The West in the World, 4th Edition (Sherman)Chapter 1:
The Roots of Western CivilizationCritical Thinking Questions- Before Western Civilization
- What is Western civilization? What are its origins and important features?
- What were some of the advantageous characteristics of the civilizations that arose in the Middle East?
- How did people live and organize their lives in this period?
- What were the technological and artistic achievements of people in the Paleolithic period?
- What were the advantages of practicing agriculture? What were the disadvantages?
- What made the Middle East a favorable region for agriculture and the domestication of animals?
- What were some of the changes in social organization that accompanied the rise of agriculture?
- What changes in warfare occurred in this period? Why did these changes occur?
- Struggling with the Forces of Nature: Mesopotamia, 3000 – ca. 1000 B.C.E.
- What aspects of life in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley made irrigation necessary?
- What role did ziggurats play in cities like Ur and Uruk?
- What was life like for Sumerian women? How did Sumerian law regulate their lives?
- How did rulers like Sargon legitimate their rule?
- What were Sumerian views on social inequality?
- What did Sumerians use writing on tablets for? What do those uses indicate about typical activities in Sumerian
society?
- How did Hammurabi's code differentiate between social orders? Which groups did it protect?
- What contributions did Indo-Europeans make to Western civilization? Which aspects of Fertile Crescent culture did they
incorporate into their own?
- Rule of the God-King: Ancient Egypt, ca. 3100 – 1000 B.C.E.
- What were the advantages of the Nile Valley in comparison to the Tigris-Euphrates Valley? What kinds of resources did it
lack?
- How did hieroglyphs differ from cuneiform script? In what ways did its uses differ from how the Sumerians used
cuneiform?
- What was the symbolic significance of the pyramids? What do we know about how they were constructed?
- What were some of the problems that Egyptian rulers faced in the period ca. 2200 – 1570 B.C.E.?
- How did Egyptians benefit from expansion? What were some of the drawbacks?
- How did Akhenaten attempt to reform Egyptian religious practices?
- Merchants and Monotheists: The Peoples of the Mediterranean Coast, ca. 1300 – 500 B.C.E.
- What was the most important contribution of the Phoenicians to Western civilization? Why is this contribution considered so
important?
- Why is the Bible difficult to use as a historical source?
- What sequence of events led to the creation of a Jewish Diaspora? Why were some Hebrew priests concerned about the effects of
living in exile upon Jews and Jewish practices?
- Which ideas about religion and the world distinguished Jews from their contemporaries?
- Terror and Benevolence: The Growth of Empires, 1200 – 500 B.C.E.
- What impact did the disruption of trade in 1200 B.C.E. have on metalworking?
- How did the Assyrians excel in warfare? In administration? What techniques did they use to maintain their subject people's
loyalty?
- What contributions did the Babylonians make to Western civilization?
- What were the basic principles of Zoroastrianism?
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