WW Part 3

I sometimes enjoy Strayer’s writing technique.  For example, I liked how Strayer compared the early twenty-first century plans to expand roads further for trade and economic growth just as the Silk Road network across Eurasia did.  This shows an obvious correlation and emphasizes that global trade has been important for centuries and is nothing new.  The inventions of roads across Eurasia created the possibility of different groups and people to trade their valuables and delicacies on a much grander scale than ever done before.  These trades, which usually consisted of jewels, silks, cloth, and other valuables that were not offered in their specific area, allowed the mainly the rich to access these items a lot more easily.  However, it also enabled the wealthy and powerful to gain more wealth helping large cities to keep up with the stresses of its people.  However, this did bring about widespread disease as new foreign people and animals were introduced to new regions.

I have believed for many years now that China is the dominating country in this world.  Many American’s still believe that America is the strongest superpower in the world, yet neglect to see or are ignorant to that fact that China even controls a big portion of our economy.  With that being said, China has been a superpower since the third-wave of civilizations.  As Strayer points out in the book, all of China’s neighboring states, virtually had no choice by to work with or do trade because of the gravitational pull China’s booming economy had on that region of the globe.  However, it was telling to see that China also absorbed outside influence in its endeavors as well.  Meaning Buddhism mainly, but also Christianity and Islam, taking root in China as the economy started to attract many new visitors.  The interesting thing about China is the fact that they have been able to sustain themselves over the centuries, even with the rise and fall of many dynasties.  This probably occurred due to a stronger cultural and societal unity than other countries that have risen and collapsed, but also due to China maintaining a relatively strong economy even at its weak points.

As mentioned before various religions started to spread into China, but also, Christianity was taking giant leaps all over Europe due to the Roman Empire.  As Strayer mentions in the book, “from Spain and England in the west to Russia in the east – had embraced in some form the teachings of the Middle Eastern Jewish carpenter called Jesus.  Which still makes me laugh at the fact that Strayer’ purposefully chooses to make Jesus “ungodly,” although attempting to be objective unbiased to world history, probably still gets backlash.  To continue, when the collapse of the Roman Empire occurred it left much of that world vulnerable to different religions through conquests.  The rapid Arab/Islamic expansion was causing grief to the Byzantine state, but with that being said the state still remained a major force in the eastern Mediterranean.  To jump forward a bit, as intellectual life started to flourish in Europe after year 1000, universities were being created and reason was being introduced into teachings, which created tensions with religious teachings.  Reason was introduced to Islamic states as well, but natural philosophy and Islam did not mix as well as it had with western culture.