LECTURE OBJECTIVES

What is Western Civilization? and Intro to Guns, Germs, and Steel

• Define "Western" and "civilization"
• Discuss various definitions of "civilization"
• State Yali's question and Diamond's restatement of this as a research question
• Explain 2 (of 3) objections to Diamond's research question
• State Diamond's thesis in Guns, Germs, and Steel
• Describe the Great Leap Forward

Collision of Cultures

• Describe the concept of a natural experiment of history and relate Diamond’s example experiment
  
• Identify the date of the first encounter between Atahuallapa and Pizarro
  
• Define “proximate” and “ultimate”
  
• List the proximate factors relevant to the collision at Cajamarca

Guns, Germs, and Steel - National Geographic/PBS Documentary, Episode 2 - Conquest

• Describe two differences and two similarities between the documentary film and the book
  
• State your explanation for the differences
  
• Explain the benefits and/or drawbacks of learning about “collision of cultures” with respect to the two different media
  
• Comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the different media (i.e., book chapter, DVD, lecture, PBS web site)
  

Food Production

• Define “food production” and “founder crops”
  
• Identify the five areas in which food production arose independently and the dates of onset in southwest Asia (the Fertile Crescent) and the eastern U.S.
  
• Distinguish between independent and imported origins of food production
  
• Describe and explain the ultimate and proximate factors underlying the broadest patterns of history (figure 4.1)
  
• Distinguish among the ways in which plants are domesticated by conscious human choice and by factors not visible to humans
  
• Explain why food production thrived in the Fertile Crescent and not on other continents
  

Animals, Axes, and Germs

• Identify the 2 key roles humans play in domestication
  
• Identify the Major 5 animal domesticates
  
• Explain Marvin Harris’ thesis regarding the domestication of pigs in the Middle East
  
• Identify the six reasons that make undomesticated animals undomesticable
  
• Explain why axis orientation and topography influenced human history
  
• Explain how germs influnced human history and identify contemporary “lethal gifts”
  

Guns, Germs, and Steel - National Geographic/PBS Documentary, Episode 1 - Out of Eden

• Describe two differences and two similarities between the documentary film and the book
  
• State your explanation for the differences
  
• Explain the benefits and/or drawbacks of learning about food production with respect to the two different media
  
• Comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the different media (i.e., book chapter, DVD, lecture, PBS web site)
  

Writing and Technology

• Identify the early purposes of writing and printing
  
• Describe the evolution of writing and explain the ways in which it spread
  
• Explain the phrase “necessity is the mother of invention” and its converse
  
• Describe the 4 factors affecting the use and adoption of technology
  
• Identify the ultimate factor affecting the spread of writing and technology

Guns, Germs, and Steel - National Geographic/PBS Documentary, Episode 3 - Into the Tropics

• Explain the influence of geography on the colonization of Africa
  
• List the advantages the Zulus had over the Voertrekkers
  
• Describe the role of 'guns germs and steel' in Africa today
  

Government and Religion

• Describe the way in which Diamond classifies societies.
  
• Define egalitarian, differentiating between social structure and social stratification.
  
• Describe a kleptocracy and list the strategies for its maintenance.
  
• Discuss the origin and rise of the state.
  

Historiography and Critique of Determinism and Diffusionism

• Define historiography and describe the historiography of diffusionism
  
• Describe the colonizer’s model (diffusionist world model)
  
• Explain the concept of implicit association
  

The Myth of the European Miracle

• Explain the concept of "the European Miracle"
  
• Outline the 6 basic categories of arguments supporting the “European miracle”
  
  • also distinguish between cultural and non-cultural arguments
    
• Artciluate and support your view on whether Diamond's arguments regarding any of his proximate or ultimate factors fit into any of these categories
  
• Explain the concept of implicit association
  

Blaut's Theory of the Rise of the West

• State Blaut’s thesis in The Colonizer’s Model of the World
• Describe the 4 grounds of comparison Blaut employs in his argument
  

...........midterm exam........

Ancient Civilizations and Natural Resources

• Describe the natural resource use and environmental impacts in the civilizations of Easter Island, Mesopotamia, and Rome
  
• Identify the “ecological consciousness” of Mesopotamian civilization
  
• List the types of conservation attempts of the Roman empire
  
• Identify the date of the fall of Rome
  

Exercise & Discussion on Ancient Civilizations and their Environments

• Map concepts and describe linkages among resource use, ecological problems, and the decline of Mesopotamian and Roman civilizations
  

Knowledge, Philosophy, Science: The Greek Legacy

• Define “epistemology” and distinguish empirical knowledge from theoretical knowledge
  
• Identify the dates (centuries) of the era of Classical Greece & distinguish this era from other eras of Ancient Greece
  
• Describe the basic ideas of the following Greek philosophers
  
• Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus
  
• Explain the legacy of Greek thought on environmental attitudes in the Western tradition
  

Christianity

• Identify the date that Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire
  
• Relate White’s thesis in “Historical Roots” and explain the importance of this essay
  
• Describe 3 fundamental components of the legacy of the Christian tradition
  
• Explain 3 interpretations of human-nature relationship within the Christian tradition
  

Environmental Ethics Exercise & Discussion

• Draw and label the environmental ethics continuum
  
  • State and defend your position (attitudes and values)
    
• Identify the historic legacy inherent in each label of the continuum
  

Medieval Times: Feudalism, Magna Carta, and the Black Death

• Identify the dates of the Middle Ages
  
• Describe the features of feudalism
  
• Identify the date of Magna Carta, the King who signed it; and explain its significance
  
• Identify the dates of the Black Death
  
• Describe the bubonic plague and Cohn’s thesis about the Black Death
  

The Legacy of Feudalism and "Rousseau's Revenge"

• Describe the legacy of feudalism
  
• State Bromley's thesis in "Rousseau's Revenge" and summarize his essay
  
• Describe Bromely’s concept of “social ownership”
  

The Renaissance

• Define and describe the Renaissance
  
• Place the Renaissance on a time line
  
• Identify three prominent Renaissance figures and their major works
  
• Explain two meanings of “Machiavellian”
  
• Describe the timelessness of Shakespeare’s plays
  

The Reformation

• Identify the event that triggered the Reformation as well as the date of that event
• Explain the ultimate and proximate problems driving the Reformation
• Explain the paradox of the Reformation
• Describe the saga of the English Reformation
• Describe the “Protestant Ethic” (Weber) and its implications

Scientific Revolutions: The Cosmos and the Natural World

• Describe the concept of a scientific revolution according to Kuhn (1962)
  
• Place the Scientific Revolution on a timeline using Copernicus’ work
  
• Identify the prominent figures of the scientific revolution and describe their contributions to Western science
  • Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton
    
• Compare and contrast the “old” (medieval) and “new” (post-Renaissance) categories and catalogues of the natural world
  
• Identify those who created the “new catalogue” of nature and describe their contributions to Western understanding of the natural world
  
  • Ray, Linnaeus
• Identify the decade of Gutenberg’s printing press (1450s)
  

The Enlightenment

• Describe the characteristics of the Enlightenment
• Place the Enlightenment on a timeline (using Locke’s Two Treatises)
• Identify these figures of the Enlightenment and their contributions to philosophy
  • Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Kant
• Explain the concept of a social contract