Pastoral peoples on the global stage (12)

The “revolution of domestication” began around 11,500 years ago. People living in environments where farming and agriculture was easier maintained and developed impressive and powerful civilizations with substantial populations. For those whos land was not on the agricultural margins, learned how to use their livestock to support their civilizations. Some of those animals also provided a new way of transportation possibilities. Pastorialism emerged only in the Afro- Eurasian world, because in the Americas there was an absence in large domesticated animals. Of all the pastoral peoples, the Mongols made the most stunning entry. It connected from the Pacific coast of Asia to Eastern Europe. The mongol moment represented an enormous cultural encounter between the nomadic pastorals and the settled civilization of Eurasia.

The worlds of islam (11)

Most of the major religious or cultural traditions of the classical era had emerged from already established civilizations like Confucianism and Daoism from china, Hinduism and Buddhism from India, Greek philosophy from the mediterranean , and Zoroastrianism from Persia. On the other hand, Christianity and Islam emerged from the margins of the Mediterranean and Middle eastern civilizations. It wasn't long before the immense transformation that the Arab civilization changed. Arabs began migrated far from their original homeland. With the mixing and blending of these peoples new and distinctive civilizations emerged. All bound by a common faith but divided by differences of culture, class, politics, gender, and religious understanding. The rapid spread of Islam had been accompanied by the creation of an immense Arab empire, like in tradition of the earlier empires. The most significant sign of a flourishing Islamic civilization was the continue spread of the religion both within and beyond the boundaries of a vanishing Arab Empire. The civilization of Islam, operated without a single political center, bound by a share religions culture. 

The worlds of european christendom (10)

The roman empire was divided into two halves the western and eastern that launched the division of Christendom that lasted into the twenty first century. A lot was left from the late Rome, its roads, taxation system, military structures, laws and Christian Church and this persisted in the east for many centuries. Byzantium, consciously sought to preserve the legacy of classical civilization and the Roman Empire. The western half of the chirstan world followed a different path. Because of its geographic location at the far western end of the eurasian landmass, it was removed from the growing routes of trade. Until the eastern and western hemispheres were joined in 1500, the western europe occupied a central position in the global network. Its extensive coastlines and interior river systems facilitated exchange within europe, and the climate would help with agriculture that woud support the growing population. 

Eurasian Empires (4)

The classical era in Eurasia witnessed the second wave of civilizations in the Mediterranean world, the middle east, india, and china. These distant civilizations did not come into contact, each established its own political system, cultural values, and ways of organizing society. There was a great exception when the Persian Empire and Greek civilization experienced a centuries long interactions and eventually clash. The roman empire and chinas imperial state became giant empires, shaping the lives of close to half the worlds population. In the indus valley flourished one of the largest first civilization. A new civilization based father east came along the Ganges River. The Aryans a pastoral indo-european people invaded and destroyed the Indus Valley civilization. 

First civilizations (3)

Civilization was scattered in six major locations over the world during the several millennia after 3500 B.C.E. Eventually civilizations gradually absorbed, overran, or displaced people practicing other ways of living. Like in every nation there were hierarchy classes. Organized around particular cities or larger territories, early states were almost all ruled by kings, who had a variety of ranked officials, had a measure of control over the society, and defended it against any enemies. The first civilizations like Mesopotamia and Egypt, all had the common features of agriculture technology, city living, immense class inequalities, patriarchy and the emerging power of states. But these civilizations werent all the same, they had differences in political organization, religious beliefs, the role of women, and more gave the difference in traditions. Like all human communites, they changed over the centuries. 

China and The World (9)

After the collapse of the Han Dynasty , the chinese discredited Confucianism and grew a grater acceptance to Buddhism and Daoism. The Chinese then migrated to the south, accompanied by their intensive agriculture and completely transformed the environment, destructed old forests and retreated the elephants that had inhabited the lands. China changed over the centuries and its state evolved, its cultural traditions mixed and blended, its economy expanded and its population grew. From early in the nineteenth century, the north of china which involved many of the semi-agricultural people of steppes. Because they couldn't farm the raised livestock the manufactured wine and silk. The nomads were drawn to China, trading, raiding, and  extorting in order to obtain their goods. The continuing interaction between China and the northerner nomads brought together people occupying different environments, practicing different economies and think about the world differently. Beyond Chinas central role in east asia was its economic interaction between eurasia. China was a recipient as well as donor in the economic interaction of the postclassical era and its own economic achievements owed something to the stimulus of contact with the larger world. 

First Farmers (2)

The long Paleolithic era, and the first human process to operate on a global scale was the settlement of earth. Then about 12,000 years ago, a second global pattern began to unfold, agriculture. Known as the Neolithic or Agriculture Revolution, it refers to the cultivation of particular plants as well as taming and breeding particular animals. This replaced the gathering and hunting practices all over the world. Although it to happened over centuries and millennia ago, this Agriculture Revolution represented an all over transformation of human life and provided a foundation for everything that followed: growing populations, settled villages, animal diseases, cities, states, empires, civilizations, writting, literature and much more. Among the Agriculture Revolution, was a new relationship between humankind and other living things. Men and women were not only using what they found in earth but the also changed it. This was “domestication” the taming and changing of nature for the benefit of humankind.  The expansion of farming occurred in two ways, the first diffusion which is the gradual spread of agricultural techniques. The second process was the slow colonization or migration of agricultural peoples as growing populations and pressures to expand pushed them outward.