AP World History Sam Lemley

This Fleeting World questions 8/15/10

1. This Fleeting World plays a role by providing a concise history of humanity.

2. A large asteroid most likely wiped out most dinosaur species.
3. Our species, Homo sapien, appeared 250,000 years ago and most likely orgininated in east
Africa.
4. Foragers are people who obtain food and other things they require through hunting and
gathering, rather than by growing or manufacturing.
5. Scholars use physical remains, studies on modern foraging communities, and genetic studies
are used to learn about the foragers era.
6. Symbolic language is significant because only humans can communicate with it, and it
allows us to share and document what we learn.
7. Population densities in foraging communities were low because of the very low productivity
that foraging produces. It is also possible that foraging communities intentualy limited their own
growth in order to prevent over using the land.
8. In foraging communities women were responsible for child care and food gathering, while
men were responsible for hunting.
9. The fundamental cosmological model of foraging humans was that everything possesses a
spirit.
10. Foragers may be seen as affluent because all the things they could possibly need could be
found in the world around them.
11. Many extinctions occured in Australia an in the Americas through a combination of humans
possessing more advanced hunting techniques, and the animals having no experience in dealing
with humans.
12. The loss of many large animals species changed the history of these regions because it meant
humans couldn't use large animals a food source.
13. Affluent foragers are foragers who use techniques to extract more resources from an area,
which allows them to become more settled in sedentary communities.
14. Agriculture is a group of technologies that allowed humans to to better produce and control
certain plant and animal species.

15. Earliest evidence indicates that argriculture started between the Nile Valley and
Mesopotamia around 8000 BCE.
16. As the earth began to warm after the last ice age, nutritious plants could grow in previously
harsh landscapes, and agriculture became possible.
17. When nomadic foragers population grew they found it difficult to find enough resources.
making it advantageous to be less nomatic. They learned to work with the resources in a given area.
18. Agriculture spread from southwestern Asia into Europe, and from Mesoamerica northward after
the last ice age.
19.The six shared characteristics of agrarian communities are societies based on villages,
demographic dynamism, accelerated technological innovation, presence of epidemic disease, new
forms of hierarchy, and enduring relationships with nonagrarian peoples.
20.The doubling time in the agrarian period was every fourteen hundred years, while the doubling
time in the foraging era was every eight thousand to nine thousand years.
21.The secondary product revolution was a series of innovations that allowed humans to use
secondary products from animals such as milk from cows and eggs from chickens. These
innovations allowed humans to better exploit their animals and led to the rise of pastoralism.
22.Irrigation had its greatest impact in arid regions with fertile soil. Such regions included Egypt,
Mesopotamia, north India, north China, and the Andean region.
18. Sedentary societties were susceptible to epidemics because they provided favorable
conditions for pathogens. They were in very close contact with animals, waste accumulated, and
large populations increased the chance for disease to spread quickly.
19. Stored surplus allowed people to move away from being only farmers. Other proffessions
such as potters, builders, and artists began to appear and their interaction and trade with the farmers
created a complex divison of labor.
20. Foragers continued to impact agrarian communities by introducing new technologies from
other settlements, trading goods, and by carrying goods between sedentary communities.
21. As villages became larger and more organized the need for demographic and geographic
expansions became evident. Such innovations as terracing and irrigations helped lead to these
larger communities.
22. Evidence of institutionalized hierarchies can be found in areas where large structures, such
as the easter island heads or Stonehenge, appear. Hierarchies became a necessity as populations
grew and the need to organize warfare, trade, worship, etc required leaders who could command the
entire community.

23. Men began to dominate women by taking on more profitable and specialized roles that
women didn't have the opportunities to take on.
24. Cities are communities much larger than villages with people filling many specialized roles
in a complex divison of labor. States are large structured areas relying on institutionalized coercion
and popular consent. Cities and states emerged due to increased population density due to the
expansion of irrigation agriculture.
25. As city-states traded with one another, expanded, and absorbed other city-states, early
imperial systems began to emerge in which one ruler commanded many towns and cities. Imperial
rulers were often limited due to the size of their empires. They had little direct control over
citizens, instead relying on a system of local rulers.
26. The rise of larger empires such as the Achaemenid, Han, Roman, Mauryan, and others in
Afro-eurasia caused an increase in interaction between different regions. As large empires grew
economically, politically, and geographically, they came into increased contact with other empires
doing the same thing.
27. The four world religions that arose were Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.
28. The Americas experienced the rise of expanded political systems during the Agrarian Era.
During the first millenia CE city-states began appearing in Mesoamerica. The city of Teotihuacan
in Mexico had a population of 100,000 controlled trade across Mesoamerica. Cities such as
Teotihuacan laid the groundwork for larger empires to come.
29. The Vikings, Mongols, and Ming Admiral Cheng Ho are examples of civilizations taking
part in large international growth and invasion.
30. The first two large imperial states in the Americas were the Aztecs and the Incas.
31. The commericalized Western European states expanded global networks by creating the first
network of sea-borne transportation, which gave rise to expanded global trade networks.
32. The Modern Era began 250 years ago in about 1750.
33. Many political, social, and economic changes have occurred in the modern era. Technologies
allow humans to better control natural resources and enhance population growth. Technological
and demographic changes have changed cultural and religious traditions, health and welfare, and
political relationships.
34. The massive population growth in the modern era has caused governments to control more
than just taxation and wars. Ideas such as democracy and nationalism show how governments have
increased control, but show a willingness to please the citizens. Modern governments also record
and track statistics such as births, deaths, and income where agrarian governments never took on
such tasks. Governments depend heavily on social and economic success and happiness, rather than
brute force and coercion.
35. The combined innovations that evolved during the agrarian era, such as water and
agriculture management, weaponry, mining, transportation, communication, etc provided a base
from which modern innovation has built from. Modern people had a stable springboard to push off
from.
36. Economists argue that their is a direct link between a commerical society and innovation. A
complex commerical society allows for specialization into different industries and trade. Industry
growth breeds competition, which leads to increased productivity and precision. This competition
also spread to the wage workers who competed to find the best jobs.
37. During the agrarian era the Western European civilizations were small in comparison to the
large empires of the period. They had little influence in the global trading networks. However, at
the start of the modern era Western Europe gained much power due to their strong oceangoing fleet.
They could connect the entire world and benefitted from the trade of goods and ideas. These new
ideas allowed Western Europe to expand rapidly in the modern era.
38. The first wave of the industrial revolution occured during the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries and its innovations included cotton-spinning machines and the steam engine.
These inventions jumpstarted mining, transportation, and textiles. The second wave occurred in the
mid nineteenth century and brought the advent of locomotives which revolutionized transportation.
In the second half of the nineteenth century the third wave occurred. Steel, chemicals, and
electricity all appeared during the third wave. Scientific research began to play a crucial role in
technological advances.
39. Industrialization in the nineteenth century had an enormous impact on wealth in the
industrial countries. However industrialization hindered countries that had a tradition of agrarian
economy such as India and China.
40. Industrialization caused major changes in world culture. Education spread throughout North
America and Europe, causing literacy rates to increase. The introduction of mass media allowed
people to learn about what was happening in the world. Religion and modern science collided with
conflicting ideas. Overall the industrial revolution greatly impacted the economies, governments,
and ideals of all the world's cultures.
41. During the twentieth century rivalries fromed between industrial powerhouses. Each side
saw a gain by the other side as a lose for them, and this lead to attempts to exclude each other from
the market. Defensive alliances throughout Europe also caused increased tensions and eventually
led to a world conflict.

42. New technologies such as aircraft, machine guns, tanks, and mustard gas, combined with
military tactics unused to the new technology, caused World War I to be incredibly destructive. The
idea of "Total War", waging war on a nations infrastrucure and economy, also added to the war's
casualties.
43. In the aftermath of World War II, Europe became less of an economic force, and the US and
Soviet Union became the two larget world powers. World politics were largly influenced by
tensions between the capitalist west and communist east. European imperialism ended as its
colonies in Africa and Asia began to revolt and form their own governments.
44. Global consumerism has led to the idea of stimulating demand by giving citizens more
material wealth with which to spend. This led to government programs that provided jobs to
unemployed workers, who in turn would spend their new wages and jumpstart the entire economy.
Consumerism led to the necessity for the citizens to have money to spend, and the government used
this need to keep the economy going and keep the citizens happy.
45. Periodization is the act of trying to divide and catergorize time into distince periods.
46. It is difficult to use periodization in World History, because it focuses on a much broader
subject over a much longer time. It is possible to assign periods over certain time frames, but it
forces these periods to apply to the entire world rather than certain areas. In This Fleeting World for
example, the agrarian era is described as a whole, rather than focusing on how individual
civilizations evolved completely different.