visual sources

This was the first set of primary sources that I actually liked the visual sources a bit better than the written documents.  Not that the documents did not give me a better understanding of what the people in these empires were thinking and doing at the time, I just really enjoyed looking at the images.  My favorite one is the last one.  I believe it is on page 162.  It just has so many thins to look at and think about on the breastplate.  What could all those symbols possibly mean?  Could he have thought he was protected by the gods?  I am not sure exactly, but I think it is pretty cool.

Chapter 3

I do not really know why, but I have a hard time staying focused when reading about the Chinese empires. For some reason they really just do not interest me that much.  My favorite part about this chapter was reading about the Persians and the Greeks!  I admit that the Persian empire is very appealing to read about and seems so decretive.  However I think that I prefer the ways of the Greeks!  I like how they went out on a limb and tried new things.  For instance, they tried out a version of democracy in their city states.  It is weird to think that ideas from so long ago are still very present today.

early documents

First of all I love reading about Mesopotamia!  Second, reading about the early societies through primary sources is that much better!  I understand that there are strengths and weaknesses of these primary sources, but they are still very interesting and entertaining to read!  I like reading about these peoples' outlook on there lives, yet it saddens me that I am only getting the perspective of the people in higher positions in society.  How did the poor view their society?  Because mostly only higher ranking poeple learned to write, we miss out on different class perspectives.  I enjoy reading the laws because it has a major strength!  These laws were the laws for the rich and the poor.  It is no ones opinion, It is a written statement of how things were delt with!  I think these laws are very interesting to read about.  I mean, what if our societies today still had laws like these?  One of the laws literally states "eye for an eye".  If you hurt someones eye, you get your eye hurt!  It is very wierd to think about that being a law.

the first civilizations

This may be an odd thing to enjoy reading about, but whenever we get to sections of the book the mention Mesopotamia it just puts a smile on my face.  In seventh grade I had a history teacher who was very into the the Mesopotamian society and Star Trek.  In his class we would literally make a fake movie set, dress up and he would film us acting out early societies or Star Trek movies.  Needless to say, he is a teacher I will always remember and I will always remember Mesopotamia because of him.  I think it is crazy how fast things happened with the start of agriculture!  As soon as we had agriculture we had more food.  When people had more food they we needed structure, laws and economy, in other words, we needed to be more civilized!  Once people had civilizations things like equality issues arose, hierarchies arose and things like deforestation became a problem!  I think it is just sad that we can go back to our first civilizations and find problems we still face today like slavery, discrimination and loss of our much need natural environment.  It makes me wonder if it is even possible to ever end these problems in the world.

documents and egalitarianism

I really enjoyed reading the documents for chapter 1.  I like reading the facts in the text, however it is refreashing and a bit more entertaining to read a story or account of a persons life.  It captures my attention more and I get more into the reading because it becomes more personal.  I do not think that we can take one persons account of the bush life and say that is how ancient paleolithic people lived, but it definitely gives us one idea of what life might have been like.  From this account, I get the idea that Paleolithic People may have been very egalitarian.  Even more so then today perhaps.  Women seemed to have just as many rights as men and were treated equally.  The document also mentions the use of insulting the meat.  If one person was able to get more meat than others and didn't bother to share, that person was told in front of everyone they were not better than anyone else and to share their meat.  It seems like this would keep everyone fairly humble.  Though I find it odd, in the section about lovers, the document mentions that they all had lovers! Lovers meaning more than one!  I don't know what their definition of love is, but I know I want to love one man and I want him to just love me back, not have a whole bunch of lovers.  The document says one man can only give you so much, but if you have more than one lover you inreturn get more things.  According to this peice of writting affairs have always been in existance and are just part of life. 

early humans

In the first part of chapter one there is much focus on the first migrations of human kind.  The simplest of tools made it so hunting and fishing was possible.  I think it was incredibly smart of early people to learn to make tools and be able to use them to hunt game and fish.  The early people were also smart enough to plan their settlements around the movement of the animals that they used for a food source.  I also like thinking about what the first images people drew represent, however its a little sad that we will never now for sure what the people were trying to document or if it means anything at all.  I kind of think the most intriguing is the theory about how the animals represent a past life of some sort.  I was amazed that just in the time of the first migrations Australia already had some 250 languages!!! As the chapter moves on to talk about the economy and the environment I was thankful that our lives have changed so much over the years.  Back then the life expectancy was a short 35 years.  If that was true now I would most likely already be without many of the important people in my life and I cannot even imagine that.