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In chapter 6 we depart from our mostly Eurasian sphere of focus and instead now take a look at the civilizations around the world. More specifically in the Americas,Africa, and Oceania, as each birthed a variety of civilizations and societies. Like the Nubians of the Kingdom of Kush in what is modern day Sudan, or the Maya of central America. Each unique society was progressing on a similar timeline and scope as the those in Eurasia, however due to bias, and the historical precedent of undervaluing these civilizations were are just know learning as much as we can. Historic Africa is a complicated a muddied subject, that involves, war, racism, bias, and the unfortunate era of slavery. Followed by the equally exploitative eras of neo colonialism, and globalization, making it highly improbable to know African history the same as Eurasian beyond the oral histories of the surviving tribes. This largely ignores the massive impact of the geographic location on of Africa, whose equatorial...

In chapter 5, we delve into some of the less than great social patterns that began to emerge from the early civilizations. Now we are not talking exact form of government or use of natural resources, but instead about class and social inequality. These small societies and civilizations grew both in population and power, different class and caste systems arose. All of them had and still have one most basic of premises, that military power, material wealth: grain, or gold, defines the system's. In China a system of rigid and cruel feudalism began to take shape.However with the unique influences of Legalism and Daoism, the class system, and its implementation was a more unique form. As the separate dynasties themselves actually supported  “wood work” institutional class control, through academies for the children of officials. These elite were born into the highest possible class and then educated on how to stay within it. A form of intellectual choke point if you will. This rulin...

The explosion in culture and religion in Eurasia are among the most impact full series of ideological expansions in human history. While each religion or Philosophical school of thought is different, the conditions that precipitated their creation are often similar. Following the collapse of the Zhou dynasty, China split into many warring feudal kingdoms. In this era much war and unrest created an age of mass disorder and instability for the people of China.  As a result, Legalism, the philosophical school of thought was born because of the need to bring order to the chaos of everyday life. It emphasized a strong centralized government, a relatively unopposed leader with an emphasis on severe punishment of any crimes. When thinking about Legalism a parallel can be drawn to the modern idea of “Marshall law” where police are heavily empowered to clean up the streets, and enforce a strict set of codes. Another school of thought in China was that of Confucianism. In stark contra...

Herodotus is a widely known historian, known more for his colorful storytelling than as an academic source.This lack of respect as an established primary source is due to the fact there are many colliding narratives that differ from Herodotus. So as a historical source his value is similar to that of a history channel documentary, entertaining but questionable. However it is my feeling Herodotus was one of the world's first anthropologists, not historian. If we look at the works through the lens of cultural learning, and not historical perspective than Herodotus does have academic staying power. See in most of his writings, it is the observations about the cultures he visits, not his version of their history that grabs the reader. Take this passage in source 3.1, “They carefully educate their sons from the age of five to the age of twenty in only three subjects: riding horses, shooting arrows and speaking the truth.” Here is an example of the incredible ability of Herodotus to ...

In part one we looked at the history that allowed humans to organize into the early societies, and how those early societies functioned. The word functioned is important here because, they were able to organize society and allow people to live.  Those societies while “the peak” of the early human experience, were simple small functional cities. As we transition to part two, we begin looking at when humanity began to flourish. The creation of empires around the world allowed humanity to travel and harness resources like never before, and thus push the human experience forward. What came out of these eras were major leaps in warfare, philosophy and architecture. The brutal yet wise use of prisoners of war as slaves allowed for public works to be completed on a scale unseen before this time. The Forum, the Coliseum, and the Pyramids all projects were created by massive, and oppressive empires. Among the historical empires are the Persians, who have a reputation for cruelty and op...