Review sheet for first midterm exam

I'd recommend reviewing all of the readings and your lecture / discussion notes, keeping in mind some of the concepts, themes and terms listed below.

Concepts and Themes

What role did the Byzantine empire play in the transmission of knowledge to Europe through and after the middle ages? What did the Byzantine empire have to do with the impact of Islam upon Europe?
 

The events that lead up to European contact with the New World through Columbus can be envisioned in terms of causes, the general forces that contributed to the mileu of the times, and triggers, specific historical events that spurred people into action. It will be useful to pull together your thoughts on these general trends and specific triggers.
 

When Europe came into contact with the New World it was not a completely new experience for the Europeans. Think about previous contacts they had had with people throughout the world and how these experiences shaped what they expected and how they dealt with the people of the Americas.
 

New World peoples encompassed a wide variety forms of economic, political and social organizations. Consider the complexity of different New World peoples, contact between peoples of other regions and different forms of subsistence. Specifically compare major complex civilizations of the New World for attributes (such as history, politics, economy, religious activity) that they all shared and ways in which specific civilizations were dissimilar.
 

What similarities exist among the complex societies that have existed in human history? What similarities existed between the complex societies in Europe and the Americas in 1492?
 

Terms

The "One Drop" Rule		Reconquista	Similarities in Complex societies worldwide
Byzantine Empire	Complex societies of the Americas	De Soto	Entradas
Ottoman Empire	Silk Road		Tenets of Islam
Teotihuacán	Tenochtitlan		role of Catholic church in European identity
Inca	rise of middle and upper classes in Europe	Norse	rise of urbanism in Europe
Grand Khan	Sir John Mandeville	Marco Polo
Monastic orders	Aztecs	Constantinople	Olmec and Maya (very generally)
Azore Islands	Prince Henry the Navigator	Grenada	Moors
Cipangu (Zipango)	Martin Behaim (and his globe)	Venice	Bartolome de las Casas
Paolo Toscanelli	Cortes		Voyages of Zheng He (Chung Ho)
Canary Islands	Taino	Carib	Encomienda

Mesoamerican complex societies are shown above in red. Andean complex societies are shown below in blue. The complex societies of North America emerged a few hundred years B.C. and reached their most elaborate expression in the Mississippian period, roughly A.D. 900-1350.

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This map shows the extents of the Byzantine Empire (red) and the Islamic world (green) by around A.D. 800. It also shows the extent of the Roman Empire (blue) around A.D. 400. Three areas of complex societies in North America are shown in yellow, and areas of Central and South American complex society -- Mesoamerica and the Andes -- are also shown.