Always learning

As much as I did not enjoy studying India, mainly because it did not click as easily as the other empires did, I noticed that its social influence was just as great or far greater than a political influence would have had.  India’s caste system integrated immigrants easily into society which surprised me because I compared the caste system to an extreme version of high school cliques.  Well now I know that that was an incorrect comparison which proves to show that India did not click.  I think that a social influence is better than a political influence, because India had order in the form of self- discipline.  Social influences are easier to spread than political and typically more people tend to care more about social issues such as religion etc.

The class discussion over the conversion of Clovis really helped me see other views on his conversion being a political act and a religious transformation.  Darah was my power group partner that day and I agreed with her that his conversion was more of a political act, but she went further in giving quotes from the text that prove it was political and expanded on her thought.  It helped a lot to having heard her expanded thought on the matter and helped me understand it more.  I was surprised to see that people thought it was a true act of religious transformation.  Their reasoning made me unstable then of my political choice, because they mentioned that his wife has been convincing him to look at her god and believe the same thing she did.  Of course they were giving him the benefit of the doubt, but it all depends on how you view it.  I stand my ground that it was merely a political act and he truly converted once he achieved his goal.

Well, we hit Western Europe.  I was not too thrilled, because it is a boring topic to me.  Probably because I have learned it so many times and do not care to learn more of it.  Compared to other societies, western Europe seems dull and slow.  Their agricultural surplus was not enough to support their large cities whereas a growth in agricultural production in many other places results in a population growth.  Christianity (Catholicism) was the religion in medieval Europe especially because of Clovis’s conversion to it.  It formed an alliance with the pope strengthening the Franks.

An age of cross-cultural interaction of the nomadic empires and their eurasian integration was much more interesting to learn than Western Europe.  Nomadic empires were known for their unmatched skill on horseback and being indomitable in warfare.  They integrated vast territories at first to raid then to settle.  Just as all societies faced difficulties, the nomads’ difficulties were warfare, destruction, bubonic plaque, and global climactic changes.

It is neat to be able to connect the show “The Amazing Race” to what we learn in AP World.  I bought up that Kevjumba built something similar to a yurt,large wool tent, as a task to complete.  It took him quite some time to build it though.

The khan organization ruled through leaders of allied tribes.  The army was the most important institution of the Mongol state.  When I read that, I immediately thought of political trust, what I learned in government class, and that the military is the most trusted institution in our  government.  The Mongols instilled fear in the areas that they conquered, but it was apparent that they feared China.  They enforced a strict separation from anything and everything Chinese because they feared the Chinese would overpower them.  The Mongols did, however, tolerate all the cultural and religious traditions in China.

The continent I know least about, Africa, has had quite the interesting history.  I did not know Islam was a religion in Africa, however, it did not change the original thoughts on Africa.  I know the Bantu migrations spread agriculture and herding, but I do not know what the Bantu migration itself is.  Who are they and where did they come from?

Villages were ruled by a village council that consisted of male family heads.  The activity of drawing the political format of villages helped in learning how they were formed and the roles of Africans being based on age and gender.  Unlike other societies, African women experienced a far greater freedom than other women because they were given high honor for being the source of life.  They served in all-female military units, influenced public affairs, and traded at markets as merchants.

Like the Chinese, Africans worshipped their ancestors.  African religion was not theological but practical.