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600-1450 Study Guide  “What I Need To Know”

1. Questions of Periodization:

Nature and causes of changes in the world history framework leading up to 600-1450 as a period

 

2. Interregional networks and contacts;

Development and shifts in interregional trade, technology, cultural exchange, Trans-Sahara trade, Indian ocean trade, and silk routes.  Contacts between major religions, e.g., Islam and Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.

 

3. China’s internal and external expansion.

The importance of the Tang and Song economic revolutions and the initiatives of the early Ming dynasty, and the Chinese influence on surrounding areas and it’s limits.

 

4. Developments in Europe;

Restructuring of European economic, social, and political institutions.  The division of Christendom into eastern and western Christian Cultures.

 

5. Social, Cultural, economic, and political patterns in the Amerindian World;

            Maya, Aztec. Inca

 

6. Demographic and environmental changes;

Impact of nomadic migrations on Afro-Eurasia and the Americas (e.g. Aztecs, Mongols, Turks, Vikings, and Arabs).  Migration of agricultural peoples (e.g. Bantu migrations, European peoples to east/central Europe).  Consequences of plague pandemics in the fourteenth century.

 

7. Diverse interpretations;

What are the issues involved in using cultural areas rather than states as units of analysis?  What are the sources of change: nomadic migrations versus urban growth?  Was there a world economic network in this period?

 

8. Compare Japanese and European feudalism

 

9. Developments in political and social institutions in both eastern and western Europe

 

10. Mongol expansion and its impact

 

11. Compare Islam and Christianity


600-1450