in Persia different from that in China?
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1.Heavy taxation pushed Persian peasants off their land 2.The Mongol rulers in Persia were transformed far more than their counterparts in China were, as the Mongols made extensive use of the sophisticated Persian bureaucracy. 3.Unlike what occurred in China, the Mongols who conquered Persia converted in large numbers to the local Muslim faith. 4.A number of Mongols turned to farming and married local people, so when their rule in Persia collapsed, they were not driven out as they were from China.
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What was distinctive about the Russian experience of Mongol rule?
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1.The Mongols conquered Russia but did not occupy it as they had Persia and China. Instead. 2.Russia was still exploited, but the Mongol impact there was much more uneven than it had been in Persia or China. 3.The absence of direct Mongol rule meant that the Mongols were far less influenced by or assimilated within Russian cultures than their counterparts in China and Persia had been. 4.Russia, unlike Persia or China, suffered repeated attacks from the Mongols who maintained their nomadic lifestyle in the Caucus mountains and only raided Russia taking loot and slaves
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In what ways did the Mongol Empire contribute to the globalization of the Eurasian world?
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1.The Mongols actively promoted international commerce, 2.The Mongol Empire also prompted diplomatic relationships from one end of Eurasia to the other, 3.The Mongol Empire also spurred a substantial exchange of peoples and cultures through its policy of forcibly transferring many thousands of skilled craftsmen and educated people from their homelands to distant parts of the empire. 4.The Mongol Empire, through its religious tolerance and support of merchants, facilitated the spread of religions.
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Disease changes societies. How might this argument apply to the plague?
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1.The loss of population due to the plague created labor shortages that provoked sharp conflict between scarce workers and the rich, which in turn undermined the practice of serfdom in Europe. 2.Labor shortages also fostered a greater interest in technological innovation in Europe and created more employment opportunities for women. 3.The plague caused significant disruption to trade routes to the east, and this trade disruption, along with a desire to avoid Muslim intermediaries, provided an incentive for Europeans to take to the sea in their continuing efforts to reach the riches of Asia.
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In what ways did the early history of Islam reflect its Arabian origins?
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1.Islam drew on an older Arab identification of Allah with Yahweh, the Jewish High God, and Arab self-identification as children of Abraham. 2.The Quran denounced the prevailing social practices of an increasingly prosperous Mecca and sought a return to the older values of Arab tribal life, like the sharing of goods ammongst tribes. 3.The message of the Quran also rejected the Arab tribal and clan structure, which was prone to war, feuding, and violence. Instead, the Quran sought to replace this structure with the umma, the community of all believers.
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How does the core message of Islam compare with that of Judaism and Christianity?
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1.Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, is monotheistic. Allah is the only God, the all-powerful Creator. 2.As "the Messenger of God," Muhammad presented himself in the tradition of earlier prophets like Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. 3.Like the Jewish prophets and Jesus, Muhammad demanded social justice and laid out a prescription for its implementation. 4. Like Christiantiy, Islam develops a reward and punishment system for the "wicked" of this world, heaven and hell
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In what ways was the rise of Islam revolutionary, both in theory and in practice?
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1.The Islamic community, or umma, broke with the previous tribal structure defined by family and clan in Arabia, replacing it with a system in which membership was a matter of belief rather than birth, It becoems universal, if you are a Muslim. 2.Muhammad was not only a religious figure but also a political and military leader able to implement his vision of an ideal Islamic society. 3.Islam possessed no separate political and religious organizations, although tension between religious and political goals frequently generated conflict, THEOCRATIC. 4.Unlike Christianity, no professional clergy mediating between God and humankind emerged within Islam. 5.No distinction between religious and civil law existed in the Islamic world THEOCRATIC.
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Why were Arabs able to construct such a huge empire so quickly?
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1.For the first time, a shared faith in Islam allowed the newly organized state to mobilize the military potential of the entire Arab population. 2.The Byzantine and Persian empires were weakened by decades of war with each other and by internal revolts. 3.Merchant leaders of the new Islamic community wanted to capture the profitable trade routes of the Silk Roads. 4.Individual Arabs found in military expansion a route to wealth and social promotion. 5.Expansion provided a common task for the Arab community, which reinforced the fragile unity of the umma. 6.Arabs were motivated by a religious dimension, as many viewed the mission of empire in terms of jihad, bringing righteous government to the peoples they conquered.
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What accounts for the widespread conversion to Islam?
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1.Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians could find familiar elements of their own faiths in Islam. 2.From the start, Islam was associated with the sponsorship of a powerful state. 3.Conquest called into question the power of old gods, while the growing prestige of the Arab Empire attracted many to Allah. 5.Although forced conversion was rare, living in an Islamic-governed state provided a variety of incentives for claiming Muslim identity, tax breaks for example. 6.In Islam, merchants found a religion friendly to commerce, and in the Arab Empire they enjoyed a huge and secure arena for trade. 7. It is easy to convert to islam. All one has to do is just follow the 5 pillars and you are in
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What is the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam?
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1.Sunnis held that the caliphs were rightful political and military leaders, selected by the Islamic community, while the Shia held that leadership in the Islamic world should derive from the line of Ali and his son Husayn, blood relatives of Muhammad. 2.For Sunni Muslims, religious authority in general emerged from the larger community, particularly from the religious scholars known as ulama. Meanwhile, the Shia invested their leaders, known as imams, with a religious authority that the caliphs lacked, allowing them alone to reveal the true meaning of the Quran and the wishes of Allah. 3.The Shia tradition included a messianic element that the Sunni tradition largely lacked.
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In what ways were Sufi Muslims critical of mainstream Islam?
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1.Sufism desiers an emotional ecstatic union with God 2.Sufism was sharply critical of the more scholarly and legalistic practitioners of the sharia; to Sufis, establishment teachings about the law and correct behavior did little to bring the believer into the presence of God. 3.Sufis held that many of the ulama of mainstream Islam had been compromised by their association with worldly and corrupt governments.
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How did the rise of Islam change the lives of women?
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1.The Quran banned female infanticide, gave women the right to own property and granted them rights of inheritance. It also allowed men to have sexual relations with consenting female slaves, but any children born of these unions were free, as was the mother once her owner died. 2.As the Arab Empire grew in size, the position of women became more limited. Women started to pray at home instead of in the mosque, and veiling and seclusion of women became standard practice among the upper and ruling classes. Other signs of tightening patriarchy, such as "honor killing" of women by their male relatives for violating sexual taboos which derived from local cultures, with no sanction in the Quran or Islamic law. 3.The Sufi practice of mystical union with God allowed a greater role for women than did mainstream Islam. 4.Islamic education, either in the home or in Quranic schools, allowed some women to become literate and a few to achieve higher levels of learning.
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What similarities and differences can you identify in the spread of Islam to India, Anatolia, West Africa, and Spain?
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1.Islam spread to India, Anatolia, and Spain in part through force of arms of Islamic armies, while Islam arrived in West Africa with Muslim traders. 2.Sufis facilitated conversions by accommodating local traditions, especially in India and Anatolia, but played little role in West Africa until at least the eighteenth century. 3.In India, West Africa, and Spain, Islam became one of several faiths within the wider culture, while in Anatolia it became the dominant faith.
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Why was Anatolia so much more thoroughly Islamized than India?
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1.Unlike India, far more Islamic Turkic-speaking peoples settled in Anatolia. This, coupled with the much smaller population of Anatolia and the massacres, enslavement, famine, and flight that occurred during the conquest, gave Turks a much more important position in Anatolia. 2.Anatolian society was more centralized than India, and the Christian Church and Byzantine imperial infrastructure in Anatolia were fatally weakened during the Turkic invasion. India's more decentralized civilization was better able to absorb the shock of external invasion. 3.The Turkish rulers of Anatolia built a new society that welcomed converts, and the cultural barriers to conversion were arguably less severe there than in India.
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What makes it possible to speak of the Islamic world as a distinct and coherent civilization?
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1.At the core of that civilization was a common commitment to Islam. 2.No group was more important in the transmission of Islamic beliefs and practices than the ulama, an "international elite" who created a system of education that served to bind together an immense and diverse civilization. 3.The pilgrimage to Mecca (the hajj) drew many thousands of Muslims to Mecca each year from all over the Islamic world. 4.The focus on learning the Quran in Arabic allowed Islam to communicate across a wide swath of the old world.
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In what ways was the world of Islam a "cosmopolitan civilization"?
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1.Muslim merchants plied the Silk Roads, Sea Roads, and Sand Roads of the Afro-Eurasian world, and the Islamic world promoted long-distance economic relationships by actively supporting a prosperous, highly developed, "capitalist" economy. 3.Islamic civilization also facilitated a substantial exchange of agricultural products and practices: sugarcane and cotton 4.Techniques for manufacturing paper also arrived in the Middle East from China and later spread from the Middle East to India and Europe. 5.Also Islam made original contributions to the world of learning: algebra, political science, astronomy, and optics
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In what respects did Byzantium continue the patterns of the classical Roman Empire? In what ways did it diverge from those patterns?
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1.Continuance in Byzantium's roads, military structures, centralized administration, imperial court, laws, and Christian organization. 2.Byzantium diverged through the development of a reformed administrative system that gave appointed generals civil authority in the empire's provinces and allowed them to raise armies from the landowning peasants of the region.
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How did Eastern Orthodox Christianity differ from Roman Catholicism?
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1.The Catholic Church maintained some degree of independence from political authorities, in Byzantium the emperor assumed the role of both "Caesar," as head of state, and the head of the Church. 2.In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Greek became the language of religious practice instead of the Latin used in the Roman Catholic Church. 3.Priests in Byzantium allowed their beards to grow long and were permitted to marry, while priests in the West shaved and, after 1050 or so, were supposed to remain celibate. 4.Eastern Orthodox leaders sharply rejected the growing claims of Roman popes to be the sole and final authority for all Christians everywhere.
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In what ways was the Byzantine Empire linked to a wider world?
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1.On a political and military level, Byzantium continued the long-term Roman struggle with the Persian Empire. 2.Economically, the Byzantine Empire was a central player in the long-distance via the Silk Roads 3.Byzantium preserved much of ancient Greek learning and transmitted this classical heritage to both the Islamic world and the Christian West. 4.Byzantine religious culture spread widely among Slavic-speaking peoples in the Balkans and Russia.
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How did links to Byzantium transform the new civilization of Kievan Rus?
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1.Kievan Rus borrowed from Byzantium architectural styles, the Cyrillic alphabet, the extensive use of icons, a monastic tradition stressing prayer and service, and political ideals of imperial control of the Church.
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How did the historical development of the European West differ from that of Byzantium in the postclassical era?
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1.Unlike Byzantium, any semblance of large empire rule vanished in the West. Also urban life diminished sharply, long-distance trade dried up, and literacy lost ground. 2.In the West, a vassalage system developed based on reciprocal ties between greater and lesser lords among the warrior elites and between lords and serfs. 3.In the West, the Roman Catholic Church maintained greater independence from political authorities than the Orthodox Church did in Byzantium
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What replaced the Roman order in Western Europe?
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1. Feudalism focused on the creation of regional kingdoms ruled by Germanic warlords. 2.But these states maintained some Roman features, including written Roman law and the use of fines and penalties to provide order and justice. 3.Roman slavery gave way to the practice of serfdom. 4.The Roman Catholic Church increased its influence over society.
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What was the impact of the Crusades in world history?
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1.They marked an expansion of the influence of Western Christendom at the same time that Eastern Christendom and Byzantium were declining. 2.They stimulated the demand for Asian luxury goods in Europe. 3.They also allowed Europeans to learn techniques for producing sugar on large plantations using slave labor, later they transferred the plantation system to the Americas. 4.Muslim scholarship, together with the Greek learning that it incorporated, flowed into Europe; starting the Renaissance 5.The Crusades hardened cultural barriers between Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam, and Catholics
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In what ways did borrowing from abroad shape European civilization after 1000?
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1.A more efficient horse collar, which probably originated in China or Central Asia, contributed to European efforts to plow the heavy soils of northern Europe. 2.Gunpowder from China, combined with cannons developed in Western Europe, gave Europeans a military edge over other civilizations. 3.Improvements in shipbuilding and navigational techniques, including the magnetic compass and sternpost rudder from China and adaptations of the Arab lateen sail, enabled Europeans to build advanced ships for oceanic voyages.
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Why was Europe unable to achieve the kind of political unity that China experienced?
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1.Geographic barriers, ethnic and linguistic diversity, and the shifting balances of power among Europe's many states prevented the emergence of a single European empire like that of China.
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In what different ways did classical Greek philosophy and science have an impact in the West, in Byzantium, and in the Islamic world?
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1.In the West after 1000 C.E., a belief in the ability of human reason to penetrate divine mysteries and to grasp the operation of the natural order took shape through the scientific method 2.In the Byzantine Empire, scholars kept the classical tradition alive, rather than a change to the scientific method 3.Islam saw a flowering of scholarship, between roughly 800 and 1200 C.E. But the scientific method did not become a central concern for Islam higher education as it did in Western Europe. In fact After 1200 Islam began to become more and more conservitave in its approach to scholarship as opposed to christianity
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Why are the centuries of the Tang and Song dynasties in China sometimes referred to as a "golden age"?
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1.Politically, the Tang and Song dynasties built a state structure based on the civil service exam that endured for a thousand years. 2.Tang and Song dynasty China experienced an economic revolution that made it the richest empire on earth. 3.Population grew rapidly, from 50 million60 million people during the Tang dynasty to 120 million by 1200, spurred in part by a the canal sytstems. 4. massive urbanization led to an increase in advanced manufacturing techniques, including the invention of printing and gunpowder, along with innovations in navigation and shipbuilding (junks) that led the world. 5. KEY The economy of China became the most highly commercialized in the world, producing for the market rather than for local consumption.
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In what ways did women's lives change during the Tang and Song dynasties?
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1. Chinese women in the Tang dynasty, at least in the north, had participated in social life with greater freedom than in classical times. This was partly because of the influence of Buddhism. 2. But the revival of Confucianism and rapid economic growth during the Song dynasty resulted in patriarchal restrictions on women; foot binding. 3.In the textile industry, urban workshops and state factories replaced the work of rural women. 4.The growing prosperity of elite families funneled increased numbers of women into roles as concubines, entertainers, courtesans, and prostitutes. 5.This trend reduced the ability of wives to negotiate as equals with their husbands, and it set women against one another. 6.Some positive trends in the lives of women occurred during the Song dynasty focused on education as a way to better prepare their sons for civil service exams.
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What assumptions underlay the Chinese tribute system?
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1.Several assumptions underlay the tribute system, such as that China was the "middle kingdom," the center of the world, infinitely superior to the "barbarian" peoples beyond its borders 2.The tribute system was a set of practices designed to facilitate this civilizing contact. It required non-Chinese authorities to acknowledge Chinese superiority and their own subordinate place in a Chinese-centered world order. . 3.In exchange for expressions of submission, the Chinese emperor would grant foreigners permission to trade in China and provide them with gifts, which were often worth more than the tribute offered by the foreigners.
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How did the tribute system in practice differ from the ideal Chinese understanding of its operation?
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1.Often, China was in reality confronting powerful nomadic empires that were able to deal with China on at least equal terms. 2.They promised Chinese princesses as wives, sanctioned exchanges of goods that favored the nomads, and agreed to supply the nomads annually with large quantities of grain, wine, and silk. While these goods were officially termed "gifts," granted in accord with the tribute system, they were in fact tribute in reverse or even protection money.
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In what different ways did Korea, Vietnam, and Japan experience and respond to Chinese influence?
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1.Both Korea and Vietnam achieved political independence while participating fully in the tribute system as vassal states. Japan was never conquered by the Chinese but did participate for some of its history in the tribute system as a vassal state. 2.The cultural elite of Korea, Vietnam, and Japan borrowed heavily from: Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, administrative techniques, the examination system, artistic and literary styles even as their own cultures remained distinct. 3. Both Korea and Vietnam experienced some colonization by ethnic Chinese settlers. 4.Unlike Korea or Japan, the cultural heartland of Vietnam was fully incorporated into the Chinese state for over a thousand years. This political dominance led to cultural changes in Vietnam, such as the adoption of Chinese-style irrigated agriculture, the education of the Vietnamese elite in Confucian-based schools and their inclusion in the local bureaucracy, Chinese replacing the local language in official business, and the adoption of Chinese clothing and hairstyles.
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In what different ways did 3rd wave Japanese and Korean women experience the pressures of Confucian orthodoxy?
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1.Elite Japanese women, unlike those in Korea, largely escaped the more oppressive features of Chinese Confucian culture, such as the prohibition of remarriage for widows, seclusion within the home, and foot binding. 2.Moreover, elite Japanese women continued to inherit property, Japanese married couples often lived apart or with the wife's family, and marriages in Japan were made and broken easily.
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In what ways did 3rd wave China participate in the world of Eurasian commerce and exchange, and with what outcomes?
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1. China actively participated in commerce, with its export products: silk, porcelain, lacquerware. 2.The size of the Chinese economy provided a market commodities from afar: cotton textiles from SA . 3.One key outcome was the diffusion of many Chinese technological innovation: papermaking, printing, explosives, textiles, metallurgy, and naval technologies which often sparked further innovations i.e.gunpowder in Europe spurred the development of cannons. 4. China got cotton and sugar from India and gained access to new, fast-ripening, and drought-resistant strains of rice from Vietnam. pop boom. 5.Buddhism
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What facilitated the rooting of Buddhism within China in the 3rd wave civilizatoins?
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1.The chaotic, violent, and politically fragmented centuries that followed the collapse of the Han dynasty discredited Confucianism and opened the door to alternative ways to establish the Mandate of Heaven 2.Buddhism provided some comfort to the population in the face of a collapsing society. 3.Once established, Buddhist monasteries provided a support to the poor. 4. There was a serious effort by Buddhist monks, scholars, and translators to present this Indian religion in terms that Chinese could relate to i.e. women are seen as unequal in Chinese Buddhism.
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What were the major sources of opposition to Buddhism within China?
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1.Buddhism was clearly of foreign origin and therefore offensive to some Confucian and Daoist thinkers. 2.For some Confucian thinkers, the celibacy of monks and their withdrawal from society undermined the Confucian-based family system of Chinese tradition. 3.After 800 C.E., a growing resentment of foreign culture took hold, particularly among the literate classes. Ultimately, a series of imperial decrees between 841 and 845 C.E. ordered some 260,000 monks and nuns to return to secular life, and thousands of monasteries, temples, and shrines were destroyed or turned to public use.
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Analyze the major economic impact of the increasing ammount of trade during the 3 wave civlizations?
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1. It altered consumption by allowing for new luxury products that let the wealthy display their status (silk, gems, ivory, gold, slaves) 2. Encouraged specialization in the creation of new manufactured goods (silk and cotton weavers) 3.Diminished economic self-sufficiency of local societies as they became dependent on imported goods 4.Merchants often became a distinct social group within civilizations
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Analyze the social consequences of the increasing ammount of trade during the 3 wave civlizations?
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1.In some regions, long-distance trade profoundly affected the lives of peasant farmers. For instance, peasants in southern China sometimes gave up the cultivation of food crops, choosing to focus instead on producing silk, paper, porcelain, lacquerware, or iron tools, much of which was destined for the markets of the Silk Roads. 2.This created a possiblity for class mobility as peasants entered the artisan class
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What accounted for the spread of Buddhism along the Silk Roads?
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1.Buddhism appealed to Indian merchants, who preferred its universal message to that of a Brahmin-dominated Hinduism that privileged higher castes. 2.Well-to-do Buddhist merchants built monasteries and supported monks to earn religious merit. 3.In China, Buddhism remained for many centuries a religion of foreign merchants or foreign rulers. Only after classical collapse did it become popular among the Chinese themselves. 4.As it spread, Buddhism changed. In particular, the Mahayana (prayer) form of Buddhism flourished 5.Buddhism picked up elements of other cultures, many of the local gods of many peoples along the Silk Roads were incorporated into Buddhist practice as bodhisattvas.
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What was the impact of disease along the Silk Roads?
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1.Disease spread along the Roads and created a large disease pool that was shared ammongst all of the old world. 2.The worst example of this occurred in the fourteenth century, with the Black Death 3.In the long run, the exchange of diseases gave Europeans a certain advantage in the domination of the Americas
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How did the operation of the Indian Ocean trading network differ from that of the Silk Roads?
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1.Transportation costs were lower on the Sea Roads than the Silk Roads, because ships could accommodate larger and heavier cargoes than camels. 2.This meant that the Sea Roads could eventually carry more bulk goods and products destined for a mass market textiles, pepper, timber, rice, sugar, wheat whereas the Silk Roads were limited largely to luxury goods for the few. 3.The Sea Roads relied on alternating wind currents known as monsoons. 4.India was the center of the Sea Roads but not of the Silk Roads.
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What lay behind the flourishing of Indian Ocean commerce in the postclassical millennium?
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1.One important factor was the economic development of China, especially during the Tang and Song dynasties (618-1279). 2.China both supplied products for and consumed the products of the Indian Ocean trading network. 3.China also provided technological innovations, including larger ships and the magnetic compass, which facilitated trade. 4.Islam was friendly to commercial life. The creation of an Arab Empire, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean through the Mediterranean basin and all the way to India, brought together in a single political system an immense range of economies and cultural traditions and provided a vast arena for trade. 5.Widespread conversion to Islam among traders in the Indian Ocean underpinned an international maritime culture and also helped to facilitate commercial transactions.
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What changes did the Sand Roads bring to West Africa?
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1.It provided both incentives and resources for the construction of new and larger political structures, like Songhay, 2.These Sudanic (Songhay) states established substantial urban and commercial centers where traders congregated and goods were exchanged. 3.Some also became manufacturing centers, creating finely wrought beads, iron tools, or cotton textiles for trade. 4.Islam accompanied trade and became an important element in the urban culture of West Africa and a source of writing and bureaucracy.
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In what ways did networks of interaction in the Western Hemisphere differ from those in the Eastern Hemisphere?
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1.Direct connections among the civilizations and cultures of the Americas were fewer than Afro-Eurasian region. 2.The spread of agricultural products was slower and less pronounced in the Americas than in Eurasia (maize). 3.The Americas had no equivalent to the spread of distinct cultural traditions like Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam 4.Nevertheless, the Americas did have zones of interaction, as reflected in the slow spread of goods (pottery).
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In what ways did the arrival of Bantu-speaking peoples stimulate cross-cultural interaction?
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1.The Bantu-speaking peoples brought agriculture to sub-Saharan Africa 2.They brought parasitic and infectious diseases, to which the gathering and hunting peoples had little immunity. 3.They also brought iron. 4. Bantu farmers in East Africa increasingly adopted grains as well as domesticated sheep and cattle from the already-established people of the region. 5.They also acquired a variety of food crops from Southeast Asia, especially bananas, which were brought to East Africa by Indonesian sailors and immigrants early in the first millennium C.E.
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In what ways did the environment influence the emergence of transregional networks of communication and exchange in the Old World ca 500 ce?
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1. The monsoon winds of the Indian sea trade network allowed much more sea travel as the winds were predictable 2. The large east west oriented biomes allowed for greater distance of travel between trade centers 3. The abundance of large domesticated animals allowed for the greater movement of goods, including foods, in the old world.
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In what ways did the environment influence the emergence of transregional networks of communication and exchange in the New World ca 500 ce?
answer
1. North south oriented biomes made travel difficult 2. Relatively few domesticated animals made it hard to transport goods over long distances 3. The sea and current patterns of the Americas make it unfriendly to sea travel
question
What technological developments drove the emergence of transregional networks of communication and exchange in 500 ce?
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1. Lateen sail made it possable to fight the winds allowing for a greater range of mobility. 2. The camel saddle made it possabel for the sand roads (Sahara desert) to join the trade network 3. The yoke allowed
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What were the impacts of the emergence of transregional networks of communication and exchange in 500 ce?
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1. Diasporatic communities develop in places where long term merchant activity is common (South Asia and East Africa mostly) 2. As a result of direct contact with merchants form distant societies technology, religion, and culture are exchanged with a greater frequency and accuracy 3. Disease pools grow as merchants carry disease to all corners of the Old World.
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What was the role of cities in the classical period
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1. They continued to be the place where most religious, political, and manufacturing activities took place. This role however grew as they did (the Han capital had 300,000 inhabitants) 2. As a result of the anonymity that existed in cities social status was more liquid there than in the country side 3. Disease was more prevalent and life expectancy diminished 4. They caused brain drain from the surrounding communities.
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How would you describe the social hierarchy of classical China?
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1.At the top of the social hierarchy in China were emperor and the shi. 2.The shi were in large part drawn from wealthy landowning families. 3.Despite the efforts of Chinese emperors, landowners remained a central feature of Chinese society, 4.Peasants made up the largest part of the Chinese population. Over time the peasants lost their land to the landwoning families. 5.The elite in Chinese society possessed a largely negative view of merchants, who were viewed as unproductive people who made a shameful profit by selling the work of others.
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What class conflicts disrupted classical Chinese society?
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1.Between the emperor and wealthy landowners; the emperor worked to limit the accumulation of estates by large landowners, who could potentially threaten his power. 2.Shi and landowners who sought taxes and labor obligatoin from peasants. 3.As a result peasants frequently abandoned their land, forming bandit gangs or rising up against their social superiors 4. merchants against all. Despite active discrimination, merchants frequently became quite wealthy, and some purchasing landed estates and educating their sons to become shi.
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What set of ideas underlies India's caste-based society?
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1.By 500 B.C.E., there was a clear belief that society was organized into four great segments (varnas), with one's position in this system determined by birth. 2.Three top segments were pure Aryans: the bottom segment was not of Aryan heritage and was known as the Sudras; they were native peoples who served in very subordinate positions. 3.In reality, there was considerable social change in ancient India. For instance, the Vaisya varna developed into a merchant class, while the Sudra varna became the peasants. A new group known as the untouchables emerged below the Sudras; they undertook the most polluting and unclean tasks. 4. This system was reinforced by laws (untouchables could be killed by a brhaman with no real penalty) and religious custom. If you don't accecpt your position in life you will be reincarnated as a lesser being (ant)
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What is the difference between varna and jati as expressions of classical India's caste system?
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1.The varna system was older. It provided broad categories in a social hierarchy that explained social inequality. 2.The jatis were occupationally based groups that split the varnas and the untouchables into thousands of smaller social groupings based on occupation. 3.Jatis became the primary cells of social life in India beyond the family or household. Each jati was associated with one of the great classes or with the untouchables. Marriage and eating together were permitted only within one's own jati, and each jati was associated with its own particular set of duties, rules, and obligations, which defined its members' unique and separate place in the larger society.
question
How did India's caste system differ from China's class system?
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1. India's caste system gave priority to religious status and ritual purity, while China elevated political officials to the highest of elite positions. 2. The caste system divided Indian society into a vast number of distinct social groups compared to the broader categories of Chinese society. 3. The caste system defined social groups far more rigidly and with even less opportunity for social mobility than did China's class system.
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How did the inequalities of slavery differ from those of caste?
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1. Slaves possessed the status of outsiders, whereas each jati possessed a recognized position in the social hierarchy. 2.Slaves were owned and sold, unlike members of the caste system. 3.Slaves worked without pay, unlike members of the caste system. 4.Slaves lacked any rights or independent personal identity, unlike individuals in the caste system. 5.In some traditions, slaves could transform their status by being freed by their master or by purchasing their freedom. Also in some traditions, children of slaves were considered free at birth. These traditions offered more opportunities for social mobility than did the caste system.
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How did Greco-Roman slavery differ from that of other classical civilizations?
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1. Greco-Roman society depended more on slaves than did other classical civilizations. 2. There were far more slaves in the Greco-Roman world than in other classical civilizations. 3. Slaves participated in a greater number and range of occupations than in other classical civilizations, from the highest and most prestigious positions to the lowest and most degraded. Slaves were excluded only from military service. 4. Greco-Roman slaves essentially served to allow the elites to specalize in warfare
question
In what ways did the expression of classical Chinese patriarchy change over time, and why did it change?
answer
1.Thinkers emphasized the distinction between the public and political roles of men and the private domain of women. 2.The idea of the "three obediences" was also emphasized; it described a woman's subordination first to her father, then to her husband, and finally to her son. 3.The Chinese woman writer Ban Zhou recorded how women were taught from birth that they were inferior and subordinated to men and should be passive and subservient in their relations with men. 3. These Ideas were reinforced by confucian notions that people should adhere to roles within chinese society to create balence and harmony
question
How did China respond to disorder in the classical era?
answer
The focus fo China is to maintian balence and thus the mandate of heaven. The three major schools of thought that are focused on that are. 1.Legalism argued that only the state could act in the long-term interests of society as a whole. They advocated a system of clearly defined laws and rules, strictly enforced through rewards and punishments, as the best means of securing desirable behavior from subjects. 2. Confucianism emphasized that, because human society consisted primarily of unequal relationships, social harmony relied on the superior party in these relationships behaving with sincerity, benevolence, and genuine concern for others. 3. Daoism argued that disorder stemmed from human actions and that if people withdrew from the world of political and social activism and instead aligned themselves with dao, the way of nature, then balence is restored.
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Why has Confucianism been defined as a "humanistic philosophy" rather than a supernatural religion?
answer
1.The thrust of Confucian teaching was distinctly this-worldly and practical, concerned with human relationships, effective government, and social harmony. 2.Confucianism is based on the cultivation of, benevolence, not through divine intervention but through personal reflection, and education 1.Ritual and ceremonies nurture this, not because of contact with the supernatural but because they convey rules of appropriate behavior in the many and varying circumstances of life.
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How did the Daoist outlook differ from that of Confucianism?
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1.Daoists found Confucian emphasis on education and the earnest striving for moral improvement and good government artificial and useless. 2.Instead, Daoists urged withdrawal into the world of nature and encouraged behavior that was spontaneous, individualistic, and natural. 3.Daoists turned the spotlight onto the immense realm of nature and its mysterious unfolding patterns, while Confucians focused on the world of human relationships. 4. As such Daoism has major impacts on Chinese arts
question
In what ways did Buddhism reflect Hindu traditions, and in what ways did it challenge them?
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1.Buddhism reflected Hindu traditions in the idea that ordinary life is an illusion, in the concepts of karma and rebirth, the goal of overcoming the incessant demands of the ego, the practice of meditation, and the hope for final release from the cycle of rebirth. 2.Buddhism challenged Hindu traditions through its rejection of the religious authority of the Brahmins, and its rejection of the inequalities of a Hindu-based caste system through its belief that neither caste position nor gender was a barrier to enlightenment.
question
What new emphases characterized Hinduism as it responded to the challenge of Buddhism?
answer
1.Hindu emphasis was on devotion to one or another of India's many gods and goddesses. 2.One manifestation of this emphasis was the bhakti movement, which involved intense adoration of and identification with a particular deity through songs, prayers, and rituals associated with the many cults that emerged throughout India. The most popular deities were Vishnu and Shiva. 3.These prayers would gain you good karma and move you towards nirvana.
question
What aspects of Zoroastrianism and Judaism subsequently found a place in Christianity and Islam?
answer
1.Zoroastrian concepts of the conflict between God and evil, the notion of a last judgment and resurrected bodies, a belief in the final defeat of evil, the arrival of a savior, and the remaking of the world at the end of time all influenced Judaism. Some of these teachings, especially the concepts of heaven and hell and a coming savior, also became prominent in Christianity and Islam through this influence on Judaism. 2.From Judaism, both Christianity and Islam drew a distinctive conception of the divine as singular, transcendent, personal, separate from nature, engaged in history, and demanded social justice and moral righteousness above sacrifices and rituals.
question
What are the distinctive features of the Greek intellectual tradition?
answer
1.Emphasis on argument and logic 2.Relentless questioning of received wisdom Confidence in human reason 3.Enthusiasm for puzzling out the world without much reference to the gods 4. A fcous on the finding of universal truths
question
How would you compare the lives and teaching of Jesus and the Buddha? In what different ways did the two religions evolve after the deaths of their founders?
answer
1.Their backgrounds were very different. Jesus poor, Sidartha rich 2.Both became spiritual seekers, both challenged wealth, emphasizing compassion 3.Both came out of a establishe religious background Jesus=Jewish and Buddha=Hindu 4. Neither Jesus nor the Buddha probably planned to found new religions. 5.Both the Buddha and Jesus were transformed from teachers into gods by their followers.
question
In what ways was Christianity transformed in the five centuries following the death of Jesus?
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1.Jesus became divine 2.Christianity developed from a small Jewish sect into a world religion that included non-Jews. 3.Christianity adopted elements of animist religious practice (the easter bunny) as it spread. 4. It developed a hierarchical organization, with patriarchs, bishops, and a male-dominated clergy.
question
How did Persian and Greek civilizations differ in their political organization and values?
answer
1.The Persians=empire, Greeks=cisty states 2. Presians=absolute rule cooridnated by bureaucrats and the Greeks used participatory govenrment, but that varried from city state to city state 3.Persia's rule of its many conquered peoples was strengthened by a policy of respect for the empire's non-Persian cultural traditions. In contrast the Greeks saw forigners as barbarians
question
What were the consequences for both sides of the encounter between the Persians and the Greeks?
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1. While no doubt embarrassing, the failure of the Persian invasions of Greece had very little impact on the Persian Empire. 2.Defeat of the Persian armies was a source of enormous pride for Greece. For the Greeks (especially the Athenians), it confirmed their view that Greek freedoms strengthened their will to fight 3.As a reuslt monumental buildings like the Parthenon in Athens were built, Greek theater was born, and Socrates was beginning his career as a philosopher. 4. But the Greco-Persian Wars also led to Athens and Sparts to fight for a dominant position in Greece known as the Peloponnesian War, which opened the way for Macedonia to conquer the Greek city-states.
question
What changes did Alexander's conquests bring in their wake?
answer
1.Alexander's conquests led to the widespread syncronizatoin of Greek culture into Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India. The major avenue for this spread lay in the many cities established by the Greeks throughout the Hellenistic world.
question
How did Rome grow from a single city to the center of a huge empire?
answer
1. The values of the Roman republic, including rule of law, the rights of citizens, upright moral behavior, and keeping one's word 2.Poor soldiers hoped for land, loot, or salaries. The well-to-do or well-connected gained great estates, earned promotion, and sometimes achieved public acclaim and high political office by participating in empire building. 3.Expansion was necessary to supply Rome with the slaves necessary to keep labor supplies high enough for Rome to function effectivly.
question
How and why did the making of the Chinese empire differ from that of the Roman Empire?
answer
1. Unlike the Roman Empire (which was new), the Chinese empire represented an effort to revive an imperial tradition that already existed earlier dynasties. 2. As a result the process of creating the empire was quicker, though it was no less reliant on military force and no less brutal than the centuries-long Roman effort.
question
In comparing the Roman and Chinese empires, which do you find more striking their similarities or their differences?
answer
1. In general, the Chinese empire focused on cultural homogeneity and more centralized political control than Rome 2. Both invested heavily in public works designed to integrate their respective domains militarily and commercially. (roads and the great wall) 3.Both invoked supernatural sanctions to support their rule. (will of the gods) 4. Both absorbed foreign religious traditions; Rome=Christianity and China=Buddhism 5. Romans decentralized and ruled through local elites in conqured areas and China ruled directly through the Shi.
question
How did the collapse of empire play out differently in the Roman world and in China?
answer
1.All China collapsed and only the western half of Rome fell, Byzantium remained 2. Nomadic peoples helped cause the collapse oof both empires. 3.However, the nomads who successfully invaded and settled in north China assimilated and eventually restablished the dynastic system, whereas in western europe they didn't, leading to the political fragmentation of Europe
question
Why were centralized empires so much less prominent in India than in China?
answer
1. The frequency of invasions from Central Asia in comparison to China made centralized empire less likely 2. Most importatnly though in contrast to China, caste system made for intensely local loyalties at the expense of wider identities that might have fostered empires.
question
What accounts for the initial breakthroughs to civilization?
answer
1. The Agricultural Revolution allowed communities to produce sufficient food surpluses to support large populations and the specialized or elite minorities who did not themselves produce food. This in turn allowed for the development of new technologies such as writing and metallurgy which gave "civilizations" enormous advantages over hunter-gatherer societies. 2. Animal husbandry also allowed for zoonoses which gave the "civilizations" a disease edge over the HG societies as well
question
What was the role of cities in the early civilizations?
answer
1.Political and administrative centers 2. Centers of culture including art, architecture, literature, ritual, and ceremony 3.Marketplaces for both local and long-distance exchange 4.Centers of manufacturing activity
question
In what ways was social inequality expressed in early civilizations?
answer
Wealth Avoidance of physical labor Clothing Houses Manner of burial Class-specific treatment in legal codes
question
In what ways have historians tried to explain the origins of patriarchy?
answer
1.Intensive agriculture with animal-drawn plows and more intensive large-herd pastoralism (tasks that men were better able to perform) 2.The growing population of civilizations meant that women were more often pregnant 3.Men, because they were less important in the household, were available to take on positions of economic, religious, and political authority as societies grew more complex. 4.Large-scale military conflict with professionally led armies enhanced the power and prestige of a male warrior class. 5.Restrictions of women's sexual activity became central to ensuring that offspring of the male head of household inherited family property.
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What were the sources of state authority in the First Civilizations?
answer
1.The coordination and regulation of the community enterprises such as defense and irrigation. 2.State authorities frequently used force to compel obedience. 3. Leaders were often seen as gods 4. Grandeur in the form of lavish lifestyles of elites, impressive rituals, and the building of imposing structures added to the perception of state authority and power.
question
What accounts for the emergence of agriculture after countless millennia of human life without it?
answer
1. The end of the last Ice Age around 16,000 years ago made agriculture possible with warmer, wetter, and more stable climatic conditions 2. Huamns had learned to selectivley breed wild plants to increase their yield 3. The need to increase food supplies to feed growing populations of humans also contributed to the emergence of agriculture.
question
In the foundation period 10,000-1,000 BCE what ways did agriculture spread and where and why was it sometimes resisted?
answer
1. Agriculture spread in two ways: through diffusion and colonization. 2. Successful resistance to the encroachment of agriculture occurred in areas that were unsuitable to farming or in regions of particular natural abundance where the population did not need to farm intensively. 3. It also helped to not be in the direct line of advance of a more powerful agricultural people.
question
What was revolutionary about the Agricultural Revolution?
answer
1.The ability to support much larger populations 2.The beginning of the dominance of the human species over other forms of life on the planet 3.An explosion of technological innovation, including techniques for making pottery and weaving textiles and metallurgy 4.The growing impact of humans on their environments
question
What different kinds of societies emerged out of the Agricultural Revolution?
answer
1.Pastoral societies were societies that relied far more extensively on domesticated animals. Pastoral societies were common in regions where farming was difficult. Wherever pastoral societies arose, they were mobile, following the changing patterns of vegetation, in order to feed their animals. 2. Village-based agricultural societies consisted of settled farmers. Such societies retained much of the equality and freedom of gathering and hunting communities 3. Both societies were significant producers of disease as a result of zoonoses
question
What enabled Europeans to carve out huge empires an ocean away from their homelands?
answer
1.Europeans were much closer to the Americas than were their potential Asian competitors. 2.Europeans were powerfully motivated after 1200 to gain access to the world of Eurasian commerce. 3.Groups within European society, including competing monarchs, merchants, impoverished nobles and commoners, Christian missionaries, and persecuted minorities all had strong, if different, motivations for participating in empire building. 4. European states and trading companies enabled the effective mobilization of both human and material resources. 5. Disease in the Americas
question
What large-scale transformations did European empires generate?
answer
1.European empire building caused the demographic collapse of Native American societies. 2.Combinations of indigenous, European, and African peoples created entirely new societies in the Americas. 3.Large-scale exchanges of plants and animals transformed the crops and animals raised both in the Americas and in the Eastern Hemisphere. 4.The silver mines of Mexico and Peru fueled both transatlantic and transpacific commerce. 5.The need for plantation workers and the sugar and cotton trade created a lasting link among Africa, Europe, and the Americas, while scattering peoples of African origins throughout the Western Hemisphere.
question
How did the plantation societies of Brazil and the Caribbean differ from those of southern colonies in British North America?
answer
1.In North America, there was less racial mixing and less willingness to recognize the offspring of such unions and accord them a place in society. 2.Slavery in North America was different, being perhaps less harsh there than in the sugar colonies. 3.By 1750, slaves in the United States had become self-reproducing, and a century later almost all North American slaves had been born in the New World. That was never the case in Brazil and the Caribbean. 4.Many more slaves were voluntarily set free by their owners in Brazil than was ever the case in North America, 5.In North America, any African ancestry, no matter how small or distant, made a person "black"; not in Brazil, Moreover, color was only one criterion of class status in Brazil, and the perception of color changed with the educational or economic standing of individuals.
question
What distinguished the British settler colonies of North America from their counterparts in Latin America?
answer
1.Many of the British settlers sought to escape aspects of an old European society rather than to recreate it. 2.The British colonies were almost pure settler colonies, without the racial mixing that was so prominent in Spanish and Portuguese territories. 3.A largely Protestant England was far less interested in spreading Christianity among the remaining native peoples 4.British colonies developed greater mass literacy and traditions of local self-government and vigorously contested the prerogatives of royal governors sent to administer their affairs.
question
What motivated Russian empire building?
answer
1.Fear of the Mongols drove the Russians to conqure the vast siberian plain. 2.Russian expansion into Siberia was driven by demand on the world market for the pelts of fur-bearing animals, although later some agricultural settlement took place. The motivations of defending Russian frontiers, enhancing the power of the Russian state, 3.The Russians were also movitvated by bringing Christianity and attempted conversion of the native Siberians
question
How did the Russian Empire transform the life of its conquered people and of the Russian homeland itself?
answer
1.In terms of its conquered people, conquest meant the taking of an oath of loyalty to the Russian ruler; the payment of tribute 2.Devastating epidemics 3. Intermittent pressure to convert to Christianity; 4. The loss of hunting grounds and pasturelands to Russian agricultural settlers, which disrupted the local economy and left local populations dependent on Russian markets. 5.The Empire made Russia a highly militarized state and reinforced the highly autocratic character of the Russian state.
question
What were the major features of Chinese empire building in the early modern era?
answer
1.Chinese empire building vastly enlarged the territorial size of China and brought a number of non-Chinese people into the kingdom. 2.It was driven largely by security concerns. Conquered regions in central Eurasia were administered separately from the rest of China. 3.Chinese officials generally did not seek to assimilate local people into Chinese culture and showed considerable respect for the Mongolian, Tibetan, and Muslim cultures of the region.
question
In what ways was the Ottoman Empire important for Europe in the early modern era?
answer
1.The Ottoman Empire represented a military threat to Europe. 2.It impressed some European intellectuals because of its religious tolerance. 3.It occasionally allied with France against their common enemy of Habsburg Austria. 4.The empire was an important trading partner as they controled access to Eastern goods
question
How did the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and British initiatives in Asia differ from one another?
answer
1.The Portuguese sought to set up a trading post empire that controlled the trade routes of the Indian Ocean. 2.The Spanish established colonial rule over the Philippine Islands. In doing so, they drew on their experience in the Americas, converting most of the population to Christianity, ruling over the islands directly, and setting up large landed estates owned by Spanish settlers. 3.The Dutch and British organized their Indian Ocean ventures through private trading companies, which were able to raise money and share risks among a substantial number of merchant investors.
question
To what extent did the British and Dutch trading companies change the societies they encountered in Asia?
answer
1.The Dutch acted to control not only the shipping but also the production of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace. With much bloodshed, the Dutch seized control of a number of small spice-producing islands, forcing their people to sell only to the Dutch. 2.Ultimately, the local economy of the Spice Islands was shattered by Dutch policies, and the people there were impoverished. 3.The British secured their trading bases with the permission of Mughal authorities or local rulers. 4.British traders came to specialize in Indian cotton textiles, and hundreds of villages in the interior of southern India became specialized producers for the British market.
question
What was the world historical importance of the silver trade?
answer
1.The silver trade was the first direct and sustained link between the Americas and Asia, and it initiated a web of Pacific commerce that grew steadily over the centuries. 2.It transformed Spain and Japan, the two states that controlled the principal new sources of silver. 3.It deepened the already substantial commercialization of China's economy, which fueled global commerce. 4.It became a key commodity driving long-distance trade and offered the Europeans a product that they could produce that was also in demand elsewhere in the world.
question
Describe the impact of the fur trade on North American native societies and Native Siberians.
answer
1.The natives traded fur for European goods 2.It enhanced influence and authority for some Native American leaders who controled the fur trade. 3.It ensured the protection of Native Americans involved in the fur trade, at least for a time, from the kind of extermination, enslavement, or displacement that was the fate of some native peoples elsewhere in the Americas. 4.But the fur trade also had a negative impact, such as in exposing Native Americans to European diseases 5.left Native Americans dependent on European goods without a corresponding ability to manufacture the goods themselves. 6. It brought alcohol into Indian societies, often with deeply destructive effects.
question
What was distinctive about the Atlantic slave trade? What did it share with other patterns of slave owning and slave trading?
answer
1.The Atlantic slave trade had many distinctive features, including the immense size of the traffic in slaves 24 MILLION 2. Its importance to the economies of colonial America; and the prominence of slave labor in plantation agriculture. 3.There was a distinctive racial dimension, as Atlantic slavery came to be identified wholly with Africa and with "blackness." 4.Also distinctive were the treatment of slaves as a form of dehumanized property, and the practice of slave status being inherited across the generations. 4.But the Atlantic slave trade did possess some similarities with other patterns of slave owning, including the acquisition of slaves from Africa; the enslavement of outsiders and other vulnerable people; and the fact that slavery was a common practice since the earliest civilizations.
question
What roles did Europeans and Africans play in the unfolding of the Atlantic slave trade?
answer
1.European demand for slaves was clearly the chief cause of the trade. 2.From the point of sale on the African coast to the massive use of slave labor on American plantations, the entire enterprise was in European hands. 3.Europeans tried to exploit African rivalries to obtain slaves at the lowest possible cost, and the firearms that they funneled into West Africa may well have increased the warfare from which so many slaves were derived. 4.From the point of initial capture to sale on the coast, the slave trade was normally in African hands. Africans brought slaves to the coast for sale to Europeans waiting on ships or in fortified settlements.
question
In what different ways did the Atlantic slave trade transform African societies?
answer
1.Africa became a permanent part of an interacting Atlantic world, both commercially and demographically. 2.The Atlantic slave trade slowed Africa's population growth at a time when the populations of Europe, China, and other regions were expanding. 3.The slave trade in general stimulated little positive economic change in Africa and led to economic stagnation. 4.Some larger interior kingdoms such as the Songhai also slowly disintegrated, in part, because of the slave trade. 5. Women, who were captured at a far lower rate than men, lost status as polygamy increased
