WW Chapter 3

Civilizations and the Agricultural Revolution go hand in hand. Agricultural advancements meant societal advancements. Agricultural advancements allowed people to support large numbers. The resources from agriculture made cities possible. Cities served as places of worship, redistribution of food, laborers worked there and aristocrats helped run the city. 

After cities came up, social hierarchy arose. There were upper class people, a vast majority of commoners and at the very bottom there were slaves.

Most civilizations were run through a patriarchy. Patriarchy- A system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line. A system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.

DGP chapter 2

     This chapter discusses writing, and the importance of it in early civilizations, they began to value written transmission over oral transmission. People who could read and write were held to more importance than others in early civilization because they could write the laws and interpret them. About six thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, they began to site. At  first it was pictures but then became more complex.
     As time went on the first things to be written down were their societies creation stories. The Jews had their Torah, the Mayans developed a calendar and system of writing. The Mayans may have been the most advanced in their times. The creation stories that follow are those of the ancient societies, historians say to read them without thinking about what you believe, so one is not superior or inferior, thats hard to do. I really like the excerpts from Atra-hasis, about the Gods, how they created people for their benefits, then sent down plagues when they got too loud, I like it because I feel like I'm listening to a story. But some of the others are hard to understand.

ww chapter 2

Ways of the World chapter two...
This chapter covers the development of agriculture in early communities. Many of the agricultural revolutions spread beyond secluded communities. "The globalization of agriculture was a prolonged process, lasting 10,000 years or more after its first emergence in the Fertile Crescent, but was not successful everywhere."
One of the major developments in farming was developing a large cob of corn, domesticating corn and more advanced farming tools.  
Agriculture led to societies which led to social order and finally chiefdoms.

DGP

In chapter one of Discovering the Global Past we being to learn much about the importance of water in early civilizations. It poses an interesting question, "How did the need for steady supply of water affect the technological, economic, political and legal development of ancient societies?"

In Mesopotamia farmers used lots of different types of irrigation. Land must be irrigated or it was "useless."In Egypt, not getting much rain forced the people relied on the Nile, luckily for them the Nile was predictable. In China the people harnessed the water from the Yellow River.

Irrigation system were started before the people were able to write stuff down, so historians rely on the remains of the land. However once civilizations did start writing things down, early on they mentioned the importance of water and water systems.

The earliest laws and rules were regarding water and/or irrigation. There was so much centered on water, it affected their food, money, and power. Even though at times their were power struggles between farmers, all worked together on canals and the water supple. They were smart enough to realize that water was the most important thing and they were able to work together for water.

ww chapter one

"Comparison, Connection and Change. The three Cs of World History." Nothing could be truer, reflecting on this information in the prologue I look back and realize that all the history courses I've taken have all been based upon those "Three Cs." We as history seekers compare the past and present, different societies and much more. We try to make a connection between any similarities, and also ourselves connect with what we are reading to truly achieve a deeper understanding. Change is always constant or perhaps the lack of change in history.

Getting into chapter one homo sapiens arrive. 95% of our time being in the Paleolithic era the other 5% being historic. Strayer refers to this homo sapiens as gather-hunters instead of the traditional, hunter-gather. Chapter one elaborates on the movement of the people, the advanced thinking and problem solving they were able to achieve in such a short time period and their unique technologies, such as arrow and tomols.

Strayer stresses that too many of us view the Paleolithic era with disdain, and think "how far we've come" instead of looking at it "romantically" and seeing just what awe was accomplished so many years ago.
in this textbook the true reservations Strayers true reservations about are beginning to come out, with his first reference to gather-hunters, a feminine emphasis, to his feelings about "kinship" with the Paleolithic era, this textbook is full of his agenda.