World History II

 HST 102: World History II

Midterm Exam I

Friday, February 26, 2021

Spring 2021

Answer any three of the following essay questions, but no more than one from a section. Please submit your responses as an attachment to my email at Kenneth.okeny@salemstate.edu by no later than 2pm Eastern Standard Time, Friday February 26, 2021. Any responses submitted after 2pm will not be accepted unless justified by health or COVID-19-related conditions. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Section I/Establishing World Trade: The Geography and Philosophies of Early Economic Systems, 1300-1500

1. What are the basic requirements for the functioning of a free market economy? How did the Great Depression of the 1930s affect thinking about the operations of free markets?

2. First describe the basic components of a free market economy. Then describe the historical criticisms of free markets developed by Karl Polanyi and associates, and the counter-arguments developed by Philip Curtin.

3. According to the author of the textbook, “All societies--- regulate trade to some degree in order also to serve the non-economic goals of the society. Business may be more or less regulated, but it is never completely unregulated.” Cite at least three examples of such regulation from the chapter. In each case, who was actually regulating trade and how? What “non-economic goals” were being served? Based on evidence, examples and arguments from this chapter, how much should a society’s economy be regulated, by whom and for what reasons or ends, if any?

4. Discuss why, of all the general phenomena that have affected the way groups of people have lived, world trade is important for understanding relationships in a “world system” and how and why people lived as they did in a particular place and time. Use Emmanuel Wallerstein’s “world system” theory to articulate your response.

5. Explain, by making use of the story of the growth of the world system of the post-Roman world to 1450, what it means to say, as historian Janet Abu-Lughod argues, that “world systems” evolve and sometimes restructure.

6. Discuss the nature and importance of trade in the Americas in the 1400s.

7. Write an essay on West Africa and East Africa trade in the 1400s that includes discussion of main routes, how goods were transported, and what the principal goods were.

8. From approximately 750 to 1500 C.E., central Asian, trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean trade routes were dominated by Muslim traders, mostly Arabs, Berbers and Persians. What are the most likely reasons for this Muslim dominance? What were some of its principal effects? Cite specific from the textbook.

9. Between 1407 and 1433, the Ming Emperor of China sent his great Admiral Zheng He on seven great seaborne expeditions, extending as far as India, the Persian Gulf and east Africa. But the voyages were discontinued and never followed up by the extension of Chinese political or commercial control to those areas, in spite of the fact that China was probably the richest and most powerful country in the world. Why was this the case? And what, according to many historians, were some of the consequences of this withdrawal from international engagement by the Ming dynasty?

Section II/Western Europe in a Restructuring World System, 1300-1500

10. Describe the political and economic characteristics of feudalism.

11. Cities gained in political and economic influence in the 1300s and 1400s in western Europe. Describe the various forces that led to this phenomenon, and then discuss the class structure of the typical cities and the various social and economic conflicts within the cities.

12. Chapter 13 discusses no fewer than five important social, political and cultural consequences of the flowering of the European economy from the 11th through the 15th centuries C.E. List as many of these consequences as you can and then review at least two of them in detail, explaining specifically how economic growth brought about the political, social or cultural change under discussion.

13. According to the textbook, Jews had become “so much a part of the merchant classes in early medieval northern Europe that a traditional administrative phrase referred to ‘Jews and other merchants’.” Why was this the case? In what respects were Jews the classical “stranger merchants” referred earlier in chapter 13? What were the effects of this on the status of Jews in Christian Europe?

14. In the extract from the Summa Thiologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas (p.401, 3rd edition of the textbook), the text cites evidence of a major revision of the policies of the Christian Church regarding business and trade. What had been the earlier view of the Church? How does Aquinas reflect a rethinking of the Christian position? What may have been some of the reasons for this change? What were some of the consequences for the Church, for traders and businessmen, and for Jews in Europe?

15. The Renaissance was a major period of growth in European history. Describe the most important intellectual, cultural, and scientific achievements of this period.

16. What was the important advice of realpolitik that NiccoloMaciavelli, author of the famous handbook of political philosophy titled The Prince (p.438, 3rd edition of the textbook), offered to rulers?

Section III/The Unification of World Trade: New Philosophies for New Trade Patterns, 1500-1776

17. Discuss the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca civilizations of Mexico and Peru, with particular reference to the following: How were a mere handful of Spanish conquistadors able to subdue these two powerful empires in so brief a period of time?

18. Describe the different types of economic organization used by the Spaniards in the Americas to exploit the peoples of the region for Spain’s- and Europe’s- profit in the succeeding years since conquest.

19. Based on what you have learned from chapters 12 and 13, what were the principal causes of the Protestant Reformation? What were the major objections raised by Luther, Calvin and other reformers against Catholic doctrines and practices? Why were the reformers able to gain such widespread acceptance in some areas of Europe but not in others? How might economic and technological developments have contributed to the Reformation?

20. In what way, according to Max Weber, did Calvinistic Protestantism promote the rise of modern capitalism in Europe? What particular developments in Holland, England, northern Germany, and the United States convinced him to believe that there is a link between capitalist growth and Protestantism? Also, present the counter argument by the British social historian R.H. Tawney.

21. In some ways the decline of the Spanish monarchy parallels the classic model of imperial decay, as outlined in Chapter 5 (Volume I: to 1500). Using the model presented in that chapter and specific evidence and examples from Chapter 13, explain why the Spanish Empire began to decline, c.1570-1700. [If you do not have Vol.I of the Spodek book, use the information about Spain’s decline in this chapter and try to formulate your own general model]

22. Compare the reasons for the rise of France and the Dutch Republic as major trading powers in the 17th century. What advantages did they enjoy that Spain and Portugal did not?

23. How does the author of the textbook account for the success of Great Britain in establishing the largest and most enduring economic empire of all the European powers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?

24. Why was a free market economy the best system of exchange, according to Adam Smith? Why was laissez-faire preferable to regulation by church or state? How would individual or corporate greed be controlled under such a system, according to Smith? How does Smith’s system compare with the economic policies pursued by Qing China, Louis XIV’s France or Russia under Peter the Great?

Section IV/Migration: Demographic Changes in a New Global World, 1300-1750

25. First list some of the important items that traveled across the oceans in the Columbian exchange, and then assess the positive and negative impacts of the interaction for both the New World and the Old World.

26. What were the “New Europes”? What characteristics did they share? Also discuss what happened to the Maori people of New Zealand under British rule?

27. Describe the essential elements of the plantation system. In what respects did it, as Philip Curtin has argued, represent elements of both medieval European feudalism and the capitalist factory system?

28. According to Philip Curtin, “Rather than sustaining the regular excess of deaths over births typical of tropical America, the North American colonies developed a pattern of natural growth among the slaves---.” [Spodek, p.499, 3rd edition or Philip Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, p.73] Discuss the possible reasons for this?

29. By 1900, the number of Europeans (in Europe and elsewhere) was greater, relative to other peoples, than it had been at any other time or would be at any time in the future. What were some of the reasons for this?

30. Describe the expansion of the Ottoman Empire from the early victory of Osman to its height around 1600. What accounted for the decline of the empire?

31. The textbook attributes much of the success of the Mughal Empire under Akbar to the emperor’s policy of cultural syncretism. What is “syncretism”? What forms did this policy assume under Akbar? How did it contribute to his success in ruling India?

32. How did the growth and development of London differ from that of other imperial capital cities discussed in Chapter 15? In what respects, according to E.A. Wrigley, might London’s growth during the seventeenth century have been a “significant factor in giving birth to the industrialization of the eighteenth century” (Spodek, p.512)?