Chapter 8

China and the World:

Together Again: The Reemergence of a Unified China

• Collapse of Han Dynasty
• Incursion of northern nomads - dressed, married, learned
• Greater acceptance of Daoism and Buddhism
• Environmental transformations
• Liu Zongyuan
• China regaining their unity under the Sui Dynasty
• Canal system - linked northern and southern china economically
• Golden age
• Arts, Literature, Landscape painting, Ceramics
• Tang and Song dynasty - six major ministries
• Personnel, finance, rites, army, justice, and public works
• Males and females separate in domain life
• Steppe nomads - less restricted
• Women showed as weak
• Breaking bones - foot binding

China and the Northern Nomads: A Chinese World Order in the Making

• Sharp contrast to rude cultures and artistic achievements
• Tribute system
• Gifts granted
• Favorable exchanges
• Cultural influence across an ecological frontier
• Peaceful trade, military conflict, political negotiation, economic extortion

Coping with China: Comparing Korea, Vietnam, and Japan

• Korea and China
• Vietnam and China
• Japan and China - most discussed

China and the Eurasian World Economy

• Third-wave era
• Paper making
• Handwritten calligraphy 
• Technology was transferred
• China being economic beneficiary

China and Buddhism

• Adoption of Marxism
• Making buddhism chinese
• Individual salvation and enlightenment
• Losing state support
• Purity
• Confiscating lands, money, metals

Chapter 9 and 10

Chapter 9

The Birth of New Religion

• Nomadic Arabs (Bedouins)
• Lived in independent clans and tribes
• Valued bravery, group loyalty, hospitality
• Praised gods, ancestors, and nature spirits
• Muhammad - trader that traveled, overwhelming religious experience
• Islam community rapidly extended its reach throughout Arabia
• Growing numbers of people converting
• Arabian Peninsula

The Making of an Arab Empire

• Arabs migrating beyond their homelands
• Divided by differences of culture, class, politics, gender, and religious understanding
• Spreading to Spain and India
• Believers' movement
• Social conversion - movement from one religiously defined social community to another
• Not an easy process
• Persia - 80% made the transition to a muslim religious identity
• Companions of prophet - first four caliphs
• Controversial question about the relationship between men and women
• "Men have authority of women"
• Negative views on women

Islam and Cultural Encounter: A Four-Way Comparison

• The case of India
• The case of Anatolia
• The case of West Africa
• The case of Spain

The World of Islam as a New Civilization

• Abbasid Dynasty declined
• Ulama - International elite
• External threats and internal conflicts towards Islamic Community
• Exchange of goods, technology, food products, and ideas
• Ecological change
• House of Wisdom

Chapter 10

Christian Contraction in Asia and Africa

• Asian Christianity
• African Christianity

Byzantine Christendom: Building on the Roman Past

• Contraction of Christian faith and societies
• No clear starting point
• Housing Egypt, Greece, Syria, and Anatolia
• Political authority remained tight
• Eastern Orthodox Christianity having a pervasive influence
• Military known as Greek Fire
• Religion reflected the region's cultural diversity

Western Christendom: Rebuilding in the Wake of Roman Collapse

• Reciprocal ties between superior and subordinate
• The birth of christianity in leaders - Buddha
• High Middle Ages
• Holy Roman Empire - Germans
• Economic and Technological changes in China - Silk Production
• Religious opportunities for women - operating outside of monastic life
• Expansion in European Civilization

The West in Comparative Perspective

• Politics
• Reason and Faith - emerging

Introduction to Part 3 and Chapter 7

Introduction to Part 3 (307)

• Discusses Ghana, Mali, and Songhai
• Long-distance trade that was represented by West African civilization
• Ukraine in Western Russia
• Japan, Korea, and Vietnam influenced from China
• Other civilizations: Indonesian island, Angkor kingdom

Other Facts:

1. Islam was the large and widely influenced
2. Collapse of Maya Civilization
3. Mexica and Aztec people creating a powerful state
4. Western Europe collapse
5. Change in human societies - Ideas, goods, and diseases
6. Interaction between societies
7. Nomadic and pastoral peoples
8. Technology rising - making cotton, food crops

Chapter 7 (315)

• Introduction of a story that relates to interactions, trade, and technology
• Trading was used for medical purposes, religious ceremonies, and unsanitary cities
• Creating "political life"

Silk Roads (Growth):

1. Eurasian
2. Steppes - Hides, furs, livestock, wool, and amber
3. Exchanging for agriculture products
4. Silk Roads grew when merchants and travelers were secured
5. Technology - yokes, saddles, and stirrups

Goods, Culture, and Diseases:

1. Not having to walk - using camel caravans as a way for traveling
2. Labor work from Elite Chinese men/women
3. China included bamboo into their silk (products)
4. China producing silk, paper, porcelain, lacquer-ware
5. Conversion to buddhism
6. Diseases affecting Roman Empire and Han Dynasty
7. Black Death
8. Sea Roads
9. Sand Roads - Gold, Salt

Chapter 6

Commonalities and Variations

• Human Popularity was unevenly divided into three giant continents
• Eurasia, Africa, and Americas
• Animals that were apart of the era: Llama's, alpacas, wild sheep, goats, chickens, horses, and camels
• Iron tools and weapons were important during this era

Civilizations of Africa

1. Warm Temperatures
2. Hosting separate societies
3. Geographical Concept

Meroe: Continuing a Nile Valley Civilization

• Governed by all-powerful/sacred Monarch
• Women had equal power as men
• Practiced herding and farming
• Declined: need wood to make charcoal for the iron tools

Axum: The Making of a Christian Kingdom

• Made nutritious grain
• High demand in pearls, textiles, and pepper
• Taxes helped society grow
• Christianity remained dominant

Alternatives to Civilization: North America

1. Gather hunters helped environments grow
2. Becoming unique societies - how they interact and build their environments

Society and Religion

Chapter 5

Society and Inequality in Eurasia/North Africa (217):

• French, Russian, and Chinese
• Three revolutions challenged and destroyed ancient monarchies and class hierarchies
• Abolitionist Movement - attacked slavery
• Women's Movement - relationship between the sexes
• Divided class lines

Society and the State in China (218):

1. Find administrators loyal to the central state rather than to their own families and regions
2. Han Dynasty - established in 200 BCE
3. Rulers required each province to send men of promise to the capital
4. Tang Dynasty - making bureaucracy meant being entered into high privileges
5. Lower class still learned how to be sophisticated and was taught about manners

LANDLORDS:

• Quin Dynasty - unified china in 210 BCE
• Land was owned my small farmers (peasants)
• Didn't have to pay taxes - raising the taxes for peasants
• Create own military forces
• Collapse od Wang Man's reforms and his assassination in 23 CE

PEASANTS:

• Small households
• Famines, floods, droughts, hail, and pests can occur at anytime which made in difficult for the peasants to live
• Yellow Turban Rebellion - "Great Place" golden age of equality

MERCHANTS:

• Unproductive
• Unfair with products
• Could not wear silk clothing, ride horses, or carry arms
• Wealthy - later on in the section

Introduction to Part 2 and Chapter 3

Introduction to Part 2 (109):

• Human community increasingly spread across the planet, encompassing more people and larger territories
• First Civilizations "breaking down" - Technological and economic
• Consequential changes: destroyed city Carthage in North Africa
• Hierarchies were not familiar with change and challenge
• Thematic Fashion - Eurasian/North African Civilization
• Human Journey - remarkable achievements, continuing power

Chapter 3:

EMPIRES AND CIVILIZATIONS IN COLLISION: THE PERSIANS AND THE GREEKS

1. Mediterranean world - Persian Empire and Greek Civilizations emerged, long interactions and clashes
2. Established political system, cultural values, and ways to organize their societies

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

1. Largest, impressive
2. Kings = Monarchs; willing to take down religious regions and officials
3. Effective Admin called Satraps
4. "Eyes and ears of kings"
5. Egypt and Babylon, Persian Kings took care to uphold local religious colts (121)

THE GREEKS

1. Huge, centralized 
2. Divided by steep mountains and valleys (123)
3. In greek civilizations, wealthy and well-born men has the rights of full citizenship
4. Women, slaves, and foreigners took up the other portion of population
5. Sparta - famous for extreme of military discipline (125)

COMPARING EMPIRES: ROMAN AND CHINESE

1. Both emphasized territorial expansion
2. China - Confucianism identified principles necessary for political and social order, emphasized the emperor's divine majesty (links to heaven)
3. Rome -Bureaucracy was less complex, greater emphasis on law codes
4. Rome - Used colonies to foster unity and integration throughout the empire
5. Chine was revived - Confucianism lasted forever

Documents: Life and Afterlife in Mesopotamia and Egypt

In Search of Eternal Life:

• Gilgamesh - becoming civilized
• Civilization - The transformation of when the beast started to become human

Beast:

1. Wilderness
2. Silence
3. Shaggy (facial hair, long)
4. No settled living
5. Ate grass, including the animals
6. Friends = animals
7. Relied on water (only liquid)

Human:

1. Oils (Moisturizing)
2. Bread (Alternative made from the grass)
3. Friends = other humans
4. Beer (Alternative drink instead of water)
5. Protect humans
6. Weapons
7. Challenge each other 

Law and Justice in Ancient Mesopotamia (95-97):

• On Crime, Punishment, and Justice
• On the Economy
• On Class and Slavery
• On Men and Women - Different rules, unfair

The Afterlife of a Pharaoh:

• You have to be great to others in order to go to "Afterlife"
• Surrounding yourself with happiness
• God taking your hand to heaven

A New Basis for Egyptian Immorality/The Occupations of Old Egypt:

• Improving writing was a key factor
• Communication
• Practices

Defining Civilization:What features of civilization, described in Chapter 2, do the documents illustrate?

- The meaning of civilized to the Mesopotamians meant transforming from being a beast to a human. In the story of Gilgamesh, they discovered different changes of how people lived and what they've become. One example, people starting eat differently. Instead of relying on grass and drinking water, they've expanded their knowledge by making other food/drinks by using the sources that they already have.

- There's still segregation between men and women (treated differently, unfair)

- Different religions, but people still believe in afterlife

- Communication is important. We still use the "tool" of writing and speak to each other