Part III Notes

Question 1

Despite a time of crisis after the death of the prophet Muhammad

Answer 1

in 632 AD, the Muslim community held together.

Question 2

Eventually, Muhammad’s old adversaries,

Answer 2

the Umayya clan, seized leadership of the Muslim faithful and began a sequence of stunning conquests throughout the Middle East and north Africa.

Question 3

In the 7th century…

Answer 3

the revelations of the prophet Muhammad provided the basis for the emergence of a new religion, Islam, in the Arabian peninsula.

Question 4

Although initially an Arab religion,

Answer 4

in both beliefs and practices, Islam contained a powerful appeal that eventually made it one of the great world religions.

Question 5

Before the rise of Islam…

Answer 5

Arabia was a peripheral desert wasteland whose once great trading cities had fallen on hard times. The sparse population was divided into rival tribes and clans that worshipped local gods.

Question 6

The vast Abbasid empire gradually…

Answer 6

disintergrated between the 9th and 13th centuries CE. Political decline and recurring social turmoil were fed both by the emergence of rival centers of power and the inroads of nomadic peoples attracted to the rich and fertile regions where Muslim urban life and power were centered.

Question 7

Paradoxically, even as the political power of the Abbasids declined…

Answer 7

Islamic civilization reached new heights of achievement and entered into a phase of renewed expansion.

Question 8

From the 7th century onward…

Answer 8

Muslim traders, invaders, and migrants carried the Islamic faith and Islamic civilization to the vast south Asian subcontinent.

Question 9

Muslim conquests and conversions provoked…

Answer 9

a variety of Hindu responses and attempts by some followers of both religions to reconcile their differences.

Question 10

From the 13th century, traders and Sufi mystics…

Answer 10

spread Islam to island southeast Asia. As was the case in India, the conversion was generally peaceful, and Islamic teachings and rituals were mixed with the animist, Hindu, and Buddhist religions long established in Malaya, Java, and other areas.

Question 11

African societies developed diverse forms:

Answer 11

from stateless societies organized around kinship or age sets to large, centralized states. Within this diversity were many shared aspects of language and beliefs. Universalistic faiths penetrated the continent and served as the basis for important cultural developments in Nubia and Ethiopia.

Question 12

In the sahel grasslands, several combined states emerged…

Answer 12

that combined Islamic religion and culture with local practices.

Question 13

The kingdoms of Mali and Songhay and the Hausa states were…

Answer 13

African adaptations of Islam and its fusion with African traditions.

Question 14

A string of Islamicized African ports tied to the trade across the Indian Ocean…

Answer 14

dotted the east African coast. Although these cities were Islamicized, African customs and the Bantu Swahili language remained so strong that they represented a cultural fusion mostly limited to the coast.

Question 15

Across central Africa, kingdoms developed that were supported by…

Answer 15

complex agrarian societies capable of great artistic achievements.

Question 16

Royal authority (often considered divinely inspired) led to the creation of powerful states at…

Answer 16

Benin, in the Kongo, in the Yoruba city-states, and at Great Zimbabwe.

Question 17

The power of the Byzantine empire and the spread of Orthodox Christianity long surpassed…

Answer 17

the global influence of Christian Western Europe.

Question 18

The Byzantine empire was shaped by…

Answer 18

the decline of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Arabs. The empire weathered many attacks and flourished for several centuries, playing a major role in Asian and European trade.

Question 19

Growing divisions opened up between…

Answer 19

the two main branches of Christianity. The impact of these divisions increased when the Byzantine empire began to decline.

Question 20

Much of eastern Europe was affected by…

Answer 20

Christian missionaries, new trade routes, and Byzantine military activity.

Question 21

The Kievan Rus’ formed…

Answer 21

the core of Russian culture and politics.

Question 22

Russia gradually emerged through its role in…

Answer 22

trade, growing political claims, and the decision to participate in Christianity.

Question 23

Postclassical Europe was hard-hit by the…

Answer 23

Roman collapse.

Question 24

In western Europe, after about 900 CE…

Answer 24

agriculture and trade revived, while political development advanced under the influence of feudalism and the Catholic church.

Question 25

Christian culture dominated…

Answer 25

European philosophy and art, but it generated both change and conflict.

Question 26

Though other economic values predominated in western Europe,

Answer 26

merchant capitalism gained ground.

Question 27

Key characteristics of western Europe began to shift after…

Answer 27

1300 CE, with new problems of overpopulation and disease.

Question 28

The Toltecs and later the Aztecs were the…

Answer 28

chief civilizations that followed the fall of Teotihuacan and the abandonment of the classic Maya cities in the eighth century CE.

Question 29

The Aztec and Toltec civilizations built on…

Answer 29

the accomplishments of their predecessors but rarely surpassed them, except in political and military organization.

Question 30

Aztec society became more…

Answer 30

hierarchical as the empire grew and social classes with different functions developed, although the older organization based on clans and kinship never disappeared.

Question 31

Although Aztec society drew tribute from subject peoples,

Answer 31

they confronted technological barriers that made it difficult to maintain the large population of central Mexico.

Question 32

The Inca empire emerged…

Answer 32

in the highlands of Peru after about 1300 CE, eventually spreading its control over the whole region by integrating many ethnic groups into an extensive imperial state.

Question 33

The civilizations of Mesoamerica and the Andes were…

Answer 33

high points of Native American cultural achievement.

Question 34

The Americas continued to be occupied by a variety of peoples who lived in different ways,

Answer 34

ranging from highly complex sedentary agricultural empires to simple kin-based bands of hunters and gatherers.

Question 35

Chinese influence on Japan peaked…

Answer 35

in the 7th and 8th centuries as Japanese rulers sought to build a Chinese-style bureaucracy and society.

Question 36

Over time, the isolated court centers at Nara and later Heian lost…

Answer 36

political control to powerful aristocratic families and local warlords.

Question 37

From the 12th century onward, Japanese history was increasingly dominated by…

Answer 37

civil wars between shifting factions of the court aristocracy and local warlords, which ended only with the rise of the Tokugawa warlord family in the early 1600s.

Question 38

Despite strife and social dislocation, from the 12th century onward…

Answer 38

literature and the arts flourished in Japan as Chinese influence declined steadily.

Question 39

Of all the areas to which the Chinese formula for civilized development spread,

Answer 39

Korea was the most profoundly influenced for the longest period of time.

Question 40

Despite repeated Chinese interventions, the Korean people…

Answer 40

developed a separate identity that was expressed in distinctive forms of dress, cuisine, and a unique social class system.

Question 41

At the end of the 2nd century BCE, the Han dynasty…

Answer 41

conquered the kingdom of Nam Viet, beginning an effort to absorb the Vietnamese people into Chinese civilization that would span a thousand years.

Question 42

Although they benefited greatly from borrowings from China, the Vietnamese…

Answer 42

had a distinct identity that provided the basis for a series of rebellions and eventually produced an independent kingdom with expansionist designs against neighboring southeast Asian peoples.

Question 43

The emergence of the Sui dynasty at the end of the 6th century CE signaled…

Answer 43

a return to strong dynastic control in China.

Question 44

A Confucian revival enhanced…

Answer 44

the position of the scholar-gentry administrators, providing the ideological basis for a return to highly centralized rule under an imperial dynasty.

Question 45

Beset by internal rebellions and nomadic incursions, the Tang gave way to…

Answer 45

the Song in the early 10th century.

Question 46

Although the Song domains were smaller than those under the Tang,

Answer 46

the Confucian revival flourished under the successor dynasty.

Question 47

The Tang and Song eras were a time of…

Answer 47

major shifts in the population balance within China, new patterns in trade and commerce, renewed urban expansion, novel forms of artistic and literary expression, and a series of technological innovations.

Question 48

In the early 13th century, long-standing obstacles to Mongol expansion were overcome, primarily because…

Answer 48

of the leadership of Chinggis Khan.

Question 49

The Mongols and allied nomadic groups built…

Answer 49

an empire that stretched from the Middle East to the China Sea.

Question 50

Mongol commanders launched raids into…

Answer 50

Georgia and across the Russian steppe that set the stage for their conquest of the vulnerable Christian lands to the west.

Question 51

After decades of hard campaigning in the mid-13th century, the Mongols gained control of the greatest prize of all,

Answer 51

China, which they ruled for a century.

Question 52

Although the Chinese capacity to assimilate nomadic conquerors was evident from the outset,

Answer 52

the Mongols managed to retain a distinct culture and social separateness.

Question 53

The new world order that was beginning to emerge by 1400 AD first involved…

Answer 53

major reshuffling in the Middle East and north Africa.

Question 54

Western expansion had many problems. It must be seen as the result of…

Answer 54

growing problems as well as new strengths.

Question 55

Tensions in key societies in the Americas and Oceania made them…

Answer 55

vulnerable to conquest.