Back into Empires- Persian Empire for example

• Empire: an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress.
• Empires are big, culturally diverse, conquest
• How is it different than other forms of political organizations?
• Examples
• Persian Empire:
• Benefits of Persian Empire:
• security
• military

Confuciusm and his Reinforcement

• Confucius:
• social philosopher
• influenced Chinese, Korean , Japanese
• emphasized personal and governmental morality
• seen by Chinese as “Greatest Master”
• teachings viewed as a type of virtue ethics

a peaceful life style

for the Chinese

a very interesting form of style

Summary of ideas and impacts of Two Seminal Thinkers

• Socrates:
• idea that life focused on self-development (goodness, virtue, justice, friendship)
• absolute good and absolute justice
• idea of asking questions in order to acquire more knowledge
• can gain true knowledge by the little we know
• immortality of the soul
• Impacts: affected areas of ethics, logic, knowledge
• Buddha: Four Noble Truths
• 1: old age, illness, death = forms of human suffering
• karma
• reincarnation depends on person’s karma-merit
• 2: suffering is closely linked to desire
• desires: ageing, illness, mortality
• power= not always realised
• 3: suffering can be dispelled by abandonment of desires
• 4: abandonment of desires can be achieved by following Noble Eightfold Path
• Purpose: meditation, to change yourself and develop qualities of awareness
• does not worship creator or God
• anyone can achieve enlightenment

Looking at Culture and Religion

Religion and Culture. Seems like a simple concept to understand, but it is more complex than what one may perceive it to be. Each and every culture/ religion has their own very strong history background. If one wanted to learn every thing about a specific culture/religion, he/she would find that they all tend to connect with each other.

For example, Christianity, seems to be the most common and popular form or religion. However, in my opinion as having learned about this religion in a couple of history classes, I would say Europeans are the ones who practically forced everyone to practice this faith. We have been taught that Christianity originated somewhere in Europe. The Europeans were the ones who wanted to expand. They would invade a country and introduce their customs. Eventually they would say that their (Europeans) way of living and religion is the correct form.

That is how religion spreads in my opinion. You go into a country, introduce your customs and believes, try to convince them your believes are the right ones.

When in Rome

Rome. A beautiful city. But what exactly do we know about its history? If we look into it, we can see that it also played a role in the rise of empires and states.

The Chinese and Romans were building their own empires at the time that the Persians and Greeks were competing for theirs. It is evident that the bigger the empires, the more powerful they felt.

Rome began as a small and impoverished city state in central Italy. They were described as being weak. The Romans had to reduce to kidnapping neighboring women to maintain the citys population.

That is very rude and messed up. The fact that they had to kidnap people from nearby places for their own benefit? doesnt seem like a good reason to me, but now Rome has a good population.

Moving into Eurasia

The era of empires and states was an important era in history. It was a time in which people wanted to become leaders of their own countries. Not only this, but also control to some high extent the continent. It was evident that everyone wanted power.

This time period involved a lot the Greeks, Africans, Europe, Asia. The Eastern hemisphere was thirsty for power. It is mentioned that there was a war going on between the Greeks and the Persians, known as the Greek-Persian Wars.

Greek was a small empire whereas Persia was a more built and larger empire. Regardless of the Greeks smaller empire, they managed to defeat the Persians. Goes to show that size does not matter.

Into the Art

Flipping through the pages, are very fascinating images from the Indus Valley. A picture that captured my attention was the one on page 105. It is called the Man from Mohenjo Daro. This artifact lays in the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Karachi, Paskistan.

What captivated me about this artifact is the fact that it is amazing how the Indus Valley people managed to create this piece of art. Although it has some cracks, it seems in good condition considering it is from many years ago. I do wonder why they decided to keep the eyes closed? Overall, very fascinating artifact.

Ancient Civilizations

When talking the older world and how things were, it is very interesting what one discovers. The ancients civilizations can be said to be that are Sumer, Egypt, Andes, Indus River Valley, China, Olmec.

Their forms of communication is very interesting. The symbols are very interesting as well. The symbols are meant as their form of communication withing the tribe. The Egyptians have different symbols as opposed to the Chinese.

According to the book, the type of symbols of the Indus Valley people hasnt really been diciphered. This is quite interesting because it can be almost as old as the other civilizations.