Strayer conveys
many different civilizations throughout this chapter, and a few civilizations
were civilizations were similar to what we have studied in the past as well. On
page 264, there’s a chart on the continental population in the second wave era.
These population numbers were estimates and controversial among many scholars.
I found the statistics particularly interesting because Australia/Ocenia’s
population remained almost the same throughout. There was not much fluctuation
in the population, whereas Africa kept bouncing up and down. The image “Lord of
Sipan” displayed on page 280 caught my eye because the Moche civilization, or
in fact the Mesoamerica civilizations, reminded me of the Egyptian civilization.
To enjoy afterlife, the Egyptians would bury their dead rulers in tombs dug
underground similar to the Moche ruler going back to 290 C.E. Mesoamerica is similar to Egypt spiritually as
well and the rulers acted as the middleman between heaven and earth.
The cities without
states intrigued me as well. In the past, we have learned about the Greeks
thriving in city-states and the ancient Mesopotamians, where they had their own
centralized form of government. Also known as “cities without citadels”, they
were functioning without a coercive authority of a state. The question we had
debated in class, is subjugation inevitable in societies, popped up in my head.
Referring back to the chart on page 280, the African population thrived and
increased from 11% (400 B.C.E) to 15% (1000 C.E). This civilization reminded me
of the Indus Valley. However, there was no one person/group who controlled the
population, but the civilization did not last very long compared to for example
the china civilization.
No comments:
Post a Comment