Venn Diagram of Chinese Influence in East Asia

Map of Post Classical India

Harun Post

This could be a mediocre post, because it does seem somewhat reliable but yet this can benefited and this can be easily manipulated and changed. This could fault the information on the website and change it. I have a question about his relationship with sister, it seems quite awkward and seems very shady also. He did become caliph and it would be interesting to see how he would function as a leader. Wikipedia definitely leaves more questions for me because it has very shady answers with little explanation. Harun sparked such imagination since not much was actually factual about, so some room for imagination and interpretation was left. His fame came because he was the real life Aladdin, he filled the timeframe and you could say that it is based off him. The Wikipedia page adds to serve to it by explaining a thousand nights and how he relates to it.

Benjamin of Tudela at Baghdad Reading

Benjamin is very biased towards the Muslims and his view point cannot be taken seriously. He often describes the power that the leaders of the Muslim religions have and when he talks about others he almost condescends them.he describes the caliph as a benevolent man even though he has not met every all of them and therefore he is making judgements on stuff he doesn't have any idea on. He clearly favors Baghdad describing it as an almost heaven like land that cannot be found anywhere in the whole land of Mesopotamia. He also says wise men live there, and this clearly isn't factual and just another judgment he makes that has no evidence.

Quran's Reading excerpt from Book

The Quran's teachings on the relationship between Allah and human beings are similar with other monotheistic religions in that men and women are taught to give themselves fully to God and devote themselves to their religion as their life goal. Also praying differs in Islamic religion in that it is a way of praise and thanks as opposed to others in it is a way of helping to make choices and asking for things. Also the warning of not following the church and teachings are given in all of the religions and tell of a bad place where pain and suffering occur. Also the religions all show that god loves you and cares about you and he is comparable to no one.

Islamization of the Silk Road

Bentleys arguments are not supported in this writing. Foltz immediately throws out the idea of much believed force Muslims use if "convert or die.pressure and force was one of the arguments that Bentley supported to have people accepted and join a religion. Interestingly he brings up a point of Muslims expansion being driven by ancient Arabian tradition of raiding. This is not something Bentley supports or explains. Also the idea of Muslim domination of the Silk Road has some heavy influence of people traveling along the way, but no force so this maybe could be voluntary action. I believe Foltz was much more aimed towards the economy and Silk Road having a much bigger role in the transformation and spread of Islamic beliefs along the Silk Road.

Liudprand of Cremona Excerpt

This excerpt has a much more negative and condescending connotation to it. At first the author complains about the house calling it "hateful, waterless, draughty stone house". This is probably over exaggerated and it is not nearly as bad as described. Then in the next paragraph the author describes the trip to Nicephorus as a terrible and that seemed to describe his ugliness pretty in depth. I would not trust this because it seems pretty false and over exaggerated.

The Wealth and Commerce of Constantinople

This passage comes across as praising the city of Constantinople,discussing the wealth and economic boom saying,"there is none like it in the world except Baghdad". Clearly this is an opinionated statement and there is no actual evidence backing this up. Also the author of this article claims that in the church Hagia Sophia there are, "pillars of gold and silver, and lamps of silver and gold more than a man can count." Once again, this is another opinionated statement and clearly the comment about "more than a man can count" is a clear exaggeration. Also at the end of the passage the author claims, "Wealth like that of Constantinople is not go be found in the whole world", once again this is another opinionated statement that has no evidence to support it. I don't think I can trust this as accurate just because there is way too many positive connotations and it sounds practically like heaven, sounds too good to be true.

Ibn Battuta Passage

Ibn Battuta comes across as a pretty neutral writer in the first paragraph , he does not praise or condescend Constantinople. He describes Constantinople in a physical aspect. He focuses much more on the location and what it is near rather than describing the people. He discusses the river and how Constantinople is located close to the sea. In the second paragraph, Ibn comes across as condescending the people calling their church filthy and dirty, if course this is all from his viewpoint. I believe I could trust this viewpoint because it comes across as very neutral with both the pros and cons of Constantinople.

Post classical era excerpt

I expect the post classical era to be about the restoration of political and social order. The post classical era is a time of healing from the mess that was made towards the end of the classical era. Also I believe it is going to be about making new connections with different countries and different empires rising with new social standards. I believe much is going to change socially but some history tend to repeat itself too so some empires will make the same mistakes others did in the past.

Da Qin

If I were an imperial emperor and I were to receive this information about Rome, I think these could be good friends for many reasons. They are great trading partners, we give them silk they give us gold and fine linen. They have many other goods that almost anybody in our country would buy.Also we could maybe adopt the idea of a temporary dictator to step up in a time of crisis. However, they seem to give a lot of people a extent of power and I don't want that. Incan definitely see us being trade partners and maybe even adopting little parts of the culture but I refuse to give people I don't know or trust power.

Map of Silk Road

My map of the silk road on the ipad isn't really my best work. I had a tough time with the app show me to begin with let alone the fact I didn't even have a stylus. I had a tough time spelling the roads on the ipad and writing was difficult because my hands are way to big. The map did help me understand it,though it may not look that good, the process in creating the map was able to help me understand the route if the Silk Road more.

Divorce and Marriage for women in Ancient Rome

Divorce for women in Ancient Rome was actually somewhat equal. Though there was very harsh crimes for very bad actions, it was not as one sided as I thought it would be if a man initiated the divorce, he would have to return the dowry in full. The society is not as patriachral as I thought it would be. Marriage was much more different however, marriage was looked at for love, but to produce men to inherit everything of their fathers. Marriage did need e support of both families but was much more geared towards men, and woman were basiclally there to birth the child and raise them. I think this is a horrible way for women to live, but at the time this is what Romans looked at as most efficient. From judging as a neutral opinion, it makes sense for woman to fill these roles and birth the child. This isn't right to me and the heavy amount of sexism against women. This impacts my tophoughts because it shows how Rome undervalues human lives such as women and only look for them to raise the inheritor of the fathers possessions.

Roman Republic to Empire Narrative

The way Romans transitioned from a republic to an empire by setting important guidelines. First they set very strict laws for citizens to follow and then they also made more laws,which the makers of seemed to be above. Then they extended their borders of the empire. Also economy played an important role and aristocrats had much power, and once Caesar does Augustus took over and continued the legacy. The transition from a republic to an empire for Rome truly established a significant mark in history.

Week three

This week we have focused much more on the economy and how both china and the United States have affected the other global economy. I was pretty interested in this because I enjoy seeing on how important superpowers are in stabilizing the governments all around the world including the global economy.

Alexander the Great: election 2012

As rough as these past few months have been with our rather weak candidates, I would still take either of them and maybe even Santorum over Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great was obsessive over expanding his Empire because he felt he needed to expand to prove something to his father. Alexander was a violent man who didn't really value human life, Alexander also just conquered everywhere he traveled, not matter what. If you where to put him into context today, he would be a crazy right winged man that would want to expand land. He also was bisexual so you can't really call him right winged so I would describe as a much more militaristic man, than conservative. Never the less, he was also crazy in thinking he was the son of the god Zeus, the oracle people probably had swords to their heads as he demanded if he was the son of Zeus or not, I don't not think Alexander the Great would be a good fit into this current election and he would probably get less votes than if Sarah Palin ran for the tea party.

King Abdullah II of Jordan

King Abdullah II of Jordan is doing the right thing with a slower transition to democracy simply because it goes from no voicing your opinion to protesting. Look at America, since we had occupy Wall Street some people took months off from work in order to protest. With everything that has been going on lately in the Middle East, the protests would be much more violent.King Abdullah II of Jordan was very wise to do this because he understands its what the country wants, but you can't bite off more than you can chew. I think King Abdullah II of Jordan will succeed with what he is doing because if he keeps people happy and little conflict, many people will be happy and will not cause trouble.

Democracy, good idea or no?

The way that democracy was described today in class made me think much more about democracy. There is a reason that we vote for qualified candidates to be our leaders, all people really don't know how to make important decisions when backed into a corner. Democracy as we described in class today would be a rather dumb idea for a large society because there would be to many conflicting opinions and this could lead to forming violent riots or even small armies against each other. People deserve to be given a right to choose how to live, but too much freedom and choice would basically lead to anarchy because democracy is essentially, "for the people by the people".

Sources from the past 223

This story might have appealed to early Buddhist because of the story of the caste. Yasas really cares about the castes even within monks of the Buddhist religion. Ashoka was very angry about this because you were supposed to not care about castes and only about loving each other. This appealed to many early Buddhist because much of them were from lower class and enjoyed the idea of not having your life and lifestyle automatically characterized because of what people you are born into.

Qin, Han Empire Map

Ancient China vs India political systems

The ancient Chinese and Indians both had different political systems. India was unified for a while, while ancient China had many problems with unifying a broke up into almost state like regions. The ancient Indians established a series of small kingdoms over the whole land, which helped in keeping India unified. Both the Chinese and Indians looked to conquer and constantly expand their boundaries. For the ancient Indians, Ashoka set important polices in Indian which soon collapsed after his death and this is when India turned to local rulers controlling small regions of India themselves.

Xun Zi and Mencius Beliefs

Xun Zi believes human nature is bad, he explains that human nature needs to be corrected by punishment. He believes most people are born bad, and very few people are born good. He believes that you can change, but it has to be cemented in through physical torture. Menicus on the other hand, believes in human nature and free will. Menicus believes you can make whatever choices you would like and stand for them. I would go with Menicus as a citizens because freewill is very important and I strongly believe in it.

Confucian Analects

In this belief, there is more of a guideline than rules, and free will is also given.A lot of the passage start with "if" instead of "do". I do believe this a religion, because there is a guideline to follow and also talks about the spirit. It also talks about the rewards of sacrifice and how sacrificing your soul would be flattery. This book believes in that everyone is born neutral, from book 8 chapter two when it says, respectfulness without the rules of propriety becomes laborious bustle. Also many of the book titles start with the word "if", which shows that we have been given free will and we can make the choice to do whatever we want. Also chapter 6 of book 1 talks about how you should respect your parents,but you do not have to. This religion gives free and you decide whether to be a good or bad person, it is not predetermined.

Map of Persian Empires

Sources from the Past Page 176

Zarathustra makes the assumption of human nature that there will always be a balance of good and evil. The twin spirits really talk about good and evil, maybe trying to warn people to not be temped into doing what is not right. Zarathustra also says that some will make the right choice to make morally good choices, but others need to be guided to make the right choice (evils souls). Zarathustra also preaches about the greatness of "Righteous ever" which is probably heaven, hoping some people get motivated by that to make the right moral choice.

Comments For History Head

Nick <333333! The poster looks great! I really like the explanation of the internal and external pictures, really helps with the understanding of the poster. The one issue that I have is the timeline, perhaps there could have been more information on it, such as events that took place during the time period? Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia are very similar because they both lived off of fertile land with the rivers that surrounded them. They differed because religion played a huge role in Egypt, while Hammurabi codes were much more important in Mesopotamia. What important events took place during the ruling of Hammurabi? Love Mike Ackerman Tim!, whats up? I really like the pictures you used for your project, they really made sense and I was able to make the connections. The key was a little sloppy but it is not a big deal. Egypt is similar to Mesoamerica because of the structure of the social classes with rulers at the top. They differ because of the lack of migration the Egyptians had and also the products they made. I would also to have loved to know more about the rulers of the Mesoamericans. From Mike Ackerman

Poster for History Head Project

First Test and Essay

Our past two days in this class have consisted of a seep entry multiple choice test and a long essay on six chapters of our textbook. I was worried at first about the test, but realized that worrying about the test wasn't going to do much good. I felt calm and relaxed as I took the test, and answered all the questions to the best of my ability.I would say that I was prepared for both, but, a little underprepared for the essay because I didn't know what to expect.i believe both went as I thought, not amazing but not terrible (much closer to terrible). It was what I expected from this class and that's just the way it is.