DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• Chapter 15

2
What were the signs of decline in the Middle East
in China?

• ME landlords seize power over peasants
• literature strictly religious
• ag productivity declines
• traders begin to lose ground
• political fragmentation or Arab world
• rise of Ottoman empire not a hub of an
  international network
• China for short time international trade
• massive trading expeditions
• Ming then isolated selves
• didnt need foreign goods good internal
  industry
• all this led to an international trade vacuum

3
What accounts for the relative rise of the west?

• strengthening of feudal monarchies
• more effective governments
• military innovations (100 years war)
• growth of urban areas
• technology advances (weapons, ironwork, clocks)
• church accepts capitalistic ideas of profit
  making
• imitate technology from China
• desires for Asian luxuries
• fear of Ottoman Empire
• find other routes to East

4
Describe the nature of the Italian Renaissance.
In what way was it a strictly Italian experience?

• more secular ideas for art, literature
• realism perspective in art
• cultural movement
• architecture from Gothic to classical Greek
  Roman
• focus on high culture, not popular culture
• little interest in science
• beginning of exploration desire for personal
  glory
• Italian b/c more contact with Roman tradition,
  led Europe in banking trade, commerce cities
  led to more wealth to sponsor culture

5
What was the nature of early western exploration
and colonial patterns?

• Atlantic
• islands off of North Africa (Canaries, Azores,
  Madeiras)
• along African west coast
• 1430 technology helps further exploration
  (compass, astrolabe)
• grant land to colonists (plants, animals,
  diseases)
• produce cash crops to sell in Europe
• slaves

6
What accounts for the relative decline of
civilizations outside the world network?

• Aztec disunity, resentment from subjects
• Inca trying to control vast areas (central
  leadership vs local control)
• Polynesian spread
• isolation

7
Summarize the transitions taking place in world
history ca. 1400.

• new technologies ( opportunities to copy Asian)
• European initiative in weapons ships
• role of individuals
• decline of Arabs reduces Africas contact with
  international world
• Europeans becoming more adventurous, taking over
  world trade
• China isolates itself
• Ottoman empire not concerned with trade (decline
  of Muslim influence in trade)

8
Respond to the statement that the relative rise
of the West after the 14th century was not so
much the result of Western innovation as the
decline of civilizations in the Middle East
Asia.

• more change than absolute decline
• end of Abbasid, rise of Seljuk Turks, disruption
  of Mongols led to rise of Ottoman Turks
• Muslim trade empire disintegrates Ottomans not
  interested in it
• door opens for western trade expansion
• China no political disruption brief expansion
  of trade then withdrawal
• left opportunities open for west in Asia
• fear of Ottomans led to exploration new trade
  routes

9
Discuss the differences between the world of 1500
that of 1250.

• demise of Mongol empires led to disruption of
  links connecting eastern hemisphere
• relative decline in ME as trade empire fragmented
  
• rise of Ottoman empire major political factor
• Russian independence from Mongols creates new
  civilization
• Ming reasserts traditionalism
• Aztec Inca empires disintegrating from internal
  problems
• Polynesian groups remain isolated primitive
• Renaissance in Italy challenges medieval culture
• Westerners beginning to explore and attempt to
  gain control of worldwide trade
• beginning of change in international leadership
  dynamism