PartFour

Part Four - Chapters 8-10
__ID Terms and Important Concepts__ Note: Chapter starting at top of 237 before "The Western Roman Empire and its Invaders"
 * Chapter 8 (pp. 237-261; 264-266):**
 * Marcus Aurelius
 * Germanic Peoples --> Huns, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals
 * Battle of Adrianople
 * Emperor Constantine/Constantinople
 * Theoderic, Ostrogothic King
 * Boethius
 * Role of eunuchs in imperial administrations
 * Fall of Han Dynasty --> what followed, succeeded afterwards?
 * Candra Gupta/Gupta Dynasty
 * Faxian -- a popular author for primary source excerpts (e.g. [|Text of Journey to India], [|Record of Buddhist Kingdoms])
 * Korean Kingdoms - Koguryo, Silla, Paekche (P/S/E profile)
 * Ethiopia/Axum (P/S/E profile)
 * Byzantine Empire (P/S/E profile)
 * Justinian
 * Theodora
 * Corpus Juris Civilis
 * [|Hagia Sophia]
 * New barbarians - Lombards, Bulgars, Slaves, Berbers --> what commonalities do they have?
 * Arabs (P/S/E profile)
 * Muhammad
 * Islam - Five Pillars
 * Quran
 * Sasanians/Persian Empire post-Parthians
 * Islamic Empire (P/S/E profile)
 * Sharia
 * Caliph
 * Shia
 * Sunni
 * Yang Jian
 * Yangdi
 * The Grand Canal
 * Tang Dynasty
 * Li Yuan
 * Taizong
 * Wu Zhao - Empress Wu
 * An Lushan

__Blogging Prompts and Critical Questions__
 * 1) What major societal problems faced the Roman Empire during and after the reign of Marcus Aurelius? How did Aurelius anticipate and attempt to cope with these structural weaknesses?
 * 2) What drove the migrations of various peoples into the Roman Empire and how did their arrival and movement change the nature of the Empire?
 * 3) How does the "fall" of the Western Roman Empire reflect the applicability (or lack thereof) of the Conrad-Demarest to the Roman Empire?
 * 4) How did the successor states to the Western Roman Empire constitute both a break from and a continuation of the Roman Empire? (Comp.-Cont.)
 * 5) How did China deal with "invaders" or "barbarian" populations in a way different from Rome and why did these differences exist?
 * 6) How did the Huns invasion into the Gupta Empire reshape that political entity, and why was that effect different that the effect the Huns had in Rome?
 * 7) How did geographic conditions and major climatic events of the 200-700 CE period shape the various kingdoms and empires that existed at the time? --> Geog.-centric question.
 * 8) How did Islam reflect a unique melding of earlier Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity) as well as Arab cultural influence?
 * 9) How did the dynamic and interactions between the Roman and Persian Empires open the way for Islam's expansion?
 * 10) What were the most important factors in facilitating Islam's rapid expansion and growth?
 * 11) How does the Tang Dyansty fit into the analytical framework of the Conrad-Demarest model?
 * 12) Why does Armesto claim that the period of 200-700 CE is more properly characterized as a "world of civilizations" rather than a "world of empires"?

__ID Terms and Important Concepts__
 * Chapter 9 (pp. 268-296):**
 * Jihad --> role played in expansion of Islamic Empire
 * Charlemagne
 * Manichaeanism
 * Uighurs
 * Nestorians
 * Constantine - Primary Source - [|Eusebius' "Conversion of Constantine"]; Secondary Source - [|"Legitimation Under Constantine"]
 * King Ezana
 * King Trdat
 * link/relationship between states and official religions?
 * King Song and King Pophung
 * Soga clan
 * Shinto
 * Prince Shotoku
 * Theravada Buddhism
 * Mahayana Buddhism
 * Hinduism
 * link to caste system?
 * sati
 * Constantinian Model
 * Clovis
 * Bishop Remigius
 * Vladimir
 * Kievan Rus
 * Ibn Fadlan - Primary Source -
 * Ibn Fadlan's observations of the Kievan Rus as imagined in the film "13th Warrior": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5REaxl15uI
 * Altigin and Seljuk
 * Theodocious
 * Signif. decisions of caliph Umar I, caliph Abd al-Malik, caliph Umar II, caliph Harun al-Rashid --> what pattern do their actions reveal?
 * Monastic movement
 * Christian Monasticism
 * Benedict of Nursia - Primary Source - [|The Rule of St. Benedict]
 * Buddhist Monasticism
 * Islamic Monasticism/Sufism
 * Kaaba

__Blogging Prompts and Critical Questions__
 * 1) How does Armesto choose to examine and characterize religion in this chapter? What motivations do you think drove his decision to use this characterization and how do you respond to this approach toward studying religion?
 * 2) In what ways does the physical expansion and increasing number of adherents among Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism reveal similarities and differences?*
 * 3) What role did the Silk Road play in the diffusion of these world religions (Islam, Christianity, Buddhism)?*
 * 4) How did Christianity change its approach to proselytizing (trying to convert others) from its inception as a religion through ~700 CE?
 * 5) Why does Armesto express so much skepticism about the earnestness of Constantine's conversion? What evidence and reasoning does he draw upon to de-legitimate Constantine's shifted religious allegiance?
 * 6) How the Constantine's conversion and the widespread adoption of Christianity in the Roman Empire reshape the religion and its major tenets? How did it reshape Axum, Armenia and Georgia?
 * 7) How did Buddhism interact with the cultures and political entities of the kingdoms where it took root differently from the way in which Christianity and Islam functioned?*
 * 8) Why did Christianity's spread and adoption widely amongst its subject population differ from that of kingdoms and empires in the Islam world?
 * 9) What are the major similarities and differences amongst the Monastic movements of Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam?

__ID Terms and Important Concepts__
 * Chapter 10 (pp. 298-329):**
 * Axial Zone
 * Moche (P/S/E profile based on archaeological evidence)
 * Nazca (P/S/E profile based on archaeological evidence) --> for both, consider what other type of information and evidence one would like/need for a fuller analysis or grasp of these civilizations?
 * the Maya (P/S/E profile)
 * maize --> significance in the settlement of North America?
 * Islamic agronomic expansion
 * Gyoki
 * Tang Dynasty land policies
 * Chinese Canal System (Grand Canal from Ch. 8)
 * Land Reform of 737
 * Strategies for expansions/conquest
 * Chen-la/Khmer people
 * Srivijaya
 * Sailendra Dynasty
 * Caroline Islands/Micronesia --> P/S/E; settlement; etc.
 * Polynesian peoples
 * navigation techniques
 * Charlemagne
 * Primary Source - Einhard's Life of Charlemagne: [|complete] or [|excerpts]
 * Holy Roman Empire --> connections to/reflections of Rome?
 * Wilfred the Hairy

__Blogging Prompts and Critical Questions__
 * 1) How did the geographic conditions of Africa, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, shape its civilizations in ways different from those civilizations that are part of the Axial Zone?
 * 2) How did the geography of the Americas shape the civilizations that developed there?
 * 3) According to Armesto what is the most likely explanation for the decline of the Maya and why does he ultimately decide on that explanation? How does this argument compare with Jared Diamond's notion of why societies decline, or that of Conrad-Demarest?
 * 4) In what ways did the political expansion of the Islamic world also bring about agricultural, medicinal, and dietary conquest?
 * 5) How did the expansion of the Islamic world reshape the landscape and land usage patterns in the Axial Zone?
 * 6) What factors drove the expansion of the Japanese frontier and how did that process compare with the one that took place in the Islamic world?
 * 7) What patterns characterized the expansion into frontiers in Europe and what driving forces were the most important in that process? How did these European expansions differ from those elsewhere in the world?
 * 8) What does Armesto argue was the unifying trend of the later first millennium? What evidence and reasoning does he draw on to make this case? What traditional historiographical thinking does Armesto hope to change through his argument?