Chapter Outlines: 1-22 Parts I-III

This review was compiled by Sarah Scull

Part I-The Early Complex Societies, 3500 To 500 B.C.E.

Overview bullets:

  • At first, humans were nomadic.
  • Humans gradually emerged as the most dynamic species of the animal kingdom.
  • About 12,000 years ago human groups started experimenting with agriculture.
  • Complex societies arose independently in several regions of the world.
  • Complex societies led to more advances in the early human civilization.

Complex societies changed the way that the early humans lived their lives.

Between 3,500-500 B.C.E. dramatic changes in society occurred and altered our history. The complex societies are described:

  1. Complex societies: Refers to a form of large-scale social organization that emerged in several parts of the ancient world.
  2. During the centuries from 3,500-500 B.C.E., complex societies arose independently in several widely scattered regions of the world, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, northern India, China, Mesoamerica, and the central Andean region of South America.
  3. Most complex societies were situated in either river valleys or near sources of water.
  4. Complex societies generated more wealth than hunting and gathering, sophisticated cultural traditions, different religions, influential social organizations, and promoted their values over a much larger region than smaller societies ever could have.

Chapters 1-6 Part I Overview

Paleolithic peoples invented tools and language that enabled them to flourish in all regions of the world. They thrived so well that their food sources diminished. Their Neolithic descendants began to cultivate food in order to sustain their communities.

Based on the Neolithic foundations, Mesopotamian peoples were able to construct more complex, powerful, and influential cities than ever before. Through the city-states, kingdoms, and regional empire, Mesopotamians created formal institutions of government that extended the authority of ruling elites to all parts of the states.

In Africa people of different societies regularly traded, communicated, and interacted. African agriculture and herding first emerged in the Sudan, and then spread to both the NileRiver valley and to arable lands throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Throughout the Nile valley, abundant agricultural surpluses supported dense populations and supported the construction of prosperous societies with sophisticated cultural traditions. Other places in the sub-Saharan Africa were less populated but the migrations of Bantu and other peoples facilitated the spread of agriculture and iron metallurgy. The NileRiver served as a route of trade and communication linking Egypt and the Mediterranean basin to the north with the Sudan and sub-Saharan Africa to the south.

Asia was a land of cross-cultural interaction and exchange like sub-Saharan Africa and other regions of Eurasia. Agriculture made it possible for the Dravidian peoples to build a sophisticated society in the IndusRiver valley and the trade with peoples as far away as Mesopotamia. The arrival of the Aryan migrants led to systematic interactions between peoples of markedly different social and cultural traditions. By the end of the Vedic age, the merging of Aryan and Dravidian traditions had generated a distinctive Indian society.

In the valleys of the Yellow River and the YangziRiver, early Chinese cultivators organized powerful states, developed social distinctions, and established sophisticated cultural traditions. Although there were geographical obstacles such as deserts, mountain ranges, and bodies of water, the Chinese were still able to trade and communicate. Because of this, wheat cultivation, bronze and iron metallurgy, horse-drawn chariots, and wheeled vehicles all made their way from southwest Asia to China.

The migration of the Homo erectus and Homo sapiens to the Americas and Oceania resulted in the establishment of human communities in almost all habitable parts of the earth. It is also clear that the earliest inhabitants built productive and vibrant societies whose development roughly paralleled that of their counterparts in the eastern hemisphere. Many communities depended on an agricultural economy, and with their surplus production they supported dense populations, engaged in specialized labor, established formal political authorities, constructed hierarchical social orders, carried on long-distance trade, and formed distinctive cultural traditions.

Part II-The Formation of Classical Societies, 500 B.C.E. to 500 C.E.

Overview Bullets:

  • Communities began to experiment with methods of social organization.
  • Persia, China, India, and the Mediterranean basin were the most prominent societies that achieved high degrees of internal organization, extended their authority over large regions, and elaborated influential cultural traditions.
  • All faced the difficulties of maintaining the bureaucracies and armies, land distribution, and administering vast territories.
  • All the classical societies engaged in long-distance trade and generated sophisticated cultural and religious traditions.

Between 500 B.C.E. and 500 C.E., communities began to experiment with methods of social organization. These are the results:

1. Classical Societies: Historians refer to Persia, China, India and the Mediterranean basic as classical societies because their legacies have endured so long and have influenced the ways that literally billions of people have led their lives.

2. Internal organization: All classical societies extended their authority over large regions and elaborated on influential cultural traditions. This resulted in internal organization and the management of the classical societies.

3. The classical societies differed in many ways. They raised different food crops, constructed buildings out of different materials, lived by different legal and moral codes, and recognized different gods.

4. All faced several common problems. They all faced difficulties with administering vast territories, military challenges, the problem of maintaining/financing bureaucracies and armies, and they faced the challenge of trying to maintain an equitable distribution of land and wealth.

5. Long-distance trade: Trade encouraged economic integration within the societies, since their various regions came to depend on one another for agricultural products and manufactured items. Long-distance trade also led to the establishment of regular commerce between peoples of different societies and cultural regions. The volume of trade increased dramatically when classical empires pacified large stretches of the Eurasian landmass. Long-distance trade became common enough that a well-established network of land and sea routes, known as the silk roads, linked lands as distant as China and Europe.

6. Religious traditions: Different societies held widely varying beliefs and values, but their cultural and religious traditions offered guidance on moral, religious, and social issues. These traditions often served as foundations for educational systems that prepared individuals for careers in government. As a result, they shaped the values of people who made law and implemented policy. Several cultural and religious traditions also attracted large popular followings and created institutional structures that enabled them to survive over a long term and extend their influence through time.

The classical societies (Persia, China, India, and the Mediterranean basin) all went through a period of experimentation of social organization. These classical societies set a foundation for the billions of people that came after them. Historians refer to them as the classical societies because of the ways their legacies have influence other societies and peoples. The early complex societies launched human history on a trajectory that it continues to follow today. In whatever ways the classical periods affected other societies, they also affected each other. All the classical societies went through many difficulties including the maintenance of the bureaucracies and armies, equal land distribution, and administering vast territories. The classical societies also played a large role in trade and the Silk Road. Long-distance trade became so common that the lands linked as distant as China and Europe.Religion also generated sophisticated cultural traditions. The religious traditions often served as foundations for educational systems that prepared individuals for careers in government and as a result, shaped the values of people who make law and implemented policy. Over centuries, specific political, social, economic, and cultural features of the classical societies have disappeared. However, their legacies deeply influenced future societies and in many ways, continued to influence the life of many people.

Chapters 7-12 Part II Overview

The Achaemenid Empire was able to conquer vast lands because of the military techniques that they borrowed from the earlier Babylonian and Assurian rulers. They devised military and administrative techniques on a much larger scale than any of their Mesopotamian predecessors.

The Qin state lasted fourteen years and opened a new era in Chinese history. Qin conquerors imposed unified rule on a series of politically independent kingdoms and launched an ambitious program to forge culturally distinct regions into a larger Chinese society. The Han dynasty endured for more than four centuries and largely completed the project of unifying China. Han rulers built a centralized bureaucracy that administered a unified empire. They also entered into a close alliance with Confucian moralists who organized a system of advanced education that provided recruits for the imperial bureaucracy.

The agricultural economy in India supported large-scale states and interregional trade. Even though an imperial state did not become a permanent part of India, order still remained because of the casted system and regional states. Indian cultural and religious traditions reflected the conditions of the larger society in which they developed. Buddhism and Hinduism dramatically affected the needs of the increasingly prominent lay classes. India, during this period of one thousand years or so, witnessed the following important developments: a high volume of manufacture and trade, the consolidation of the social traditions of patriarchal families and caste distinctions and sub-castes called jati, and the emergence and spread of salvation-based religions such as Jainism, Buddhism, and popular Hinduism.

The Greeks linked the regions of the Mediterranean basin and although they didn’t build a centralized empire, the Greeks established their colonies all along the Mediterranean and Black Sea shorelines. The Greeks philosophy, literature, and science influence the intellectual and cultural development of peoples from southwest Asia to Western Europe. The Greek poleis and the Hellenistic cities provided nurturing environments for rational thought and academic pursuits. The frequent travels of the Greeks promoted the spread of popular religious faiths throughout the Mediterranean basin and beyond. Some of the enduring innovations for which the classical Greek cultures are best known include the earliest of form of democracy which was found in Athens under the leadership of the statesman Pericles, the establishment of hundreds of cities throughout the Mediterranean basin and southwest Asia, contributions to literature (mythology, poetry, drama, and essays), and philosophical thought of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and later the Epicureans, the Skeptics, and the Stoics.

Under Roman influence Mediterranean lands became a tightly integrated society. The Roman Empire provided a political structure that administered lands as distant as Mesopotamia and Britain. Highly organized trade networks enabled peoples throughout the empire to concentrate on specialized agricultural or industrial production and to import foods and other goods that they did not produce themselves. Popular religions spread widely and attracted enthusiastic converts. Christianity became prominent sources of intellectual and religious authority in the classical Mediterranean and continued to influence cultural development in the Mediterranean, Europe, and southwest Asia. The Romans had a significant impact on later Mediterranean, European, and southwest Asian cultures. These influences include, but are not limited to, the concept of a republican form of government governed by a constitution and a fixed body of law that guaranteed the rights of citizens elaborate transportation and communications networks, economically specialized regions, new cities built throughout the empire, and widespread dissemination of philosophical beliefs and values.

By 500 C.E. classical societies in Persia, China, India, and the Mediterranean basin had either collapsed or fallen into decline. Yet all the classical societies left legacies that shaped political institutions, social orders, and cultural traditions for centuries to come. Because of sponsoring commercial and cultural relations between different peoples, the classical societies laid a foundation for intensive and systematic cross-cultural interaction in later times. After the third century C.E., the decline of the Han and Roman empires resulted in less activity over the silk roads than in the preceding three hundred years. But the trade routes survived, and when a new series of imperial states reestablished order throughout much of Eurasia and north Africa in the sixth century C.E., the peoples of the eastern hemisphere avidly resumed their crossing of cultural boundary lines in the interest of trade and communication. The classical era witnessed the growth and consolidation of vast empires such as Rome, China, and Parthia. Regular land and sea trading routes, collectively known as the silk roads, became established thoroughfares for the spread of goods from the coast of China to Western Europe. This extensive trading network had several consequences, both intended and unintended such as regions beginning to specialize in certain products, merchants, traders, mariners, and bankers became much more wealthy and influential than they had ever been before, merchants, travelers, and missionaries carried popular religious beliefs to distant lands via the silk roads including Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Mithraism and disease pathogens were carried to populations that had no immunities to them, causing widespread epidemics throughout Eurasia.

Part III – The Postclassical Era, 500-1000 C.E.

Overview bullets:

  • A period of major readjustment for societies in the Eastern Hemisphere
  • Turbulence and instability for societies in China, India, southwest Asia, Mediterranean basin
  • Collapse under strain of internal power struggles, external invasions, or combo of the two
  • Changes during this period had long term effects that have continued to the present day

During the centuries (500-1000) after the collapse of the classical empires, the different societies went about restoring political and social order in different ways:

  1. Byzantine empire in eastern Mediterranean: it was the only empire from classical period that survived. It maintained order with a strong centralized emperor ruling both state and religion. It also used the theme system to strengthen local control and defense with generals.
  2. Islamic empire: Arab conquerors spread the Islamic faith and overcame the Sasanid empire in Persia and in just 1 century spread the Islamic empire from Arabia to the east and west.
  3. In China: the Sui and Tang dynasties restored central imperial control with emperor rule.
  4. In India: there were series of regional kingdoms that restored order instead of centralized emperor and imperial control.
  5. In western Europe: centralized control returned under Charlemagne and the Carolingian empire in the 8th and 9th centuries, but more invasions caused the collapse of central rule and required local nobles and manors to build defense and local order.

In whatever ways they restored order, the post-classical societies revived trade and cross-cultural communication and exchange. Rapid economic growth happened. There were technological innovations in agriculture, products, and inventions. As agriculture and food production increased so did the population. The post-classical era was also rich in the development of religions. Islam first appeared in Arabia and spread quickly through Asia, Africa, and Europe. Buddhism began in India and expanded to China, Korea, Japan, and southeast Asia. Christianity was the official religion of the Byzantine empire and through the schism with Roman Christianity, it established its own Eastern Orthodox Church which spread and influenced eastern Europe and Russia. Christianity in western Europe became the Roman Catholic Church with a strong, independent papacy rule from Rome. Literacy and formal education also spread with the production of paper, printing, and books.

Chapters 13-22 Part III Overview

While the western half of the Roman empire crumbled and fell, the eastern half, which became known as Byzantium, managed to survive and, mostly, to thrive for a millennium. The Byzantine Empire suffered many serious setbacks because of both internal strife and external pressures. Nevertheless, this culture, which blended Roman and Greek traditions, managed to flourish politically, economically, and socially up until the time it began its centuries-long decline culminating in its conquest by the Islamic Ottoman Turks in 1453. Several unique features of the Byzantine civilization contributed to its prosperity were a strategically located capital city called Constantinople, a highly centralized and autocratic governmental structure consisting of an exalted emperor with an aura of divinity and a large and intricate bureaucracy, a rich Christian tradition that eventually evolved into an independent and separate faith referred to as Eastern Orthodox, the theme system, and the extension of Byzantine cultural traditions to Eastern Europe and Russia through political, cultural, and economic relations.