The Spread of New Ways in Eurasia, 200 CE to 1000 CE Required Reading We will all read Chapter 4 in The Human Journey as well as other readings and videos specific to the Discussion Board topic you choose.  Those readings can be found in the Discussion Board itself.  To access the required reading, click on the Discussion Board link below and then on the Week Three Discussion 1 link.  There are two topics for each Discussion Board this week but you only write on one topic. It should take you about a day to read the materials for a Discussion Board. To help you follow what is happening historically to whom by whom and where, be sure to consult the time lines at the start of each chapter and the maps printed throughout the book. They will help orient you to the main developments we are studying. At the end of the module, students should be able to: · Explain "southernization" · Compare and contrast the rise and spread of the world's major salvation religions · Analyze the role of "Silk Roads" in facilitating the transfer of ideas and material goods across Eurasia Lecture Notes and Key Terms Lecture Notes from the Instructor Rome After People The Roman Empire had its continuation in the east as the Byzantine Empire.  But in the west, Europe was shattered by the destruction of Roman institutions.  It literally crumbled as people vacated the dying or destroyed urban centers and fled to the country and simpler rural lifeways. In onsite classes, I like to show the History Channel program called Life After People to demonstrate what it must have felt like to watch a sophisticated complex urban civilization devolve back to nature in the post-classical era. It uses Computer-Generated Imaging to show that, in a scenario where people are removed, time destroys the icons of our complex industrial civilization. Vines tear apart skyscrapers and algae clogs Hoover Dam. The lights go out and nature and wildlife cover the urban landscape.You can rent  or stream this video from Netflix. Rome’s collapse sent Europe backward into a simpler, non-urbanized period.  Imagine all the complexities of urban life that we’ve discussed – diversified roles, complex religions and rituals, and levels of classism from elites to slaves – falling apart. The population of the City of Rome itself was reduced from about 1 million to around 10,000.  Without slaves and overseers to maintain baths, theaters, aqueducts and other public amenities of urban Roman life all over Europe, these structures and the customs associated with them fell to ruin. Even literacy and theoretical knowledge fell by the wayside. Historians called it the “Dark Ages” because of an absence of writing from this period to “illuminate” for us what happened then. Janet Abu-Lughod in her book, Before European Hegemony, paints a picture of Europe as a virtual backwater in the post-classical period. Not so the rest of the Old World! Trade and commerce, exchange of ideas, language, and culture, and a steady stream of.

1. The Spread of New Ways in Eurasia, 200 CE to 1000 CE
Required Reading
We will all read Chapter 4 in The Human Journey as well as
other readings and videos specific to the Discussion Board topic
you choose. Those readings can be found in the Discussion
Board itself. To access the required reading, click on the
Discussion Board link below and then on the Week Three
Discussion 1 link.
There are two topics for each Discussion Board this week but
you only write on one topic. It should take you about a day to
read the materials for a Discussion Board. To help you follow
what is happening historically to whom by whom and where, be
sure to consult the time lines at the start of each chapter and the
maps printed throughout the book. They will help orient you to
the main developments we are studying.
At the end of the module, students should be able to:
· Explain "southernization"
· Compare and contrast the rise and spread of the world's major
salvation religions
· Analyze the role of "Silk Roads" in facilitating the transfer of
ideas and material goods across Eurasia
Lecture Notes and Key Terms
Lecture Notes from the Instructor
Rome After People
The Roman Empire had its continuation in the east as the
Byzantine Empire. But in the west, Europe was shattered by the
destruction of Roman institutions. It literally crumbled as
people vacated the dying or destroyed urban centers and fled to
the country and simpler rural lifeways.
In onsite classes, I like to show the History Channel program
called Life After People to demonstrate what it must have felt
like to watch a sophisticated complex urban civilization devolve
back to nature in the post-classical era. It uses Computer-
Generated Imaging to show that, in a scenario where people are

2. removed, time destroys the icons of our complex industrial
civilization. Vines tear apart skyscrapers and algae clogs
Hoover Dam. The lights go out and nature and wildlife cover
the urban landscape.You can rent or stream this video
from Netflix.
Rome’s collapse sent Europe backward into a simpler, non-
urbanized period. Imagine all the complexities of urban life
that we’ve discussed – diversified roles, complex religions and
rituals, and levels of classism from elites to slaves – falling
apart. The population of the City of Rome itself was reduced
from about 1 million to around 10,000.
Without slaves and overseers to maintain baths, theaters,
aqueducts and other public amenities of urban Roman life all
over Europe, these structures and the customs associated with
them fell to ruin. Even literacy and theoretical knowledge fell
by the wayside. Historians called it the “Dark Ages” because of
an absence of writing from this period to “illuminate” for us
what happened then.
Janet Abu-Lughod in her
book, Before European Hegemony, paints a picture of Europe as
a virtual backwater in the post-classical period. Not so the rest
of the Old World! Trade and commerce, exchange of ideas,
language, and culture, and a steady stream of travel took place
during this period along the Silk Road caravan routes and
throughout the Indian Ocean from Africa to Southeast Asia.
Persian was the trade language commonly spoken from China to
Africa. In fact Swahili, the trade language of East Africa, has
elements of Bantu, Arabic and Persian mixed into it.
During the post-classical era, most of Europe remained outside
this dynamic “world-system” of trade and exchange with the
exception of a few intrepid trading cultures like the Vikings or
those nearest the influence of Byzantium and the Middle East.
The most dynamic innovators and conveyors of learning and
trade living along the Afro-Eurasian axis during this time were
the converts to a new religion, Islam. Islam has its roots in the
pagan beliefs of the Arabian peninsula and

3. the Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Christianity with
influences from Greece, Persia, and India.
When it came on the scene in the early 600s CE, its simple-to-
follow tenets and practices appealed to people in a way that
other religions with more complicated laws, practices,
and rarefied theologies could not. Islam spread from its center
in Arabia west to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain), south to
Ghana, north into central Asia, and east all the way to what is
now Pakistan. (See the map on page 131.)
One basic tenet of Islam is to honor the intellect and maintain
the life of the mind. If it were not for Islamic scholars, much of
classical western learning would have faded with the dying
Roman Empire. Greek and Roman philosophy and literature
were translated into Arabic and preserved for later centuries
when it could be translated into Latin. The Europeans who
centuries later revived this body of knowledge looked upon it as
a “rebirth” or renaissance
Website: The Journey of Faxian to India (ca. 400 CE) -
http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/faxian.html
Website: The Travels of Marco Polo (ca. 1300 CE) - read
Chapter 1 through Chapter 18) -
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Travels_of_Marco_Polo/Pre
face/Chapter_1
Topic 1 Required Reading
Kevin Reilly, The Human Journey, Chapter 4
Website: Silk Road - http://asiasociety.org/education/silk-road
Website: Silk Road History -
http://www.thesilkroadchina.com/fact-v11-the-silk-road-
history.html

4. topic 1 Required Reading
Kevin Reilly, The Human Journey, Chapter 3
Website: British Museum, Athens -
http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/athens/home_set.html
Website: British Museum, Sparta -
http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/sparta/home_set.html
he Making of an Afro-Eurasian Network, 1000 CE - 1450 CE
Required Reading
We will all read Chapter 5 in The Human Journey as well as
other readings and videos specific to the Discussion Board topic
you choose. Those readings can be found in the Discussion
Board itself. To access the required reading, click on the
Discussion Board link below and then on the Week Three
Discussion 2 link.
There are two topics for each Discussion Board this week but
you only write on one topic. It should take you about a day to
read the materials for a Discussion Board. To help you follow
what is happening historically to whom by whom and where, be
sure to consult the time lines at the start of each chapter and the
maps printed throughout the book. They will help orient you to
the main developments we are studying.
At the end of the module, students should be able to:
· Compare and contrast economic, political, social, and cultural
developments in Europe, China, central Asia, and the Islamic
world.
· Explain how Europe, Asia, and much of northern Africa
became part of a unified network of trade and communication
between 1000 CE and 1450 CE.
· Assess the importance of their different cultural contributions
to the development of an Afro-Eurasian ecumene between 1000
CE and

5. · Lecture Notes from the Instructor
· The Shape of Things To Come
· The first Crusade took place at the end of the first millennium
CE. With the promise of spiritual rewards afforded martyrs and
the more real expectation of acquiring wealth and political
power in the Holy Lands, thousands left the European farms and
small urban centers to head southeast.
· On the way, they saw the splendors of Byzantium and the
Islamic world: beautiful architecture, sophisticated cities,
advanced learning, and – perhaps most importantly – a rich
trade exchange fully integrated into the lives of North Africans,
Byzantines, and Asians. It’s no wonder that after this exposure,
western Europeans would never be the same. The simple life of
agrarian manors, villages, and small trade towns began an
irreversible change toward growth and complexity in society,
politics, and economics.
· The Germanic tribes that overran the Roman Empire 500 years
before valued parenting and family life and used marriage as a
contract binding families into one group of “kin” obligated to
each other for mutual benefit. Among the complexities that
came out of exposure to the Islamic world after the start of the
Crusades were political changes that entrenched feudalism into
society, creating further class hierarchies and categories of
elites.
· This new degree of complexity played out in royal courts, the
Church, and the new universities of Paris, Bologna, and other
European urban centers established long ago by the last great
command system empire on European soil, Rome. But history
did not play out in Europe the trend that should by now be
familiar to you. And that means something big is changing in
the whole long history of humankind. Germanic tribes of the
fifth century (Franks, Angles, Saxons, various Goths, etc.)
became the European monarchies of the second millennium.
These monarchies spent centuries fighting and changing
borders, gaining and losing territory, but never again filled the
space as a long-lived single empire along the lines of Rome,

6. Alexander’s Greece, Persia, or even Babylon, Assyria, or Egypt.
· We hear the very whispers of something new – the Modern Era
-- which will not fully form until after the Age of Discovery
(circa 1500s). A monolithic command system empire can't seem
to replace Europe’s descendants of tribal peoples -- modern
nation-states in competition with each other, market-driven,
technologically advanced, and increasingly democratic.
Parallel Worlds of Inner Africa, the Americas, and Oceania
before 1450
Required Reading
We will all read Chapter 6 in The Human Journey as well as
other readings and videos specific to the Discussion Board topic
you choose. Those readings can be found in the Discussion
Board itself. To access the required reading, click on the
Discussion Board link below and then on the Week Four
Discussion link.
There are three topics but you only write on one. It should take
you about a day to read the materials for a Discussion Board. To
help you follow what is happening historically to whom by
whom and where, be sure to consult the time lines at the start of
each chapter and the maps printed throughout the book. They
will help orient you to the main developments we are studying.
At the end of the module, students should be able to:
· Appraise the economic, political, social, and cultural
developments of Inner Africa, the Americas, and Oceania over
several millennia.
· Assess the regional networks each major culture established
and maintained.
· Analyze how the worlds of Inner Africa, the Americas, and the
Pacific followed and diverged from the broad patterns of Afro-
Eurasian history.
Lecture Notes and Key Terms

7. Lecture Notes from the Instructor
Parallel Worlds
We are getting near the end of our course. It is time to wrap up
our whirlwind tour of thousands of years of human history.
As he tries to bring the history of the pre-modern period to a
close and stop our heads from spinning, Reilly introduces the
idea of "parallel worlds," worlds that operated at the same time
but did not know each other or interact. They were isolated - if
parallel - worlds.
What does it mean to have parallel worlds? You might think you
live in parallel worlds because you may be a student, an
employee, and a member of a family and inhabit these worlds
with their different demands but these worlds and their demands
are not so much parallel as convergent or divergent. One key
difference is that you know all of these worlds. People who
dwell in parallel worlds as Reilly defines the term do not know
of the existence of the other world(s). They only know their
own.
We as historians looking back over the historical record can
understand that these worlds were isolated from each other and
yet were not completely dissimilar. Reilly uses the fact that
they were isolated to conduct a "thought experiment:" do worlds
that know nothing of each other develop along similar lines or
completely different lines?
One conclusion he draws from his thought experiment is that
humans have moved along similar paths even when isolated by
time and space: hunter-gatherers became farmers who learned to
be more productive and preferred living in complex and densely
populated societies but not everyone followed the same path
through urbanization, writing, and iron metallurgy to get there.
Complexity came in many forms.
Another conclusion is that social classes developed as societies
became complex and political power concentrated in elites and
royalty. Social and gender inequality grew in America, Inner
Africa, and Oceania as well as in Afro-Eurasia.
However, he also draws the conclusion that people do not need

8. large cities to have sophisticated societies and ways of life.
Cooperation can bring many benefits and a good standard of
living that competition negates and there are differences of
degree in inequality and control. Humanity does not have to live
(or, better, drive) on the same one-way street.
Near the end of Chapter 5 Reilly explained how the world was
becoming more integrated after 1200 CE and how Europe was
becoming the engine of modernity. Its geography, cities, and
social and political institutions favored the systematizing of
innovation, a hallmark of modernity, through multiplication of
points of creativity.
He continues this idea with his thought experiment in Chapter 6
and wonders what we can learn from the different experiences
of parallel worlds that can inform and enhance our own ideas of
historical development and "the good life." If the value of
parallel worlds is that we can see a wider range of possibilities
of historical development, should we not investigate them to see
the variety of ways we can live as human beings? The present is
built upon the past but is the past a straitjacket that limits
people's choice or is it a coat of many colors that signals all
sorts of options? Reilly argues that the variety of past human
cultures opens rather than forecloses ways to think about the
past and historical development. What do you think?
Alex Zukas
HIS 233
SUGGESTIONS FOR ESSAY EXAM WRITING
1. Analyze the exam question:
Figure out precisely what the exam question is asking you to do.
If there is a key

9. noun (causes, consequences) or verb (follow, diverge) in the
question, be sure that
your answers focus on it. This is the most important and often
the most difficult
part of the writing process.
2. Collect and sort information:
Read and re-read the textbook and the web sites. Make notes on
the passages in
the textbook and website(s) that contain the answer(s) you are
seeking. Review the
passages to see if they are the ones that best answer the
question(s).
3. Develop your thesis:
The thesis is your essay's main point in response to the essay
exam questions you
chose to answer. Answer them as directly and clearly as you
can. Having collected
and sorted information and formulated a thesis, it is now time to
compose your
essay.
4. Write the introduction:
The introduction should lead the reader smoothly to the thesis.
It should provide
necessary background information and let your reader know that
the piece of
writing to follow is well thought out.
You may want to start your essay with a challenge to the reader:
a striking quote,

10. an unusual piece of evidence, or an intriguing claim from the
theory or website.
Engage the reader's interest. Use active verbs and active voice
to keep the reader's
interest. Does the introduction state the essay's thesis? Have
you placed the rest of
your essay in a helpful but brief context?
5. Write the body:
You may present your information and ideas in any order you
wish but be sure they
have a logical relationship to each other. Your evidence needs
to support your
ideas. Be sure each paragraph has a topic sentence which states
the main idea of
that paragraph. Everything you write in that paragraph must
elaborate, defend, or
support that topic sentence. That is, each paragraph must
develop an identifiable
idea and only one idea. If you need more than one paragraph to
develop an idea,
be sure that the paragraphs develop different parts of the idea.
The sentences in your paragraphs will either be interpretive
(they present your
understanding and are often topic sentences) or evidential (they
provide examples
to support your interpretation).

11. Keep the coherence of your paper in mind. Is there a clear
relationship between
your examples and your topic sentence in every paragraph? If
read as a group, do
your topic sentences line up in support of your thesis?
Be sure to use transitional words and phrases (for example,
however, nevertheless,
thus, still, therefore, on the other hand, in addition,
furthermore, indeed, so far,
again, in conclusion, etc.) to signal the continuity of your
thought within and
between paragraphs. Ask yourself if your ideas flow easily from
one paragraph to
another by means of clear transitions. Sometimes using
conjunctions (but or yet) or
adverbs (for example, thus, furthermore, however, nevertheless)
helps. Repeating
key words (for example, feudal, ecstatic, unconventional,
Babylon) can be a
successful strategy if they are not overused. Using pronouns and
other words which
make a direct reference to ideas in the preceding sentence or
paragraph can help.
6. Write the conclusion:
In the conclusion you should emphasize the main point of your
essay in language
slightly different from your stated thesis. You should address
the question of the

12. topic’s significance and leave the reader with an idea to ponder.
If you can leave
the reader with a sense that you have not only mastered the
details of a topic but
that you have also thought about why it is important, you will
write a very effective
essay.
7. Read over the essay:
Proof-read carefully. Check for grammatical and mechanical
(spelling) errors. Read
the paper over for coherence. Does each paragraph express and
develop only one
central idea and do you have transitions between paragraphs so
that the reader is
led smoothly to your conclusion? Do the ideas in one paragraph
lead naturally to
the ideas in the next one?
The three most common types of comments I make on student
writing involve the
following issues: 1) (not) addressing the topic clearly and
directly; 2) (not) giving
enough concrete and persuasive evidence; or 3) (not) adequately
explaining how
the facts given support the argument.
1. Write an essay that answers ONE of the following questions
after consulting the
· Suggestions for Essay Exam Writing - PDF (88 KB)
TOPICS

13. 1. Historians are always trying to understand causes and
consequences. Causes tell us how things happened (or changed)
and consequences indicate the size and scope of the change.
One would expect the biggest changes to have the biggest
consequences. What would you say were the three most
important changes that occurred from 8000 BCE to 1450 CE?
Why were they the most important changes? What were their
consequences or effects (up to 1450 CE)? What were their
origins or causes?
1. The great classical cultures of Eurasia created separate
identities but each of these cultures also contained important
elements that other peoples adopted. In the classical and post-
classical periods (600 BCE to 1450 CE), the peoples and
cultures of this vast area had consistent and enduring
interactions. What were three main causes or sources of this
new integration of Eurasia? What were three important
consequences or effects? What made these causes or sources
and consequences or effects so important?
1. Three large parts of the world remained separate from the
Afro-Eurasian network. Each had their own experiences and
formed their own networks. In what specific ways did the
worlds of Inner Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific follow or
diverge from three broad patterns of Afro-Eurasian history from
8000 BCE to 1450 CE? What three things can we learn from the
different experiences of parallel worlds?
Please note: when you discuss the important consequences or
effects of developments you identify or what we can learn from
parallel worlds, do not extend your discussion beyond the year
1450. For instance do not discuss their significance for life
today. The shape of the current world is beyond the scope of
this class. The Final Exam in HIS 233 tests your mastery of
course content and this course ends around the year 1450, so
your discussion of important consequences or “take-aways”
needs to end around that year as well. The nearly 570 years
since 1450 (which is the time period covered by HIS 234) have

14. had more impact on the nature of the modern world in any case.
KB)
You can only use sources from the course (required readings
from the textbook and websites) for the ESSAY. The ESSAY
provides you with the opportunity to demonstrate your ability to
integrate, into a coherent whole, course materials (textbook and
website readings) on a topic or theme in the course.
Your essay should be no less than 5 double-spaced typed pages
in 12-point Times New Roman font with 1-inch margins on all
sides. It can be longer, however, Title, Bibliography, and Works
Cited pages are not part of the required page count.
The formatting of the essay and all citations need to follow
Chicago Manual of Style format. Chicago is the citation and
bibliographic style used by historians. Click on the website
links below for Chicago-style guides and examples of
humanities and author-date citation styles. You may use either
humanities or author-date citation styles but use only one of
these styles in your work. The author-date citation style is very
close to MLA and APA styles. A modified MLA or APA format
that provides page numbers from a hard copy of the textbook
may be allowed. Check with your instructor. If you are using an
e-book version of the textbook, identify passages by citing the
chapter, section, and paragraph number.
The website below opens with examples in Notes and
Bibliography style (a note [N], followed by a bibliographic
entry [B]). If you click on the tab the page will show Author-
Date style (an in-text citation [T], followed by a reference-list
entry [R]).
The website below has an example of Chicago-style essay
formatting. Click on one of the “Chicago-Turabian Style
Guides.” One is a webpage and one is a PDF. When it opens,
scroll to the middle and there you will find an example of
Chicago-Style essay formatting.
. Docstyles.com

15. This PDF below has an example of Chicago-style essay
formatting:
. Purdue Writing Center