Early World HistoryLiam O’Mara IV
Final Examination Sheet18.XI.2019
Of the following six topics, address two in essay format. Pay attention to the prompt and be sure to hit all relevant details from the class to back up your points. If you are not filling two or more typed pages on each of them, you are probably forgetting something important… 😉 Due by 11 December.
1. Define Islamic Scholarship and its Significance to World History.
•What made it possible?
◦Discuss the production of paper and the collection of manuscripts.
•Explore several areas (medicine, astronomy, navigation, etc.)
◦Give specific examples and note their long-term impacts.
•Examine the progress of philosophy in Islam.
◦How did Muslim philosophers build on Plato, Aristotle, & the rest?
◦What are some of the consequences of studying philosophy?
•Why was this era of free enquiry not fated to last?
◦Explain the factors that drove Islam from science and philosophy.
2. Explore the Evolution of Holy War in Christianity and Islam.
◦Define “jihad” and how it was used in earlier Islam.
◦What is a “just war” according to Augustine?
◦Define “militant piety” and connect it to its Byzantine origins.
•What are the Crusades, who called them, when, and why?
◦How do they fit into the political context of Europe?
•Trace the progress of the early Crusades and note their effects.
◦Discuss both times Jerusalem fell (1099 & 1187); what differed & why.
◦Finally, how did the Crusades impact relations between the faiths?
•How do the Mongol invasions fit into this story?
◦Did the Mongol threat affect Islamic civilization? Discuss how.
•From Salah ad-Din to the Mongols, how did “jihad” evolve as an idea?
◦How and why was it used that way?
3. Explain the Mediaeval Institution of Feudalism in both Europe & Japan.
•Why did feudalism develop in both of these places?
◦What are some internal & external pressures that helped it flourish?
•What are the basic political characterists of the feudal social order?
◦What are the feudal obligations of a vassal to his liege?
▪Discuss both knights and samurai, and their social rôles.
◦What did a vassal gain in return? (Explain the value of a fief.)
•Explore manorialism (the economic system underpinning feudalism).
◦How did peasants / serfs / fishermen and the merchant class fit in?
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4. Discuss the Evolution and Diversity of Religion in South Asia.
•What distinguished the Aryan religion from Brahmanism?
◦What did they have in common, what changed, and why?
◦Be sure to explain the Caste system and its purposes.
•Explore the two main competitors to Brahmanism for adherents.
◦Who are the Jains and what is ahimsa?
◦Who are the Buddhists and what is nirvana?
▪What are the Four Noble Truths?
◦How did Brahmanism become Hinduism?
▪Discuss reincarnation, karma, and moksha.
•How and when did Islam enter South Asia?
•Finally, tell me something of the minorities (Parsis, Sikhs, etc.).
5. Explore the Chinese Dynasties from Reunification to the Ming.
•Why did the Han dynasty disinegrate?
◦What was retained from it during the long period of disunity?
•What are the most important contrbutions of the brief-lived Sui dynasty?
•Talk about the much longer Tang dynasty.
◦Explain the Civil Service Exams and the Equal Field System.
•What is distinctive about the Song dynasty and why did it collapse?
•How are the Yuan rulers different from previous dynasties?
◦Who are Marco Polo and Kublai Khan?
•Discuss exploration and the “treasure fleets” of the Ming dynasty.
◦Who is Zheng He and what did he do?
•Why did the later Ming dynasty stop these voyages?
◦What did they do instead?
6. Define and Describe the Three Islamic “Gunpowder Empires”.
•Trace their origins in the Turko-Mongol migrations.
◦How did they differ from “military-patronage” states?
◦Why and how did they grow so powerful?
•Discuss Safavid origins and the state’s relation to Shia Islam.
◦How did the shahs legitimate and maintain power?
•Discuss Ottoman origins and their varied cultural influences.
◦Talk about some of its unique social institutions.
▪Kapıkulu, Devşirme, Yeniçeri, Millet, HḤarīm, etc.
•Discuss Mughal origins and how it differed from the other two.
◦What was the Divine Faith of Akbar and why did it fail?
•Identify some factors in the decline of Muslim political power
