black death

SP-18 CIV 202 Exam 1 Preparation Guide

Readings for Exam 1

Challenges and Complexity: A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of Historical Change

• Canvas: Carter and Warren, “On Primary and Secondary Sources” – a primer on identifying and using these sources as evidence to interpret and explain the past.
• Canvas: Mary Jo Salter, “Welcome to Hiroshima” – an example of a source, but what kind? What can we learn about the ways we remember and memorialize the past? As societies grow more diverse and integrated, whose past matters most?

 Prelude to Western Modernity: Geography, Commodities and Connectivity in the Process of Historical Change 

• CC:  Chapters 15 and 31 (1031-45)
• Canvas: Shaffer, “Southernization” – what can we learn about the dynamics of historical change from a process by which the demand for high-valued commodities motivated commercial exchange, created trade-routes and the wealth that flows from trade, and resulted in the diffusion of ideas, people and material culture that would provide opportunities for innovation and transformation.

http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/journals/jwh/jwh051p001.pdf

• Canvas: Ana Swanson, “Six Maps that will make you rethink the World” – a way to learn/ look at how the process of global integration observed in current patterns of technological innovation and diffusion, geography and production, and the demographics of urbanization and migration present challenges and opportunities that are changing the world. How will increased mobility and global integration change your lives?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/29/six-maps-that-will-make-you-rethink-the-world/?utm_term=.047b009e5ddf

• Canvas: Jacob Soll, “The Vanished Grandeur of Accounting” – what can we learn about social norms, customs and values from art and other visual representations. What do these representations teach us about cultural and moral attitudes regarding wealth and power?

The Early Origins of Westernization: A Tale of Two Oceans

• CC:  Chapters 17 and 19(613-20; 632-43); Reading Supplements posted with Class Notes on Canvas

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:

            Both the multiple-choice and essay components of this exam will be take-home, posted on Canvas.

The essay prompt is posted below and the multiple-choice part shall be posted on Thursday, 02/15. Due dates will also be specified.

SP-18 Exam 1 – Take Home Essay (60 points)

DUE Monday 02/26 Sections 03 & 04); Tuesday 02/27 Section 13

Please use the conceptual framework to develop an argument that explains the historical significance of the Black Death. Your argument will specifically answer the question:

Why did the consequences of the Black Death change the course of world history?

Your introduction and thesis statement should look something like this:

The consequences of the Black Death presented new challenges to traditional methods of organizing European society. These methods were overcome by these challenges and new methods gradually emerged to solve the three generic problems facing complex societies. The new methods of organizing authority, however, had to overcome the challenges of claiming sovereignty and legitimacy. The process of consolidating these claims and the emergence of new methods of organizing economic activity, emphasizing commercial production and exchange, would end up motivating the Europeans’ turn to maritime exploration and expansion that changed the world.

Hints and Guidelines – You can develop your argument in stages by sequentially answering the following questions:

1. Describe the consequences of the Black Death and explain why they posed a challenge to the traditional methods of organizing European society (serfdom, etc.).
2. What factors contributed to the rise of new methods of organizing authority (the rise of national monarchs) and economic activity (the emergence of capitalism)?

• What were the challenges that national monarchs had to overcome in order to consolidate claims to sovereignty and legitimacy?

1. Explain how changes in methods of organizing economic activity helped monarchs obtain more revenues but also create new challenges (commercialization and the demand for luxury goods and resources) that limited revenue growth?
2. Why did these new challenges motivate a turn towards maritime exploration and expansion?
3. What were the consequences of these maritime ventures? What impact did the interactions and encounters resulting from these ventures have for European merchants and monarchs? What impact did they have on the fortunes of non-Europeans? Why are these impacts historically significant in terms of the global distribution of wealth and power?

Please use 12-point Times-Roman font, double-spacing and standard (not exaggerated) margins.  The completed essay should be at least or 600-900 words in content. Minimum of two, maximum of three pages in length.  Please display word count in the submitted essay.

Some things to note:

The writing assignment is designed to gauge your ability to write a sustained argument that logically develops chronologically accurate causal connections between relevant pieces of information to draw a historically informed conclusion. For some of you this may prove to be a challenge; it is why I urge you to go about this task by answering each question separately. Each question is worth 10 points.