Week 3 – Readings/Videos

Read: Overview – The Global Tapestry

• No questions for credit, but read to prep for this week’s activities
  • If you prefer having questions to help with notetaking, here you go:
    • Why does this course start around 1200 CE?
    • What three big zones help to structure this unit?
    • What frame does the author suggest is most useful for comparison within and between these zones?
    • Why, according to the author, did people want or need goods produced in different regions?
    • What were some of the consequences of long-distance connections within zones of the world?

Read: Communities in Afro-Eurasia

• No questions for credit, but read to prep for this week’s activities
  • If you prefer having questions to help with notetaking, here you go:
    • According to the author, why do we need rules and institutions to organize large groups of people?
    • How does the author define a state?
    • During this period in Afro-Eurasia, where were most of the large states located?
    • What is Dar al-Islam, and what was its significance during this period?
    • What was the largest and most sophisticated state at the start of this era? What strategies made this state so powerful?
    • What innovations did the Mongol Empire produce? How did the empire shape the future of Eurasia?

Read: Written in the Stars – Secrets of the Mongol Empire

• No questions for credit, but read to prep for this week’s activities
  • If you prefer having questions to help with notetaking, here you go:
    • Why was the Mongol Empire important?
    • This article approaches the question of why the Mongol conquests succeeded as a murder mystery. What factors contributed to the Mongol Empire’s success?
    • How did Mongol rule help increase trade in Afro-Eurasia?
    • What role did scholars and technology play in the Mongol Empire?

Read: The-Americas-1200-1450

• Key Ideas – Understanding Content
  •  What type of state was Haudenosaunee, and how was it governed?
  • What type of state was the Aztec state? How was its diverse population ruled, according to the author?
  • What evidence is there of connections between the Aztec society and Mayapan?
  • What kind of a state was the Inca state, and how was it governed?
• Evaluating and Corroborating
  • What factors stand out to you as particularly distinct and important in the way communities were organized in the Americas in this period?
  • How do these seem similar or different to other parts of the world you have studied for this period?
• Answer Questions via Blackboard
  • Section 002
  • Section 008
  • Section 025

Read: Oceania and the Pacific

• No questions for credit, but read for this week’s course activities
  • If you prefer having questions to help with notetaking, here you go:
    • How do historians believe that humans ended up settling the islands of Oceania? What debate surrounds this question?
    • What were the most important innovations that allowed migrations across Oceania?
    • In general, how did communities in this region organize themselves?
    • How does the article describe gender relations in societies in Oceania?
    • What evidence do the authors use to argue that Oceania was not separated from the rest of the world?

Watch and answer questions on Blackboard: Disease! Crash Course World History (11 minutes and 36 seconds)

Key Ideas – Understanding Content
2:43 How did migration and population density contribute to the historical rise and fall of disease rates?
3:38 Why might hunters and gatherers have had fewer diseases than farmers or pastoralists?
4:40 What made ancient Greece more susceptible to disease?
8:34 What are some world historical effects of plague?
9:10 Did the Black Death or the Great Dying have more fatalities? Why did one have much higher mortality rates?
9:36 How did population density and disease contribute to European colonization in the Americas?
10:33 Why do we have relatively lower disease rates now? Why are disease rates in danger of rising again?

Evaluating and Corroborating
According to the author of the video, humans are not the only agents of history, meaning they’re not the only species to cause change. What other sources or facts that you have studied support, extend, or challenge the author’s argument?

• Answer questions via Blackboard – Section 002
• Answer questions via Blackboard – Section 008
• Answer questions via Blackboard – Section 025