Jose Alvarez Avina

The beginning of this chapter was really interesting because learning about Hassan and how he was Christian and Muslim that was very interesting to me, I had no idea you could do that. One of the most interesting things about his chapter was how the religion was started. It not only was the religion it was an empire at the same time. Unlike other religions they had the man power to go to war with other regions. They grew simultaneously as a religion and as an empire. It was the largest and most influential third wave civilization. Islamic civilization challenged and provoked Christendom, transformed by African cultures, and took root in India, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. The spread continued to the modern era by 2013 1.6 billion people followed it which was 23% of the population. Now if that doesn't tell you something I do not know what will.. Another thing that was intriguing was how it changed how the people lived. they went rom being nomadic Arabs (Bedouins)  to a settle...

This chapter was really interesting to me because it was really cool to read about all the trade. The most fascinating thing to me was seeing how each terrain produced something different. Each terrain really took advantage of the resources that were available to them. Trade was very important because different regions could have access to things that they usually wouldn't. It also had a huge impact on the regions economic systems, and it started things like taxes. In china Silk was like gold and it was usually made in homes by women. People who usually grew food gave that up and started producing paper, porcelain, and iron tools. This really created an opportunity for people that might have never been able to change the way they lived. It made some people very rich.  Africa had gold, iron goods, and slaves. Arabia: myth, and perfumes. India had grain, ivory, and cotton, stones, spices. China had silk, porcelain, and tea.All of these roads linked the world and change...

In this chapter we saw the similarities and differences between Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas. One of craziest things to me is the way the population was distributed, 85% of the population was in Eurasia. I think the number one thing this can be attributed to is agriculture. In the americas there weren't as lucky as they were in Eurasia. They did not have animals they could domesticate, they also had not developed any written language. Because of this the Americas and Africa had civilizations that were a lot smaller. Another major difference is that the Americas were isolated so they didn't really have anyone to communicate with like the people of Eurasia and Africa. Although the people of the Americas did not have access to iron tools or animals for domestication they still eventually achieved great things. We see with the Mayans were able to have a political system, engineering, mathematics, and even a writing system. The people of Teotihuacan formed Americas largest urba...

In this reading we saw how the 2nd wave civilizations changed their social systems. With the agriculture booms and people starting to make more than others. Also with forms of government starting to rise of course there is going to be divisions between all of the people. In India there was a very interesting structure. Basically there was a caste system with five levels priests, warriors, merchants, peasants, and the untouchables. A normal person would think that yeah if you happened to be born into a peasant family that is unfortunate but with hard work you might one day be able to become a merchant. However that was not the case whatever you were born into you were for the rest of your life. The only way to move up was to die that way and basically if you were a peasant you had to be a great peasant your whole life. To me this seems outrageous but to the people of the time they really believed it and they followed through with it. I could not live in a society like this. If you wer...

This reading was really interesting to me because it was interesting to learn about the people who really started to challenge the way everyone else taught. Not only that but to also learn about other religions. If you think about it they were the first ones to come up with these ideas, to other people at first they probably thought they were crazy. But they all kind of shared a vision of putting order into their societies. Confucianism was an interesting to learn about because he was concerned with social relationships, and he was concerned with order and place. I understood his way of things and how everyone had to put their part in for everything to work smoothly. But it was sexist to women because with his ideas theres no way a girl would be allowed to work. Women were just expected to stay at home to cook and clean and basically just make sure everything was set for her husband. The husband was the one that was responsible for making the money. He believed that women were inferio...

On Tuesday October 10th I went on a truly eye opening experience. It felt great just to be able to give back to the community and spend time with the 5th graders. I had forgotten what it really felt like to help others out. Im so glad it was with these kids too, because I feel like I can relate to when I was in elementary school. I hope we gave them good examples to look up to and gave them hope and motivation. It made me want to work harder and set a better example not just for these kids but for all of the little ones that are in my family that look up to me. One of my favorite moments was at the end when we had to say goodbye to the kids. Alonso gave me and my partners like four hugs and he said he did not want to leave us. I feel we really had an impact on him. The teacher also came up to us and thanked us because she said that he did not really get a long well with others. After I learned that it made me really happy and it made the whole trip a thousand times better. I really ho...