October 25, 2013

Chapter 10 - Inner and East Asia

     The Sui dynasty reunited China after its fall, but Li Shimin, the first of the Tang, took parts of it when a Sui ruler was killed. During his rule, Mahayana Buddhism became popular in the area between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. Other nearby states entered a tributary system with China, where they allowed the emperor to rule them without being under his direct command.  Wu Zhao, a woman, was allowed to become emperor shortly before the fall of the Tang (their fall was due to the Chao Uprising and a rebellion led by a man named An Lushan).
A shoe for a bound foot. The optimum size was around three inches.
     For a period of time, the land was split between the Liao, Khitan and nomads in the north and the Song in the south. The Song were able to make advancements in math, technology, astronomy and medicine. They came up with the idea of fractions, found the North Star and the Crab Nebula, and invented gunpowder.  One of their most influential thinkers was Zhu Xi, who led the empire back towards Confucian concepts (neo-Confucianism). The Song dynasty brought along Zen Buddhism (now commonly practiced in Japan), the concept of credit, and movable type. Women had more freedoms in poorer areas - wealthy women even went to the extreme of breaking and then binding their feet for the sake of beauty, leaving them barely able to walk, and thus, dependent on men. *Side note: the practice of foot binding was not outlawed in China until 1912.*
Samurai

     In Korea, the Silla kingdom was formed, but was taken over by the Koryo in 918. Their religion depended on shamans, or religious leaders who could communicate with the spirits. However, they soon adopted Confucianism and Buddhism from their Chinese neighbors.
     Japan's civilization consisted of four islands that were unified by an unknown leader and centralized by the Yamato regime. Women were allowed to rule, the Fujiwara clan being one of the first to grant them this power. The Kamakura Shogunate came out on top after a civil war and created the first decentralized militaristic government, with the samurai warrior class created to help maintain control. The Tale of Gengi tells of life in court and family alliances, giving us a glimpse into Japanese life at the time.
     Vietnam was largely an agricultural society concentrated on growing rice. The Annam/Dai Viet people ruled in the north, while the Champa, their rivals, ruled in the south.
Sumatra
Java
     The Srivijaya lived on the island of Sumatra between 7 and 11 CE. They controlled India-China sea trade routes and had some of the only ports for stops between the countries. They were allied with groups of pirates who kept the waters safe (for some people), and had their agricultural center on the island of Java. The Srivijayan king declared himself a Bodhisattva after learning about Buddhism (Mahayana), but after the  Srivijaya's decline, the islands were taken over by Theravada Buddhism.

October 21, 2013

Chapter 9 - Christianity in Europe

     When Charlemagne took over as king of the Franks in Europe, he expanded his empire to all of Gaul and parts of Germany and Italy. This brought an intellectual revival in the conquered areas, which were known collectively as the Carolingian Empire.
     In the East, the Byzantine Empire was in control. They converted the empire to Christianity, infusing Roman law in with church doctrines. Arab armies soon tried to take over, with almost two-thirds of the Christians converting to Islam to escape persecution. At the same time, the religious leaders began to disagree with the Pope, eventually leading to the split between the Orthodox church and the Latin church, known as the Schism of 104. Women's status declined (except for during the brief period between 1028 & 1056 when they were allowed to rule beside their husbands), and the economy was one that followed Diocletian's Roman design. In Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia, a renowned cathedral, was constructed as a testament to the empire's mastery of architecture. It still stands today. Byzantine missionaries went east to spread their religion (and language) into other parts of Europe.
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey
     The Carolingian empire (aka the Frankish - French - empire) was militarily effective, but when Charlemagne's son died in 843, the Treaty of Verdun split it into three parts (France, Burgundy and Germany). 
     Attacks on Great Britain and France were perpetrated by the Vikings from Scandinavia. William the Conqueror, a descendant of Vikings that had landed in Normandy, invaded England in 1066 and ended Anglo-Saxon domination there.
     European lands were split up into manors, self sufficient farming estates that were owned and run by a lord. The lord ruled over many serfs, who were agricultural workers bound to him by law. Land was often given to lords because of their military service and support. (This practice was known as feudalism). A parcel of this land was known as a fief, and the landowner was called a vassal. Women were allowed to own land and sometimes worked alongside men during this time.
     The papacy, or the Pope's office, set up canons (laws) governing the church and those affiliated with it. The papacy faced many challenges, especially when it came to controlling all of Europe's religions and eventually trying to spread Christianity throughout the continent. (Yes, Europe is one continent. I will be sticking with the normal seven continents, instead of the "big geography" ones covered in class). The Pope crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor in 962 to provide a secular guardian of Christian interests and spread power.
     The crowning of a Holy Roman (HR) Emperor created problems, however. The Investiture Controversy was a major dispute between the Popes and HR Emperors over who controlled bishops and imperial lands. This was solved by the Concordat of Worms, when HR Emperor Henry V gave the authority over bishops to the Pope. Loyalty to the Church still caused problems, however, most notably the burning of Thomas Becket by knights in the Canterbury Cathedral (now a popular pilgrimage site) for his loyalty to the Church over the crown.
Canterbury Cathedral
     Monasticism, living in a religious community set apart from the rest of the world (monks and nuns) was started by Benedict of Nursia in Europe. Along with studying religious texts, monks would copy and illuminate manuscripts, work in their gardens, and earn money that was donated to the community or the Church.
An illuminated manuscript
     In Kiev, the Rus people (Russians) were taken over by Varangian (Viking) raiders whom they had previously traded with. Their ruler Vladimir I adopted Orthodox Christianity and converted the area that he ruled.
     After 1000, population growth began in Western Europe. Cities grew independent with better plows and horse collars (efficient harnesses) to use in agriculture, thus reviving their economies. Northern Italy and Flanders became maritime trading centers, and gold coins eventually made a reappearance after a few hundred years of being out of use. The Crusades began around this time. The Crusades were essentially armed pilgrimages to the Holy Land (Israel) to take it back from the Muslims. This ended Europe's isolation and brought trade opportunities in as new cities were conquered.
     Pipe Urban II initiated the Crusades, which soon captured Jerusalem and split it into four parts. Though the Muslims counterattacked, they were not too successful. While the Crusaders viciously took over, they still observed times of truce according to Christian teachings - Lent (the 40 days before Easter) and Sundays. This was known as the Truce of G-d.
     Eleanor of Aquitaine, the mother of Richard the Lion-Hearted, was a prominent woman in the french court of the time. She ruled while her sons went on the Crusades (her husband had died), and was the most powerful woman in Europe at the time. The Islamic ideas that her sons brought back when they returned forever changed European society.

     *I have put a link to Mrs. Senecal's (the previous AP World teacher) website on the links page. Check it out - it has a whole lot of good information.*

October 8, 2013

Chapter 8 - The Rise of Islam

     Mecca, a west Arabian city, was the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad. Currently, the Ka'ba shrine
The Ka'ba shrine in Mecca.
is there, and it is a common pilgrimage site for Muslims. It is said to be the site where Abraham (who also goes by Avraham) was said to have almost sacrificed his son Isaac (Islam believes it to have been his other son, Ishmael - they were brothers who didn't get along very well. Isaac became the forefather of Judaism, and Ishmael became the forefather of Islam.) . The prophet Muhammad was said to have spoken to the Archangel Gabriel, who enlightened him about the true god, Allah. Earlier peoples believed in jinns (desert spirits) and shaitans (demons), but Muhammad preached about one god. Hos words were collected upon his death and turned into the Qur'an.
     Muhammad fled to the city of Medina when people began to dislike him, and formed an umma (an Islamic community). He eventually led a revolt and was given back his place in Medina. When he died, a caliph (a successor) was named to take control of his followers.
     There are five central "pillars" of Islam that are still followed to this day:
  1.  Acknowledging one god (Allah).
  2. Praying five times a day.
  3. Fasting during Ramadan.
  4. Giving to the poor.
  5. Making a trip to Mecca at least once (called a hajj).
     A civil war over who was to become the caliph split the Islamic community in half - the Sunnis and the Shi'ites. This formed the Umayyid Caliphate, the first dynasty of rulers.
     The second caliph, Umar, took control of Syria and Egypt and invaded India and Anatolia. He prohibited Arabs from owning conquered land, and therefore,m was pretty popular with the conquered peoples. He was overthrown by the Abbasid Calpihate, who claimed to be descendants of Muhammad's uncle. They ruled from Baghdad and were eventually overthrown by Mongol invaders.
     The Abbasids adopted Persian customs and became more cosmopolitan (*Author's note: I know we all hate that word, but it is still a good descriptor of the empire.*) in a process called Persianization. This is around the time when 1,001 Arabian Nights was written, along with other works of literature. The empire declined as conversion to Islam sped up, possibly because of an expanding empire.
     In the ninth century, mamluks, Turkish military slaves, were not paid properly, so they started a rebellion and took over the government. A people known as the Buyids conquered the area, and left the caliph in control (but only as a puppet for their interests).
     The Fatimid dynasty was established in Tunisia and went on to conquer Egypt. They established Cairo and took independence from the rest of North Africa. Islam also rose in Spain, creating important cities such as Toledo, Cordoba and Seville. Several important religious scholars, like Judah Halevi and Maimonides (Judaism) and Ibns Hazm, Rushd, and Tufyal (Islam) studied in Islamic Spain. The Islamic religious scholars were called ulma, and they studied in madrasas (religious colleges - the Judaic equivalent is a yeshiva, if that helps any of you understand).
     The Turks took the land stretching from Afghanistan to Baghdad and caused a population decline there (as well as in Mesopotamia), eventually encountering and taking over the Fatimid Empire. The Christian Crusades took over Jerusalem in 1099. Mongol invasions destroyed the Abbasid Empire's land. Overall, this was a time of destruction.
     In Muslim society, the Qur'an and hadith (words of Muhammad) were studied and written into law (called Shariah law). Conversion to Islam was easy, and often included moving into Islamic communities. Cities grew at this time in Muslim areas (Nishapur, Kufa and Basra) and shrank in Christian and Jewish areas (Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria).
     Astronomy became popular and mystic groups (called Sufi Brotherhoods) were formed. Women's rights declined, but they were treated better than their Christian counterparts (largely because they could get some inheritance from their fathers). Homosexuality was seen as bad, and slaves could be taken (though not if they were Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Zoroastrian - called "People of the Book", since they all had religious texts. This was only allowed if they were prisoners of war.).
    

     Author's note: A lot of the material in this chapter and in previous chapters has been about religion. If anyone needs help understanding it or relating it to what they believe, please let me know & I'll do my best to help you.

October 2, 2013

Chapter 7 - Exchange and Trade

     When Chinese General Zhang Jian crossed the desert into Northeastern Iran, he began what soon was known as the Silk Road. By 100 BCE, Greeks could buy silk from China via the road through Persia. The Scythians, located north of the Black and Caspian Seas, started using carts for trade along the Silk Road, and nomads traded as they traveled. New crops (such as alfalfa and wine grapes), medicines and products traveled the Silk Road. The Turkish even found a way to move their homes (yurts) as they traveled.
Yurt in Turkmenistan, 1913
     One empire in the Middle East that took advantage of the Silk Road was the Sansid - Iranians who took over Mesopotamia, defeating the Parthians and crowning their own leader as Shah (king - more on shahs in Chapter 8). The Sansids were warrior nomads, whose religion, Zoroastrianism, permeated the peoples' lives.
     Religions also spread along the Silk Road. Manichaeism believed in the cosmic struggle between good and evil, and Nestorian Christians claimed that Mary was not the mother of G-d but of the human prophet Jesus (If anyone needs clarification on that, let me know. Don't worry, I had to explain the concept of Santa Claus to someone last year. Don't be embarrassed to ask!) Jews moved into China, and Buddhism spread. Christianity moved into the Arabian Peninsula, where it would soon become the basis for Islam.
     Besides the Silk Road, the Indian Ocean Maritime System was a great help to trading. It spread across the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, including the Malay Islands, Indonesia, India, Persia and Arabia, and fostered the Indonesian move to Madagascar (the big island off the coast of Africa). Pearls, frankincense and myrrh, along with many different types of spices traveled this route. Although mainly over water and isolated from desert areas, the port of Apologus (aka Ubulla, aka Basra) allowed for products to be moved from the Persian Gulf to Baghdad, in ancient Babylon.
     The Eastern part of the trade route was more hospitable, and many trading merchants settled down and started families there. This brought bilingual and multicultural families, with women as the mediators between cultures.
     Trans-Saharan caravan routes sprang up to cross the desert, linking North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Rock paintings in the area tell us that the herding of cows played a major role in agriculture, but was then replaced by horses, and then horses and chariots. This led archaeologists to believe that Minoan or Mycenaean refugees had come to the area, bringing chariots with them. There have been no chariots found in the area (as of the writing of the book), so we can only speculate. While conquering Romans supplied Italy with goods in the North of Africa, the belt below the Sahara, called the Sahel, was rich with trade.
     What to know about Sub-Saharan Africa:
  • Few external contacts because of geography
  • Steppes - treeless plains
  • Savanna - tropical or subtropical grassland
  • Rain forests DO exist in Africa
  • Large and diverse area
     Sub-Saharan Africans were likely driven together by droughts, and became ruled by kings. Social categories were formed, such as laborers and farmers. but these categories were seen as even (not a hierarchy). Copper working began in Niger, and by the second century BCE, agriculture was common. While smelting of iron was discovered in Anatolia by the Hittites, the practice somehow reached Sub-Saharan Africa. Archaeologists are not sure how, as the two areas did not trade with each other.       
     The Bantu people were a large group that spoke similar language sin Sub-Saharan Africa, located near present-day Cameroon and Nigeria. They are lumped together as one people though they spoke different languages and were quite diverse.
  
  With different ways to trade, ideas and practices spread all over the known world. Pigs, first domesticated in Southeast Asia, became a ceremonial food in other places, possibly being worshiped in Iran and eventually entering Islam and Judaism as a "non-halal" and "non-kosher" food. Coins, first from Lydia, began to appear elsewhere. Buddhism spread by Ashoka and Kanishka, from India and Kush, and the Chinese pilgrim Faxian promoted it as well. Christianity eventually confronted Islam in the Middle East, starting a conflict that we can still see today.
     Armenia (East Turkey) was fought over between the Iranians and the Mediterranean peoples for control of the Silk Road. It eventually opened up to Christianity, allowing the religion to spread further. In Ethiopia, the Kingdom of Aksum spread Christianity to Egypt and Nubia, becoming a key political and economic power from the Red Sea to Yemen.
Africa: North and Sub-Saharan
         Terms:
  •      "Great traditions" - traditions shared by elites from all over, such as writing, legal/belief systems, ethics, and intelligence attitudes
  •     "Small traditions" - local customs/beliefs