Chapter 12

In this chapter, it talks about the connections that are being made and set up throughout the world. All the civilizations are settled and religions are starting to settle as well. This chapter makes a lot of comparisons like the European Comparisons. Within this chapter, it talks about the Americas and the civilizations that were formed there. These civilizations are pre-pilgrim. It talks about the Aztec and Inca civilizations. It also shows a map of the Americas and the certain kinds of farming the each region offered. Reading about the Aztec and Inca civilizations made me sad. Later on, they were forced out of their land and taken over by the conquistadors. I know how they felt because that is basically what happened to the Kingdom of Hawaii. The Americans came to Hawaii and overthrew Queen Liliuokalani. She was put under house arrest. During this time, she knitted many quilts and wrote songs. One of her famous songs she wrote during that time is Aloha 'oe. Back to the Incas and Aztecs. I feel bad for them because all that hard work that they had done to make their civilization went to waste when the conquistadors came and took everything.

Chapter 9

Chapter nine is about Islam and how it was spread throughout the world. After reading this chapter of Islam, they dont seem so bad anymore. Islam is actually a really peaceful religion. They have their rituals and practices like every other religion. It was really interesting reading about their religion. They have come a long way considering the fact that it all started with Muhammad Ibn Abdullah. Its interesting to know that this one man started a whole religion that got all the way around the world. In some ways, thats the same thing that Jesus did. After reading,  I feel bad for the Islamic people. They really have done nothing wrong. They are just practicing their religion and people from across the world hate them. People blame Islam for 9/11 and other terrorist attacks like the Boston bombing and the recent bombing in Paris. People shouldnt judge them or their religion unless they actually know the Islamic religion and what they stand for, which is peace.

Chapter 10

Chapter 10 basically talked about Christianity and the spread of it throughout the world. Christianity has had such a major impact in the world. Of course, it is more prominent more in some parts than others. Take Asia for example. Asia has their own set of beliefs already. So when Christianity came around, not a lot of people were thrilled to convert. A paragraph in the book describes perfectly how people did not react well to Christianity. The book states that,"When expanding Muslim forces took control of Jerusalem in 638 and subsequently constructed the Muslim shrine known as the Dome of the Rock, that precise location  had long ben regarded as sacred. To Jews, it contained the stone on which Abraham prepared to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God, and it was the site of the first two Jewish temples. To Christians, it was a place that Jesus had visited as a youngster to converse with learned teachers and later to drive out the moneychangers. Thus, when the Umayyd caliph Abd al-Malik ordered a new construction on that site, he was appropriating for Islam both Jewish and Christian legacies. But he was also demonstrating the victorious arrival of a new faith and announcing to Christians and Jews that 'the Islamic state was here to stay.'" As time went on, Christianity made its way to the rest of the world like Africa, the Byzantine empire, Russia, and Western Europe. Because of Christianity, lots of beautiful buildings and churches like the Chapel of Notre Dame were built. Despite Christianity forcing its way into the lives of people, I think that it is very important and influential on the world.

Chapter 7

Chapter seven is about the commerce and culture from 500-1500's. In other words, this chapter is all about the different ways that people got around to places. It talks about their trading routes like the Silk Road, Sea Road, and Sand Roads. Depending on where you lived, each road is used very much. The book talks about all the things that go on along these road like the diseases and the certain kinds of goods that would be taken. I think that its very cool how the silk road played a big role in the dispersion of cultures. Its cool that people could travel along the silk road and preach, tell, or share their cultures with other people. Personally, I like to learn about other cultures and practices that are different than mine. It gives me a different outlook on life. As I read on in this chapter, it started to talk about all the different trades and things that each region went through. By looking at the maps, I believe that the best road to take the the Sea road. I think this because there is more water than land. Because of this, there is more places that the Sea Road can reach to and it can deliver more goods.

Chapter 6

In the beginning of this chapter, it talks about the world and the population back then and things like that. In one paragraph, the book reads that,"The world's human population was then distributed very unevenly across the three giant continents, as the snapshot on page 264 indicates. If these estimates are even reasonably accurate, then during the second-wave ear Eurasia was home to more than 80 percent of the worlds people, Africa about 11 percent, and the Americas between 5 and 7 percent." After reading this statement, I wondered why all these people started to move. I also saw that they were moving up Africa to Eurasia and started making the long voyage to the Americas. Despite everyone trying to get out of Africa and being nomadic, there are some people who stayed. I give props to those people who stayed because they did a great job with their civilization. Of course, Im talking about the Egyptian civilization that was built along the Nile river. The Egyptians did a good job in picking that river to settle along and learning more and more about it. The people who did not stay in Egypt and traveled across Africa also found refuge in various places. One of those place is along the Niger River. I like how the little "city states" along the Niger River remained how they were founded. They did not go under Imperialism and did not falter under stronger forces. I really respect that. All of these civilizations like the Nile, Niger, Andes, and the civilizations in the Americas have so much history. All of these civilizations may have similar ideas, but no one idea is the same as another. Thats what I find so interesting.

Chapter 11 Journal

In the beginning of the chapter, the author talks about pastoral societies and Mongol women. When the book describes these women, they sound not at all like the women from all the other societies that we have covered. These Mongol women have a larger part and I feel like they are respected more as a gender than the other tribes. These women were able to ride on horses, serve as political advisers, had a part in the military, and even rode horses. That really surprised me. I also think that it is amazing how the Mongols managed to get so much land and space with the little number of people they had. The book says that "Their thirteenth-century breakout from Mongolia gave rise to the largest land-based empire in all of human history, stretching from the Pacific coast of Asia to Eastern Europe. This empire joined the nomadic peoples of the inner Eurasian steppes with the settled agricultural civilizations of outer Eurasia more extensively and more intimately than ever before." It also states that,"Both the enormous destructiveness of the process and the networks of exchange and communication that i spawned were the work of the Mongols, numbering only about 700,000 people. That is just remarkable to me. All in all, I admire the Mongols. They are smart, ruthless, and close to their families. I admire how they fought and ran through big powerhouse nations like Persia, China, and Russia. That takes A LOT of courage, skill, and intelligence. However, what I like the most is how they incorporated things from the places they conquered into their lives. Take China for example. China made great breakthroughs like taxation and the postal system. Well after the Mongols went through China, they incorporated those things and started to use it themselves. The Mongols are probably one of the smartest civilizations to ever exist.

chapter 3

After reading this chapter, I thought about the U.S.A. I know the author of the book wrote a little about our country in the beginning of the chapter. And that made me actually think about it. The book compared the United States to the Romanian Empire. They also suggested that what if the United States is going to have the same kind of fate? If you think about it, it really could happen. This country is corrupt and all the politicians are only focused on themselves instead of the country. Maybe our country will fall. Anyway, as I read on, the book started to compare these emerging civilizations. The Persians and Greeks were basically rivals. I consider both of those empires to be among the greatest civilizations in the world and definitely the most superior of their time. I also consider the United States as one of the greatest too. But my question is, who is our rival? Could it be Russia? Or maybe China and North Korea? There are too many formidable countries who dont like the United States.

Chapter 2 Documents: What understanding of the afterlife does the epic suggest?

From reading "The Epic of Gilgamesh" there is a part in the story where Enkidu tells Gilgamesh about the dream he had about the afterlife. In his dream, he stood before a scary creature. The creature then took him to the palace of Irkalla where the Queen of Darkness was. While there, he saw all the kings who ruled the earth. Each and every one of them became servants. From how Enkidu described his dream of the afterlife, I can tell that he and the people were afraid of death. The way he described death is similar to the way people describe hell. After, Enkidu goes on his quest for immortality. By Enkidu wanting immortality, that proves that he was afraid of the afterlife. He didnt want to be mortal because he knew that someday he'd have to die. I think that from this epic, it is understood that the afterlife is feared.

Chapter 2

Reading about all these ancient civilizations in chapter 2 made me think about how all these great civilizations like Rome, Greece, and Mesopotamia are no longer that great. Right? Growing up, in history class all you would hear about is "Rome this" or "Mesopotamia that." Its weird how these great civilizations basically shaped history by their acts. The Mesopotamians with their writing and the Egyptians with their pyramids. But nowadays, Egypt is having political problems and Mesopotamia isnt even here anymore. Its just weird to know that these formidable civilizations crumbled at some point and withered away. If you think about it, the United States wasnt even formed until years and years later. Maybe other civilizations copied the ways of these great countries and somehow took them over? Its a good thing that these civilizations fell because it allows us to learn from their mistakes. They say that history repeats itself. What if the United States follows in their footsteps and crumbles? Anyways, I also read that slavery wasn't really associated primarily with "blackness." I think thats weird. If those ancient societies didnt really use black people, where did we Americans get the idea that "black" people were to be slaves? Thats really weird.

Claudius vs. Xinchen

As I read about both Shao Xinchen and Emperor Claudius, one thing stood out like a sore thumb. I couldn't help but notice that Xinchen cared more about the welfare of this people than Claudius. Yes its true that both of them helped their people, but the difference is how they went about it. Claudius gave his people the Claudian aqueduct and the channel of the New Anio. Both of these were enormous and flowed into fancy fountains. He attempted to dry out Lake Fucine causing 30,000 men to work all the time. (Lewis&Reinhold pp 151-152) Claudius did all of these things for his people, but was it really necessary? Personally, I don't think that big aqueducts need to be poured out into fancy fountains. As a matter of fact, I dont even think that an aqueduct needs to be all that big. It just needs to do what it is meant to do which is to transport water. I think that Claudius was a very proud man. Thats why he did things the way he did them. I feel like he wanted people to look at the things he built and be in awe of him and his accomplishments. I think that he cared more about the legacy that he left than his people. Xinchen on the other hand was the opposite. First off, I'd like to note that Shao Xinchen wasnt even an emperor like Claudius. Xinchen was a grand administrator of Nanyang. Source 11 written by Cho-yun Hsu says that Xinchen would partake in manual labor for the benefits of his people. Xinchen has done all these things like digging and inspections by himself. He didnt do anything fancy and still got the job done. Props to him.

Agriculture and such

When I think about agriculture and how it was first formed, the first question that comes to my mind is, "how did they know which plants were okay to eat and which were not?" Now, Im talking about when it first started out. I wonder if they ever tried to eat some kind of random plant and ended up dying or getting really sick from it. It must have been really hard to start farming and domesticating animals in a brand new place. At the end of the ice age, there must've been tons of new plants that were covered by the ice. There must have been a lot of trial and error with choosing plants but they prevailed and got humans to where we are today. I am also intrigued to find out that the best place for agriculture back then was in Southwest Asia. I am shocked to hear that because nowadays, Southwest Asia is made up of countries like Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. This whole area is basically all desert with not much wetlands. But the book also states that around 10,000 to 5,000 years ago, there was no Sahara desert which leads us to believe that maybe the whole geographic region of the Middle East was flipped back then. Reading about the Catalhuyuk village was very interesting. I found it interesting to read about a village with no real leadership. All the people in that village lived with equality among each other and among their genders. Men had their role of hunting and women had their role of farming. Men had no dominance over females. However, this village did not survive which means that maybe the lack of leadership was the cause of their downfall. As history progresses, more towns and villages start to form including the Greek and Roman empires. Both of these nations basically controlled everything back then which makes me believe that the reason they did so well was because of their leadership and Chiefdoms.

Reading

Reading from the textbook provided a different perspective on the worlds history. I find it interesting and useful how the author of the book decided to create a calendar of the worlds history. It helps us to get a feel on a time system that we are used to. The part that really interested me was reading that the whole history of the United States of America would be the last second of the last day in December. I find this interesting because as I look back at the history of our country, so much has happened. To know that all that time amounts to only a second on the calendar amazes me. I cant even imagine how much has gone on from the beginning of the world till now. Humans have inhabited the earth for about 250,000 years now and its crazy to think how much the homo sapien has changed the world. From the stone age to the agricultural revolution to the modern industrial era, great advances in humankind were created in such a little span of time because we are able to make comparisons and connections with various things and people. The question that comes to my mind is, "what made these early creatures like the homo habilis and the homo erectus want to travel and expand?" I think this because why would anyone want to keep migrating to an unknown world? None of them knew what was out there. They didnt know what they would be facing, yet they still went. It makes sense on how their brains and body structure started to change as they moved to different places. They obviously changed because of the new experiences and challenged that they faced.

First Blog :)

Yay Im done