BLOG #15: Chapter 12 - The Worlds of the Fifteenth Century

Chapter 12 was interesting because it focused on the world in the Fifteenth Century but I was more interested on the sections of the Paleolithic persistence on Australia and North America and the section on the Inca Empire. In the Paleolithic Persistence it talked about how Australia changed overtime but more slowly than their agricultural counterparts and how the paleolithic way of life still had a sizable and variable presence in the world of the fifteenth century. I was interested in the Inca empire because like China the book mentioned that they erected a rather more bureaucratic empire. They had the top ruler which was their emperor who had absolute power. I liked reading about how the state owned all land and resources and how subjects werwe grouped into hierarchical units because I like learned about how different political systems and governments worked in past empires compared to ours in America today.

BLOG #14: CHAPTER 11 - PASTORAL PEOPLES ON THE GLOBAL STAGE

This Chapter was interesting, I found it actually a little different than most of our readings. I learned that the "revolution of domesication" began around 11,500 years ago and I also learned that this involved both plants and animals. I learned that here people began to combine farming with animal husbandry and here powerful and impressive civilizations developed on this foundation with great populations. I also learned that Pastoral societies had less productive economies and they supported smaller populations. Here people lived in small scattered encampments compared to villages, towns, and cities. They organized themselves in kinship-based groups where they claimed a common ancestry. This is similar to back home because we seperate different areas of our island into villages and we too gather with our related clans or families that also absorb unrelated people into the community.

BLOG #13: CHAPTER 8 - CHINA AND THE WORLD

CHAPTER 8 WAS AN INTERESTING READING BECAUSE IT SPECIFICALLY FOCUSED ON CHINA AND WENT THROUGH THE RE-EMERGENCE THAT TALKED ABOUT THEIR GOLDEN AGE, THEN TO HOW THEY PUT THE TRIBUTE SYSTEM INTO THEORY THEN INTO PRACTICE AND THEIR CULUTURAL INFLUENCE, BUT WHAT I FOUND REALLY NEAT WAS WHEN THE CHAPTER COMPARED CHINA TO KOREA, VIETNAM, AND JAPAN. STARTING WITH THE GOLDEN AGE, HERE CHINA "RE-GAINED" UNITY DURING THE SUI DYNASTY WHICH WAS FROM 589-618. HERE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN CHINA LINKED ECONOMICALLY. AFTER THE SUI DYNASTY CAME TWO OTHER DYNASTIES THAT WERE KIND OF BUILT ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE SUI DYNASTY AND THESE DYNASTIES WERE KNOWN AS THE TANG AND THE SONG DYNASTIES. THIS ERA WAS KNOWN AS THE GOLDEN AGE OF ARTS AND LITERATURE. HERE CHINA BLOSSOMED IN SETTING HIGH BARS FOR POETRY, LANDSCAPE PAINTING, AND CERAMICS. MOVING ONTO THE TRIBUTE SYSTEM WHICH FELL MORE SO IN THE HAN DYNASTY IN 200 B.C.E TO 200 C.E., HERE CHINA REPRESENTED CIVILIZATION. EDUCATED CHINESE INDIVIDUALS SAW THEIR SOCIETY AS SELF-SUFFICIENT WHERE THEY REQUIRED LITTLE FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD AND OTHERS SOUGHT FOR CHINAS WELL BEING. THEREFORE CHINA WAS KNOWN AS THE "RADIATING CIVILIATION" DUE TO SHEDDING THEIR GOODNESS ON NEARBY BARBARIANS. 

BLOG #12: CHAPTER 10 ; THE WORLD OF CHRISTENDOM

While reading Chapter 10 I learned first that Yao Hong, who was actually a Chinese woman, made an impact on the growth of Christianity in China. I was rather surprised to read this because I didn't expect to start the reading off with a woman having an impact on the growth of Christianity in China due to the time frame the chapter is based off of which is 500-1300. I was not surprised to read that Latin America was perimarily under Catholic reign, many people converted to Protestant Christianity because I am personally Roman Catholic myself, I grew up going to church with my family every sunday and I got baptized as a baby into the religion and went through the process until recieving Communion or Confirmation in high school. I have experienced family members, more so distant family members, converting from the Catholic faith to specifically the Protestant Christian faith denomination. I was surpsied to read that Christianity contracted in Asia and Africa but also expanded to not only Western Europe but Russia although in The Conversion of Russia section it mentioned that they were the Orthodox Christian demonination I was also surprised to read that.that Europse was the principal center of the Chrisitan Faith. And it was cool to read in the Conversion of russian section how the religion reflected the regions cultural diversity because Russia's a lot different in today's society. One thing that really caught my attention was at the end of the chapter was The section about the plague because it seems I have  been talking about and learning about plagues these past two weeks in all of my classes and it just interests me more now to learn about the Black Death because it minimized the human population by so much and took us almost 300 years to reboot back to what the population was prior to the plague.