World History With Les

Let’s talk camels! So, I had just come back from Southwest Asia, and one of my colleagues asked how it was. I told a story of watching a compound that was surrounded by bails of sugarcane and SO MANY CAMELS! For the location I was in, it was odd to see camels. The colleague I was telling this story to was from Eastern Afghanistan directly on the border of Pakistan in Nangarhar, or as we liked to call it the Nangahood. It was a rough spot. Either way, she had grown up in a very traditional way before she had to escape the country with her family. I’m talking normal family, growing some crops for food and a little cash, and always with the poppy field as the cash crop. Anyway, back to the camels. So I tell her this story, and she says “OHH! Camels are SUCH  a luxury.” I laughed and laughed. This woman was highly educated and worldly. What that told me was how important animals were in that area.  Camels are a big deal. Any pack animal really. Guess what, Africa did not have the

Slavery was much more prominent in Greco-Roman civilization that it was in either India or China. During second wave civilization, slavery was often a result of war and conquest. I think that is the most obvious reason as to why there were so many more slaves in the Greco-Roman empires. After the destruction of Carthage, Rome took 55,000 slaves. We’re just talking about the fall of Carthage. People from modest means all the way to the top had slaves. Beyond that, there is also the matter of the economy. The economies of India and China were not reliant on slave labor. Greco-Roman economies on the other hand were heavily reliant upon it. A part of this was the highly structured caste system of India. The lower castes were already carrying out the majority of hard labor. India also had laws to protect the rights of slaves. Owners could not abandon slaves in their old age as was common-place in Greece. Laws to protect the rights of slaves disincentivized their use in India (Strayer, 2016

Religion is most definitely a double-edged sword. It can support political authority and the social elites, or it can undermine them. Look at China and Daoisim. First I need to say something about Ban Zhou. Do you think five generations later there was a Ban Zhou VI (Bahn Jo VI)…Do you think he was a vocalist? He sang “It’s my life, it’s Dao or ever…” You guys know that song? Just me? Okay.  Daoism was taken into the popular religion in China. It promoted a oneness with the Dao, and a return to nature. At first glance, this sounds great for the government and the social elite. If you really think about it, this was bad for them. If everyone is living a simple life, painting landscapes and meditating, then riding their water buffalo off into Western China, then they are not spending, competing with each other, or producing excess for the ruling class to take.  Beyond the promotion of a less materialistic life, this pulled people from the government in other ways. Large land o

If there is anything to be learned from the second-wave civilizations (and there is), it is about over-extension and the benefits of equality to the empire. Of course every civilization is different. If there were not lessons to be learned from history, all the military strategists in the world would not be wasting their time. I don’t think they’re just nostalgic or curious about their roots.  So, let’s talk empire building. China, Rome, Greece, Persia, Macedonia, they all did it. Until recently, a lot of places kept doing it. If you want some good examples look at Africa. Germany stole Tanzania, Italy had Somalia, France did a number or Rwanda. I don’t think we even need to talk about England and South Africa (I’m making a cringing face, but you can’t see it).  Side note: Everywhere France colonized had just a terrible time. If there was a Yelp for colonizers, France would only have the nastiest reviews. Imagine what Vietnam said about them… First, let’s talk abo

I was surprised to learn of the spread of Bantu languages from Cameroon, moving South and East. I knew that there were a lot of Bantu languages, but I didn’t know there were more than 400 (Strayer, 2016, p.37). This really made me think about how I perceive things. I speak Kiswahili and learned from a couple of men from Tanzania. I think because everything I learned about Bantu languages was really focused on East Africa, this made me think that it must be where they originated. I must have so many other preconceived notions about things.  I also think that parts of my ideas are as a result of whom I learned from. My first instructor was a very old sociologist. We called him Mzee, which literally means old man but is the common term of reference. He grew up in Tanzania under the rule of colonial Germans. Subsequently, he learned to speak fluent German, in addition to English, Swahili and his native tribal Bantu language. A lot of class time was dedicated to learning the ins and

I find it infuriating that as human innovation increased, equality began to disappear. The very problem we have today with hoarding of wealth and resources started with the rise of the first civilizations. Strayer and Nelson (2016) speak of the relative equality of the sexes within the first human societies on page 21 of the text. It is absolutely maddening that gathering and hunting societies enjoyed more equality than women do now.  This is not just about gender inequality. Let’s talk about the rise of the first civilizations. So we have all these farmers, pastoralists, and trades people working. For the first time, humans should have had a wealth of food, supplies, and free time all while staying in one place. The arts, religion, philosophy all should have flourished. Instead, what we ended up with was a class hierarchy. They stockpiled the resources, developed militaries and plotted ways to stay on top. The working people were creating more and more productive economies (S

I found it interesting to read that some societies trace their lineage through the female line, and particularly that these societies were in the area of Europe and Anatolia. What I found interesting was not the existence of matriarchal societies, but the location. I thought that the locations of these societies would have coincided with the existing matriarchal societies, for example some spots in Nepal.  On page 43 of the text, the critical role of women in agriculture as well as their production of textiles is cited as a possible reason for tracing lineage through the female line. When I made my foray into anthropology for my first two years of college, this was a main topic of a course I took Sex, Gender, and Kinship. In this course, a prevailing theory about why lineage might be traced through a female line regarded division of land. In instances where the lineage of a society is traced through the female line, land is less often divided. This is of particular impor

Cosmic Period : This period starts 13.8 billion years ago when all matter came into existence. This is accepted scientific timeline.  Paleolithic Period : 2.5 million years - 10,000 BCE  https://www.history.com/news/prehistoric-ages-timeline Neolithic Period : This period starts between 10,000 and 8,000 BCE This 2,000 year span is sometimes recognized as a transition period between The Old Stone age and The New Stone age. The period lasted until around 3500 BCE.  https://www.ancient.eu/Neolithic/ Ancient Period : 3500 BCE- 0-500 CE http://www.essential-humanities.net/history-overview/world-history-timeline/ Classical Period : The commonly accepted timeline of the Classical Period is 500-1500 CE Modern Period - 1500 CE to present eras of time classical time period after ancient Ecozoic Period - This era has just started, and falls the geologic time period Cenozoic Era which started 66 million years ago.  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10

In what is modern day Chad, the first early human, commonly recognized scientists. Sahelanthropus Tchadensis first evolved between 6 and 7 million years ago.  Sometime later, around 3.85 to 2.95 million years ago Australopithecus Afarensis, walked what is now known as Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. Australopithecus Afarensis is one of the most well known species of early humans. You may be familiar with one of the most famous specimens named Lucy.  Another well-known species of early human is Homo Erectus, who lived between 1.89 million and 110,000 years ago. Homo Erectus ranged from Southern, Eastern, and Northern Africa, all the way to East and West Asia. Now compare that to modern day Homo Sapiens.  Homo Sapiens first came on the scene around 300,000 years ago. The first of our kind are believed to have evolved in Africa. We can be found all over the planet, and sometimes in space.  Web Resources: https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossi

What is Big History? On an evening walk, I joked with my husband that it was just a brief history of time...Get it?! If you don't, it's okay. It was a bit of a nerdy joke. A Brief History of Time is a book written by the late author Stephen Hawking, and also an excellent movie about his life. Today as I learned about Big History, the book popped into my head on several occasions. Stephen Hawking wrote it for the average person with no previous knowledge to understand where the universe started, theories of how it arrived to the state it is in now, and where it is going. It seems to fit right in with Big History. Big History is a synthesis of everything we have learned about the universe. It includes cosmology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, anthropology, and the list goes on and on. Big History does not focus on any specific time period like The Middle Ages, or The Renaissance. Instead, Big Historians study how Earth fits into the 13.7 billion year hi

     Hello fellow travelers of World History. My name is Leslie, and I am writing to you from my home office in Yuba City, California.       Those are my husband's feet. He sits with his dog in the recliner while I work at night. Next to me sits my trusty service dog, Kaya. She is a glorious black lab. My family and I live in a quiet neighborhood filled with the most amazing flowers. The city is bordered by acre upon acre of orchards, so it always smells like flowers here. Usually, I complete my coursework from my office, but sometimes I hangout back by the pool and watch my boys swim.        Last year, after retiring from the Air Force I made the move to California.This picture is Kaya and me making a coffee stop somewhere in the middle of Texas.  Prior to last year, I had spent 10 years in the panhandle of Florida. My husband and I were stationed at Hurlburt Field, where we spent our final years in the military flying. My time in the service was filled with de