Examine the primary source documents provided in “Thinking through Sources: “Political Authority in Second -Wave Civilizations”. Your essay must critically assess all of the primary source documents provided in that section of the booklet and must address the following questions: What features of civilization, described in Chapter 3, do these documents illustrate. Also, notice the […]

Examine all primary source documents provided in the booklet “Thinking through Sources: The Good Life in Asian Cultural Traditions.” Compare and contrast the documents in Chapter 4 by discussing what would characterize a “good person”/” personal virtues”, “good life”, “good society”, and how “good society is created & maintained”-how does it relates to religious and […]

. Cultural and social patterns of civilizations seem to endure longer than the political framework of states and empires. What evidence from Chapters 3, 4, and 5, might support this statement (elaborate extensively)? How might you account for this phenomenon? Is there evidence that could support a contrary position? What do sources in chapter 5 […]

Examine the primary source documents (chapter 6 as well) provided in “Working with Evidence: Axum and the World” & “Thinking through Sources: Art and the Maya Elite”. Compare and contrast the Classical Maya and the African empires with those of Classical Eurasia. Then based on those primary source documents and textbook chapter, how would you […]

Based on the examination of the primary source documents (textbook chapter 7 “Working with Evidence: Travelers’ Tale and Observations” & booklet chapter 7 “Thinking through Sources” Life and Travel on the Silk Road”), what can we learn from sources and those who created them, why do you think those journeys and the record of those […]

Imagine you have taken a role of intrepid scholar/historian intent on furthering the knowledge of Axum. What questions you would propose to answer in order to transform our understanding of Axum. What sources you would seek to discover in order to answer those questions. You might want to think about, if Arabian, Persian, or Indian […]

 Analyze the relative merits and drawbacks to living in the Eurasian Classical Empires and Early River-Valley Civilizations. Your essay should include the following empires: Persian, Greek (Spartan and Athenian), Hellenistic (Alexander the Great), Rome, India, China, Mesopotamian, Egyptian. Finally, in which classical Eurasian empire would you prefer to live? Why do you think women’s lives […]

What do you regard as a key historical turning point, a day that the world changed in world history up to the year1500 C.E., and what the consequences would have been if that event had gone differently? Then examine what resources were available in Europe, Africa, India, and China at the beginning of the fifteenth […]

Compare the strengths and weaknesses of primary documents (chapter 12 “Thinking through Sources: Early Encounters; First Impressions”) as presented in those accounts but also what can you infer about those documents. Which source do you think will be more accurate or useful to a historian? Can the differences tell us anything about the strengths and […]

Historians identify three successor realms to the old Roman Empire after the fall of the Western half in 476: The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire; the Islamic lands, and the kingdoms of Latin Christendom in the West. Based on chapter 10 reading (documents and visual sources as well) how can one best describe the history of […]