Journal #3

Chapter 11 - By the start of the twenty-first century, Islam had acquired a significant presence in the United States.  They have more than 12,000 mosques and about 8 million Muslims.  Islam had already been prominent in the world between 600 and 1600.  They encompassed parts of Africa, Europe, Middle East and Asia and created a new and innovative civilization.  Islam was the largest and most influential of the third-wave civilizations.  This chapter stated that the fundamental differences between births of Islam and Christianity were Islam did not grow up as persecuted minority religion and they didn’t separate “church” and state.   Islam was associated from the beginning with a powerful state suggested that Allah was a good god to have on your side.  Islam offered new religious outlets for women especially as Sufis.  Islamic modernizers see later achievements of Islamic science and technology as foundation for more open engagement with modern western culture.  The great diversity and debate evident throughout the history of Islam reminds us that all Muslims cannot be tagged with a single label.  Study of the many cultural encounters spawned by the spread of Islam reveals considerable variation in the interaction of Muslims and others.  In particular, conflict and violence have sometimes accompanied such encounters (the Crusades, Turkic invasions of India and Anatolia) but at other times Muslims and non-Muslims have coexisted peacefully in Spain, West Africa, India and the Ottoman Empire.

Chapter 12 - The pastoral societies developed in grasslands of Eurasia and sub-Saharan Africa.  The economies focused on livestock, horse, camels, goats, sheep.  The standard features of pastoral societies generally less productive than agricultural societies and the populations are much smaller than in agricultural societies.  They are more egalitarian than sedentary societies, but sometime distinguished between nobles and commoners.  Pastoral women usually had higher status than women in sedentary societies.  Mongol conquest of China was difficult.  It began in northern China (ruled by dynasties of nomadic origin) was vastly destructive then conquest for southern China (ruled by Sung dynasty) was far less violent.  Mongols unified a divided China and made many believe that the Mongols had been granted the Mandate of Heaven.  Mongols did not become Chinese and few Mongols learned Chinese.  Mongols were transformed far more in Persia than in China.  Mongol devastation of Russia but they did not occupy Russia.  

Chapter 13 - The fifteenth century was a major turning point in the world history.  Zheng He's voyages did not have world-historical consequences but Columbus's voyages did.  This chapter's purpose is to review the human story up to the sixteenth century and to establish a baseline against which to measure the transformations of the period 1500-2000.  In 1500, the world still had all types of societies, from bands of gatherers and hunters to empires, but the balance between them was difficult than it had been in 500.  Gathering and hunting societies still existed throughout all of Australia, much of Siberia.  They had changed over time interacted with their neighbors.  Agricultural village societies existed in much of North America and Southeast Asia, their societies mostly avoided oppressive authority, class inequalities and seclusion of women typical of other civilizations.