The document discusses James Burke's presentation tracking the development of Western thought and society from Ancient Greece to modern times. It traces how the rediscovery of classical knowledge and Arab optics led to revolutions in art, architecture, warfare, and exploration. Key developments discussed include the invention of printing, recognition of statistics and medicine as sciences, and Darwin's theory of evolution which influenced many ideologies.

1. Danny Delgado
History 140 / Fall 2011
BIG HISTORY

2. The Day The Universe
Changed
James Burke did an outstanding job of presenting this topic: Showing how a culture's view
of the World around it determines how it sees itself, and is reflected even in the smallest
details of its customs and habits
In his presentation he shows the traces of development of Western thought through its
transformation since the days of Ancient Greece
In the course of overrunning Moorish Spain, Christian Europe discovered libraries,
universities, optics, mechanics, and natural philosophy. This rediscovery of classical
knowledge led to the founding of universities and the replacement of Augustinian
philosophies by Aristotelian theories.
He shows that Western Europe's rediscovery of perspective through the study of Arab
optics led to revolutions in art and architecture. The West’s new-found ability to control
things at a distance resulted in new methods of warfare and the confidence to make long
voyages of exploration.
Observes that the invention of printing and the advent of cheap paper forever

3. Traces modern societies recognition of the value of statistics to medical advances stemming
from responses to the French Revolution and an English cholera epidemic. Identifies the
origins of medicine as a science with the discovery of anesthesia, antiseptics, and
bacteriology.
Tracks the expectation of change, fundamental to contemporary society, through the
developing sciences of botany, geology, and biology to DarwinΓ??s theory of evolution.
DarwinΓ??s theory, in turn, has been used as a justification for Nazism, communism, and
cut-throat capitalism.
Points out that studies of the properties of magnetism, electricity, and light have led
scientists to the realization that Newtonian physics is inadequate to explain all that they
observe. The public, meanwhile, has continued to concentrate on the technological by-
products of science.
Observes that over the centuries Western civilization has regularly shifted its conception

4. The Journey of Man
The Journey of Man focuses on the research of
geneticist Dr. Spencer Wells who wants to prove his
theory that the global migration of man began of man
with a tribe of Africans who battered by drought and
famine, left home land searching for a brighter future
some 60,000 years ago. Well leaves his laboratory
behind and ventures out on a mission in which he
attempts to follow the common genetics which
connect such varied travelers as the Aborigines of
Australia, the Nambia Bushmen and the Native Peoples
of North America

5. Catastrophe
The global chain of revolutions that began in the catastrophe of
A.D. 535
A strange dusky haze covers much of earth of normal sunlight
Crops fail in Asia and the Middle East as global weather patterns
are drastically changed.
Bubonic plague, exploding out of Africa, wiped out entire
populations in Europe. Flood and drought brought ancient cultures
to the brink of collapse
The Roman Empire lost half of its territory in the century following
the catastrophe.
The Ancient Southern Chinese State weakened by by economical
turmoil

6. Catastrophe
Restless tribes swept down from central Asian, a new religion
known as Islam spreads through the Middle East
Historical records makes hitherto unrecognized connections between
the wasteland that overspread the British countryside and the fall
of the great pyramid building Teotihuacan civilization in Mexico
between a little known Jewish empire in Eastern Europe and the
rise of the Japanese nation state between storms in France and
pestilence in Ireland.
These are not isolated upheavals but linked events arising from the
same cause and rippling around the world like enormous tidal wave

7. Guns, Germs, and Steel
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond recounts how he became intrigued
when his New Guinean friend Yali asked, “Why is it that you white
people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but
we black people had little cargo of our own?”
The cargo that Yali refers to is technology—tools as simple as axes;
accessories such as umbrellas; and more complicated inventions such
as computers, cell phones, and the Internet. After all, Diamond
points out, a mere two centuries prior to his meeting Yali, New
Guineans were still using stone tools. What factors caused this gap
between the development of one culture and another?

8. Guns, Germs, and Steel
After all, Diamond points out, a mere two centuries prior to his meeting Yali, New Guineans were still
using stone tools. What factors caused this gap between the development of one culture and
another?
Diamond searched for an answer by examining millions of years of history, mapping out the
migrations of early humans from Africa to Eurasia, from eastern Asia to the Pacific Ocean islands,
and from Siberia to the North and South American continents. He follows humans as they evolve
biologically, and then he concentrates on specific representative societies to illustrate his findings.
To define the differences between developing cultures, Diamond emphasizes the effects of food
production, writing, technology, government, and religion. Then he demonstrates, in his opinion, why
the differences among various cultures occurred. More important (and one of the reasons for some
of the controversy surrounding this book), Diamond concludes that it is ultimately geography, not
biology or race as some other studies have tried to prove, that produced the cultural disparities his
friend Yali had pointed out.

9. The World and Trade
It must be pointed out the fact that the most important expedition
financed by Isabella of Spain that of Christopher Columbus
In his attempt to reach the Indies he would eventually discover the
American continent
It is common knowledge the fact that Columbus’s claim for the
financing of an expedition in the Indies was rejected by the
Portuguese
It was only at the court of Spain that he found support for his
endeavor an essential element for both the evolution of the Spanish
crown and the political interpretation at the time

10. The World and Trade
Asia’s goods sprang the spread of global
economics
Trade spread in Mediterranean
Asia consisted of luxury commodities
Potato goes from staple to luxury a huge
factor in global nutrition and survival

11. The World and Trade
Addictive commodities create foundation for
world economics
Tea, Cocoa, Tobacco and Coffee central in
exchange and consumption
Caused exploitation and impoverishment
Spanish conquest turns cacao rare to
plentiful

12. The World and Trade
Spanish conquest ended indigenous economy
Sugar Plantations bot help and hurt economy
Tobacco adds to global trade and social
issues
Luxury of addictive Coffee spreads to
Americas and ends monopoly in the middle
east