A look Back

When studying history it is important from time to time to look back analytically at the the different things that you have studied over a period of time. Recently I have been pondering the idea of the rise and fall of empires and how civilizations grew based on the spread of ideas. I think that in order to survive as a nation/civilization/empire you need to adapt and learn from the past otherwise you are doomed to fail. If you look at the rise and fall of empires, you see that the empire fell for one of a few different reasons. Each empire we have studies has been different in one way or another. As technology grew empires grew based on technological advancements. These advancements were spread all throughout Afro-Eurasia and the spread of technology and ideas advanced these civilizations. China invented several unique technologies and these new techs found their way into Europe via the silk roads. Once in Europe the natural competition between civilizations forced them to adapt and improve these technologies to try and stay one step ahead of the competition. The natural spread of ideas during the renaissance seemed like of of the key factors in the growth of civilizations at the time. Now that we looked at what caused empires to grow, we need to talk about what makes them stop. One of  3 basic things can happen; The plague can hit you and wipe out half of your population, You can get conquered by another civilization, or the people hate their leaders and rebel. Those three things pretty much summarize the fall of civilizations. However, when an empire falls, others lean from your mistakes and new stronger civilizations rise.

A note on Religious Pressure

The study of religion and how it spreads always provides an interesting view into socio-economic structure. There are several religions we have touched on so far and the most recent being the spread of Islam. Islam was a religion that was initially suppressed by the powerful roman church. However after the Romans were pushed back and after their great prophet Muhammad rose, Islam spread quickly. What I find remarkable about the spread of Islam and religions in general is that in ancient times, whoever was in power had great control over what the dominant religion was. After the Romans were pushed out, many found comfort in Islam and many converted. Soon the Arabian empire grew and eventually made all other religions second class. The unfortunate thing is, the same thing repeated itself in many other religions in many different places. For instance, there great religious power struggle in china between Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism, also there was crusades in Europe to push out other religions. In early times it seems many civilizations were not tolerant of other religions and ideals from other civilizations. I think its remarkable how in our own information era we are able to be much more tolerant of other religions and ideals that differ from out own. America, though not perfect, has allowed for many religions to be combined into one country with no dominant religion.

The wonders of religious Assimilation

China is a remarkable example of a country that had multiple prominent religious influences on its people. Its interesting how over the years the predominant religion changed. It started with Confucian values but daoism quietly moved in. Soon influences from both religions influenced different ways of thinking. Each dynasty seemed to have a different view on what elements from which religion should belong in Chinese society. Eventually the silk roads bought in Buddhism from India and that changed china forever. Buddhist values were a new addition to Chinese culture and many in the villages liked Buddhist values. High aristocratic officials tried to get rid of Buddhism by trashing the temples but the values had already been seeping into all aspects of Chinese culture. Another civilization with unique religious influence was Japan. Japan chose to send hundreds of scholars to china to study their system. After doing so they examined their system and decided what were the best aspects of their political system. Japan was 100 miles of ocean away from the mainland so they could easily defend against china, thus resulting in a civilization that could choose how to build their own unique political system. Japan adopted Confucian and daoist values as well as adopting certain political mannerisms from china while maintaining a incredibly unique Japanese cultural heritage with their house religion; Shinto. Japan focused more on the value of being a warrior and the ideology of Bushido rather than the Chinese aristocratic ways. It is remarkable the way that civilizations have been changed and influenced by other civilizations as well as religions in many different ways.

A note on important historical texts

There was something in my short essay during my exam that I wanted to talk about but I couldn't due to the nature of the question. I would like to talk about the importance of literature and early forms of performing arts in early history and its effects on people at the time as well as today. To the Mesopotamians, It was incredibly important to become civilized and in order to push this ideology, the Epic of Gilgamesh was created. This book, to a historian, illustrated how important becoming civilized was. It was the first epic story, and from what I know from the study of ancient theater, many people were unable to read, therefore stories were told around campfires and performed for others. I have reason to believe that after this was written, this story was told orally all over ancient Mesopotamia and it most likely spread out from there to Rome after the Romans controlled that area. Another incredibly important early text that had a profound impact on the civilization it was created in was the Bhagavad Gita. This text set up the foundation for India for the next several thousand years. Its truly remarkable how 1 text describing the caste system was able to stay the predominant cultural belief and way of doing things for nearly two thousand years. The other thing is that it was also created by many people rather than just one person. Besides the past two texts, the Bible, the Analects and several other early texts have had a lasting effect on people for two thousand years. I just find it fascinating how these different texts were created and spread around. It just goes to show how important written and oral traditions are in civilizations.

A note on early religions and ideologies

Many of these ancient thinkers that we read about in the last chapter had a lasting influence on society today. For instance Confucius has had a incredible lasting impact on Chinese society today. There are temples and worship spaces dedicated to him. He, unlike many others, did not claim to be any form of god or holy deity however people did worship him lime he one in certain situations. Another fascinating religion was the Hindu religion. It did not have a set defined origin or holy prophet, instead its remarkable how a large multitude of stories and ideas morphed into a defined religion. It was a religion based on rebirth and and highly rigid caste system. Today the Hindu religion still exists however, in the large cities and especially in the north, the caste system is going away. It still exists in many village settings however. Another remarkable early thinker was Socrates. Socrates did not ever have a religion or ideology named after him however his views and his thoughts on questioning what you do made its way into many post modern civilizations. Jesus or Nazareth however did have a religion that he supported with his teaching and the Christian religion still remains widespread in today's world. His teachings were based on love and kindness toward others. These were ideals that did not always exist at the time. His teachings have helped many people throughout the ages. Its clear to see that words spoken 2000 years ago still have a lasting effect on everyone today. This knowledge makes the study of history even more important as we continue to learn new things about this great thinkers of the past.

Civilizations; Round 2

As we leave the Ancient civilizations of the Indus valley and Mesopotamia, we transition into a new realm of new civilizations. Ill start with the Greeks, unlike the disjointed Mesopotamian city states, Strayer noted that the Greeks were a much more proud people. Despite Athens and Sparta always butting heads, the early Greek city states had a great deal of individuality and unity. It was not until the Persians failed to capture Athens that Greece became noted for its mighty military prowess. However, the Greeks were more known for their system of laws and their republic style government. It was the building blocks of democracy, a ideal that would not be realized for several thousand years. The Greeks were the first to try this system of government, after their Macedonian takeover, the Greek ideals assimilated their way into most European societies inducing the Romans. The Romans adopted a lot of the Greek ideals however, after their massive campaign the Romans switched to a dictatorship abandoning their original republic ideals. This change ultimately led to their downfall because they had no effective way to control their empire full of unhappy citizens. This same dictatorial issue occurred in China as well; the Chinese tried to create a empire based on a dictatorship but it ultimately failed because the people were unhappy with the way things were. India however did not really ever have a marked rise and fall in this second round. India became united under one banner several times but did not ever stay that way until much later. Their pride in their civilization was the fact that they did not want violence but preferred peaceful means of solving problems. This second round of civilizations helped form the civilizations of the the third round coming in the next chapter.

Remarkable Notes About Gilgamesh

The epic of Gilgamesh has a few interesting tidbits that should be highlighted. First of all, despite being a remarkably old text it still is alarmingly easy to read. For instance, Shakespeare was known for his complex use of language and making up words. Gilgamesh however is easy to read and the language does not throw you off even in the slightest. Another curious point about the old text is the way it was written, long periods of narration followed by monologues. Instead of short conversational dialogue it has a fairly set structure. Granted, we did not read more than 5 pages of the epic so the rest of the writing in the 500 other pages could be drastically different. Another interesting thing about Gilgamesh is the deep desire to convert all "Wild-lings" into civilized people. Oddly enough however, they say that being civilized requires beer and women. I don't think they necessarily had the best way of looking at it but it does show a interesting look into the social dynamic of the time.

An Essay Realization

I realized while I was writing my essay a few odd things about the first primary source,  I discovered a few things that were good about it and a few things that were not the best while I was writing my paper. Naturally I couldn't go into great detail about what was wrong with the source in my paper but I thought would highlight the pros and cons here. Ill start off by saying I like most of the information that Strayer puts forth, however there are a few problems with this primary source that should be noted. Most notably, it is written in the first person using 21st century sentence structure. It is a piece about this girl's feeling about her life and it is curious how Shostak tried to tell it in first person rather than 3rd person. I think the source would have more footing in the scientific community if it was written as a research report or a 3rd person view on the situation with a recap at the end reciting where she got this information. The problem is I do not know whether this is all theory or she has hard evidence to prove some of her claims. I do agree with several of her points but its very hard to get people to follow what you are saying without some sort of hard evidence cited in your paper. However, I shouldn't be so hard on her because she most likely included all of this information but it was not included in the book. So if she did, I may choose to go find her whole paper sometime and see where she got her information. The reason i'm choosing to highlight this source is because it doesn't make broad claims, it makes very specific and defined claims that need some sort of backing in order for us to accept them. Again, I do agree with several of her points I just want some research reports.

Government during the Paleolithic Transition

Another very curious thing about Paleolithic societies is they seemed, according to Strayer, to lack a real defined form of government. They truly did not need one. Their societies were maybe 25 people large so they had no need for a well defined tribal society with different heads of state. However there was a slow transition from Paleolithic ways when agriculture was first introduced. No longer were tribes constantly roaming the wilds for food. Communities of people decided to grow food at a specific location and harvest those crops every year. This provided a unique change of perspective and thought. Strayer pointed out that different leaders were needed to protect the village and keep everything in a organized fashion. This sudden change in dynamic required that people needed to be in charge of other people for different jobs. I think it is fascinating that once people needed to settle down in one place, a primitive forms of government started to appear in societies that relied on farming for their yearly food supply as opposed to roaming the wilds following migrant animals. I would assume as societies and technology developed, the population would rise thus requiring additional infrastructure to be laid for a more advanced society. Nevertheless, we will most likely be getting to that in the next chapter so ill talk more about that later.

Paleolithic Studies Could Have A Remarkable Impact On Socio-Economic Issues Today.

Early "Pre-History" discussions are always interesting because the paleolithic era is one that always demands a lot of further research and also has the nature of being tricky to study. I have read many different arguments referring to the paleolithic era and the beginnings of humankind or "Homo Sapiens." The most interesting thing about it all is that our beginnings still have a amazing effect on our culture today. For instance, in society today there is a lot of discussion about racial studies. The fascinating thing about human history is that human history suggests that there are no "Races" or racial divisions in Homo Sapiens. To many scientists there is only one race, the human race. I think the thing I enjoy most about this book so far is the fact the entire first chapter backs up the theory that there is no human race. Strayer seems to pinpoint human history to start approximately 150-250000 years ago. He also has a lot of evidence that we all started in Africa. Those two points are huge boots in helping prove that humans are all genetically the same. I had watched a old NBC Dateline special with Eric Lander, a professor at MIT, and he stated that there is only one tenth of one percent difference between any two human beings and that the genes that control how we look may be limited to only 3-4 different genes. The remarkable thing about all of this is if we are able to prove that humans are all the same, it may have a enormously positive social impact on society today. The beauty of all of this is that it all ties back in to the study of the Paleolithic era and human beginnings.

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