Reading Journal

The revolution of domestication began 11,500 years ago. This involved domesticating animals and plants  Pastoral peoples organized themselves in kinship-based groups or clans that claimed a common ancestor. Related clans may come together.  Pastoral people offered women a higher status, fewer restrictions, and a greater role in public life compared to those in the agriculture civilizations.  Women took care of smaller animals, and very rarely took care of livestock.  There was no negative connotation to remarrying widows.  Mongol served as political advisors, and were active in military affairs.  Environmental conditions dictated their patterns of movement.  Some pastoral societies had settlements and others had nomadic lifestyles

Christianity flourished in communities such as Anatolia, Arabia, Egypt, North Africa, Ethiopia, Nubia, Syria, Armenia, Persia, India, and China. In Syria, Jerusalem, Armenia, Christians were to wear distinctive clothing because, at the time, the dominant religion was Islam.  Jesus Sutras The conquest of Mongols allowed for the renewal of Christianity.  Mongols appreciated that Christians could eat meat and drink alcohol including at the time of worship.  In Egypt, Christianity became the religion of the majority.  Many found the Arab government less oppressive than that of the Byzantine empire.  Rural Egyptians converted to Islam  Priests in the west shaved and were supposed to remain celibate while priests in the Byzantium were allowed to marry and grow beards.  Byzantine Empire was a central player in the long-distance trade of Eurasia, with commercial links to Western Europe, Russia, Central Asia, the Islamic world, and China.  The B...

Nomadic Arabs were known as Bedouins. They herded their sheep and camels.  Mecca holds the Kaaba which is a religious shrine that represented 360 deities. The Quran was meant to be recited and not read.  People would convert to Islam because it would aid in social mobility.  Between 750 and 900 80 percent of Persia's inhabitants made the transition to Muslim identity.   There places that left their native languages and switched to Arabic   Descendants of Muhammad had more authority than Caliphs.  

Commonalities and Variations - Africa, the Americas, and Pacific Oceania  Eurasia was then home to more than 85 percent of the world's people. Africa was 10 percent, the Americas were around 5 percent and Oceania less than 1 percent.  The domestication of animals in the Americas was not as successful because it had fewer animals and it very little pastoral societies that were found in the pockets of the Andes.  Africa lacked wild sheep, goats, chickens, horses, and camels. However, due to how close the continent is to Eurasia, the domesticated animals became available in Africa.  Writing was limited to the mesoamerican region in the Americas.  Ancient Egyptian Civilization was in contact with Crete, Syria, and Mesopotamia and inspired the greeks.  Domesticated camel came from Arabia  Highland Ethiopia sustained very productive agriculture.  Climate conditions spawned numerous diseases carrying insects and parasites, which have long c...

Social mobility in earlier civilizations made it harder for those wishing to move up socioeconomic class. It is really similar today. Only the wealthy and well off could afford the cost of education without taking loans. There are scholarships but no real sponsoring. It is possible to climb up the ladder but it takes more than smarts. In addition, I think it is very smart for civil service exams to be utuilized but again, it would only work if the access of education were equal as well as the time the education started.  Slavery is pretty interesting in certain regions because some slaves had rights to protect them but only so much was enforced because slaves was not really considered a respectable human. 

"Serving is Different from Helping and Fixing" I have never thought about helping being based on inequality because generally, the focus is on the act of bettering a situation.  The articles start stating how helping is taking away from someone in terms of self-esteem and sense of self-worth, but I have to disagree with it because, although you are putting your pride aside to ask for help it is not be viewed as a bad thing. This goes both ways because you could treat a server in the worst way possible and still be able to lower the self-esteem of a person and sense of worth.  Chapter 4 - Culture and Religion in Eurasia/North Africa  Religion was becoming a great thing overall in the world with two distinct items  - Greeks and Chinese: Focused primarily on world affairs and human rationality  - Indian Persian, and Jewish: Focused on the unseen realm - Relationship to God and other like figures.  * China - Confucianism and Daoism  D...