China's Renaissance

When we think about a renaissance period, we often think about Europe's Renaissance period, however, China underwent a rebirth period as well. This renaissance occurred in the classical ear of which seminal thinkers and technology was more advanced than the Ancient era. One reason we believe China went through a renaissance period is because China had an economic boom that influenced more trade and advanced technological ideas. Some technology that was discovered by China during this renaissance was gun powder, paper, and the iron plow. These revolutionary products increased the lifestyle of almost every citizen in China. (Gun Powder for military, Iron Plow for Farmers, Paper for everyone). The government also developed a new tax system that allowed trade to be more efficient and citizens to be more economically impacting.
I believe China had a significant renaissance such as Europe because of all of the things that I mentioned earlier. If China weren't able to somehow go through this period, China could possibly be much different and most likely less advanced than how they are today.

Chapter 12 Reading

During the fifteenth century, there were hundreds of different types of civilizations. Most of the world's population was concentrated in Eurasia. During the Mongol crusade, China went through a massive population lost but still contained much of the world's population. However, despite the massive impact the Mongols made, China went through a huge cultural and religion change after the time of the Mongols. China became the biggest and most prosperous empire's due to their economic boom and population increase.
In the western side, things were not going too well. Although the Mongols had left Europe, the black plague had scoured across the continent killing much of the population. One thing that Europe did differently than China was that Europe decided to rebuild in different small states which lead to competitiveness and eventually war. China was able to rebuild their lifestyle in an organized, single mattered way. 

Chapter 9

Besides Christianity, there was a new religion that was spreading like a wild fire. However, unlike Christianity which spread through small groups, Islam took over large areas quickly such as cities and regions. In Islamic eyes, women are equal as men in their spiritual life. The founder of Islam was named Mohammad Ibn Abdullah, who was believed to be a prophet and brought messages from God to the people. Mohammad was a trader and traveled all the way to Syria. Like Jesus, Mohammad   underwent a religious experience that convinced him he was the messenger from Allah to the Arabs. Islam was not only seen as a religion but also an empire that strived for success.  As this empire grew, Islam spread further across the land and became one of the biggest religions in the world.

The Worlds of Christendom

This chapter explains how Christianity became one of the world's religion. Christianity played a huge role in World History. Christianity was a hostile religion at first and it took time and blood shed for Christianity to be accepted. For an example, Constantine won a war that made him the emperor of Rome which allowed him to let Christianity be accepted in Rome. The characteristics of Christendom had a life long impact as well as going into the modern era. The characteristics emerged during the era of the third wave civilization. 
Reading this chapter was very interesting and entertaining because I am currently enrolled in a Christianity course that explained how Christianity came to be from the start and when I read this chapter, I was able to relate some of the facts to my Christianity class, however, when I read an interesting fact that I didn't know, It caught my attention and encouraged me to read much more

Chapter 7

Chapter seven discussed the different type of roads that were used crossed the world as transportation, trading routes, and much more. The different roads this chapter talked about was silk road, sand road, and sea road. Silk roads are roads that are based in Eurasia. This road help provide transportion for civilizations in Eurasia. These roads were like a network that spread all over the continent. If it weren't for these roads, ideas, materials, religion, and items would not have diffused from one side of the continent to the other by trade. Sand roads was based in Europe and Africa and helped encourage and develop long distance trade. Sea roads were mainly used in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean which allowed transportation on water that could be used for trade or military purposes. The road that was used by certain civilization depending on the location of the civilization and without these roads, transportation would have been very difficult.

Chapter Six

Chapter six talks about The Americas and Africa and how much they accomplished, and how much culture they had, for how little of them there were. I thought this chapter was very interesting because this chapter focused on some religions in both the Americas and Africa. One religion they talked about focused on the Bantu people of Africa and how they were occupied in southern and central Africa.
When we think about Africa, we think about how we all migrated from that region, however, during this time only abut eleven percent of the world's population occupied Africa. Nubia was a Nile Valley civilization that was competitive for material wealth and land. The did a great job building a civilization near the Nile river allowing for agricultural needs and transportation. However, the people who decided to migrate out of Egypt was able to find habitable regions in places such as the Niger river where city states were a useful idea for civilization. 

Chapter 3 Reading

Chapter three talks about empires and civilization in North Africa and Eurasia (Europe/Asia) which these civilizations had to organize its society based on political and cultural stances. These empires included Persia, Greece, Rome, China, and India which went through both domination and triumph from competitive civilizations. Comparing China to Rome, I feet that China was a more quality civilization than Rome, because it was a more independent civilization and although it had a fall of a major empire, they were able to rebuild a new dynasty that benefited China greatly.
Regardless to how powerful these civilizations were, they lost control of many aspects of their civilization including population, politics, and religion. Although many civilizations during these times fell over the coming years, their ideas, lifestyles, cultural, and technology still stick with us today and impacted millions overtime. 

Chapter 2 Reading September 23

One thing that I found very interesting while I was reading was that the first known civilizations happened around the same time in seven different parts of the world. I found this interesting because the people were much different and their lifestyle was very different yet they managed to create a new lifestyle right around the same time as several other groups.
There were many civilizations that appeared, such as Nubia that was just south of Egypt, Norte Chico located on the central coast of Peru, early Chinese dynasties, and the Oxus  that was located nearby a river valley in the Middle East. These civilizations thrived during the earliest times of world history along the other civilizations that we know such as Sumer or Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley. These civilizations add very similar lifestyles which helped them get through these early times. Similar ideas such as agriculture, irrigation systems, and trading.

Claudius vs Xinchen -The Better Leader

After reading both story of Claudius and Xinchen, I believe that the better leader would have to be Xinchen. Although both leaders helped their people, Xinchen believed that everyone was equal and provided a great environment for his fellow workers. Even though Claudius was able to accomplish a lot of amazing things during his reign but it seems that he only did it for himself, in a way that would only make him look like a great leader because of the results. He only wanted attention and the glory of accomplishing these task so he did what he could to do it, however, Xinchen accomplished much things but he did it for the greater good of his people. He was a more beneficial leader to his people and made sure everyone was okay to work. 

Agricultrual Thoughts September 14

One question I have about agriculture during this time is "how did they figured out what was edible, safe to eat, and harmful to eat." What I mean by this is that not everything in agricultural is safe to eat or even edible. During these times, they didn't have an idea of what was safe to eat and not safe to eat until they tried it discovered themselves what was safe. Although, I believe that without agriculture, humans would have had a much harder time surviving so however they discovered what was safe to eat and not safe to eat is amazing to me.
Nisa's story was very interesting and entertaining to me because not only did it seem like modern day people and paleolithic people were all that different but I was able to learn and discover how a woman's life was like during these times. In her story, she was talking about marriage and that is was an arranged marriage so she didn't truly love him of really know him in general. Arranged marriage still exist in today's times however it depends on your culture. My perspective on marrying someone that you don't love is somewhat weird to me because you spend the rest of your life with that person.

Reading September 9th

After reading from the textbook, I feel it gave me a new perspective on the history of our world. One thing that I found very helpful was the timeline/calendar of Earth and which events were occurring at that time as well as gave a description of what was going on around that time. For an example, the author mentions that if we were to put the creation of the United States on a timeline, it would be the last day of December. The reason I find this so interesting is because when you think about the history of the United States, there is so much that has happened but compared to this history of the world, it isn't much at all.
After thousands of years of inhabiting Earth, I believe humans have come a far way. From the paleolithic era to this post modern era, humans have become much more advanced. One question that comes to my mind is "why would early creations of humans such as homo habilis travel a vast area into something that they are not comfortable in?" The reason why I ask this question is because if your main goal is to survive as a whole, why would these creatures leave their home, their comfortable area into an unknown region. However, their curiosity created an evolution of which survival of the fittest occurred and stronger bodies survived causing body parts to constantly shape into our current style.

Yay - I'm done!