Midterm Review Sheet

Your midterm will be on Thurdsay, September 20 and will cover chapters 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 15, 17, and 24. Here are some questions to be sure you are prepared to answer:

His 200 Midterm Review
(covers chapters 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 15, 17, and 24 and any additional lecture/discussion material)

Part I: Short Answer
Please answer the following questions, using complete sentences. A sentence or two is all that is required for each question.
1. Explain the impact systematic agriculture had on the lives of Neolithic peoples. Why did farming and the domestication of animals constitute a revolution in human life?
2. How did the geography of Mesopotamia affect the lives of the people who lived between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers?
3. What importance did the Nile River have in the economic and political development of Egypt?
4. Describe the Persian system of imperial rule. In what ways is it different from or similar to that of the Assyrians?
5. What patterns of social and political organization prevailed among the peoples of Africa from 400 until 1450?
6. What were some of the distinctive features of Southeast Asian cultures?
7. Describe the period known as the Dark Ages.
8 What was the Enlightenment?
9. What is a jihad? Is it a political or religious happening?
10. How did Great Britain play a central role in the integration of world trade?
11. How did the Industrial Revolution lead to a staggering disparity between the wealth and power of the industrialized nations and that of the rest of the world?
Part II: True/False Please designate each of the following statements as true or false.
1. The Egyptian ruler came to be known as the emperor.
2. The basic pattern of Mesopotamian life was developed by the Sumerians.
3. Egyptian civilization differed from that of Mesopotamia in that in Egypt, slavery became widespread relatively late, around 1570 B.C.E.
4. The law code proclaimed by Hammurabi regulated such things as tenant-landlord relations and marriage.
5. Many people in the Roman era were attracted to Christianity because Christianity did not share any of the features of mystery religions.
6. The chief magistrates of republican Rome—the officials who administered the state and commanded the army—were known as consuls.
7. Korea was first unified as a result of Buddhism.
8. Through the tributary system, Han Dynasty leaders regulated contact with foreign powers.
9. Islam literally means “submission to God.”
10. The Muslim scholar al-Khwarizmi was a pioneer in mathematics.
11. Central Asia benefited most from the Mongol invasions.
12. Kublai Khan wa the Mongol emperor of China.
13. Bengali became the common written language of Southeast Asia, breaking down barriers among diverse languages and cultures.
14. During the period of accelerated global contact, England was the country most centered on middle-class interests.
15. The rise of the Russian monarchy was largely a response to the external threat from the English monarcy.
16. The real losers in the growth of absolutism in eastern Europe were the nobility and the clergy.
17. The Peace of Utrecht in 1713 represented the balance-of-power principle in action.
18. The country that monopolized the slave trade until 1600 was Portugal.
19. Before 1914, the economic gains from overseas empires were extensive.
20. Japan was "opened" by the United States as a result of long and arduous negotiations.
Part III: Essay Eac essay should be well-organized and about a page-and-a-half long double-spaced.
1. Discuss the fundamental Neolithic contributions to the rise of Western civilization.
2. What forces helped to shape Hebrew religious thought, still powerfully influential in today’s world?
3. Describe what the Greek intellectual triumph entailed and its effects.
4. Explain what the meeting of West and East held for the development of economics, religion, and philosophy, providing specific examples.
5. How did Rome rise to greatness? Please elucidate.
6. Why did Christianity, originally a minor local religion, sweep across the Roman world to change it fundamentally?
7. What elements went into the making of a distinctly European civilization, and how did these elements interact?
8. Describe both the immediate and lingering effects of the Enlightenment on world history.
9. Describe the idea that "all great nations" need to become imperialists-or fail. Why did this idea gain great following in the later nineteenth century, and how was it received in the non-Western world?