World Civ

Final Exam Study Guide

Prof. Addison

Your final will be essentially the same as the two previous midterms.  It’s just that you have more time to do it, so I will expect you to think more carefully and write with a little more analysis.    You will have five ID’s and one essay OR 50 multiple choice questions.

These will cover from the start of the Holy Roman Empire through the Renaissance.  This will include:

Secularism in the western world and its effects.  Culture, intellectual development, changes in mentality (i.e., Humanism). 

The reconnection of the West with both the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine); The Islamic world (abbasid and Umayyid caliphates); the Silk Road;

The growth of religions in the west and east, and spread of them:  Christianity and Islam enormous effects on shaping the world, both in the West (as well as the Eastern Roman Empire), and in the East (establishment of Caliphates); evangelization and diffusion of religion.  How does this challenge the existing political order in various areas?  How do politics refute or support religion?

What are the “Dark Ages”  in a society?  What causes them, and is anything really lost?

Church and State conflicts and harmonies (doesn’t need a whole lot more explaining, does it?)  <see chap 11-13 for the complete interconnection of political and religious worlds under Islam; vs conflicts seen in Roman and European worlds>

In “general terms” (review chap 9 and 10)  look at patterns of development when civilizations become interactive – ideas take on greater importance rather than geographic conditioning (i.e., the unification provided by religion transcends the notion of being French, English, German); what happens to each society when they encounter another civilization that is entirely foreign to them (see china spreading into Japan; popularizing Buddhism, the spread of chx. and islam)

Read up through chap 12, skim through chap 15 very briefly.

What do we mean now by “East” vs. West?