ANSWER EACH QUESTION WITH 500 WORDS AND REFER TO THE VON SIVERS LINKS BELOW
1. We have been grappling with things related to the Roman Empire ever since the 3rd week of our course. Drawing from Chinese and Indian and American (Maya or Inca or Aztec) materials, write an essay in which you identify 4 precise and important ways in which these civilizations reveal behaviors and developments parallel to, but different from, what we see in Rome AND where the differences teach us about the uniqueness of these other histories. You must include 1 argument from each of the three different regions. You can point to political issues, or philosophical issues, or economic issues or artistic/architectural issues, or geographical issues, or social issues, or military issues (etc), but you should say something concrete about what you think are the essential differences and how they teach you something positive about these different cultures from Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
2. In his work, Jared Diamond draws very careful links between cultural development and big geographical factors (specifically the key geographical differences between the Americas and Eurasia). Identify 4 places in the material of the past 3 weeks, excluding material from the Americas, where von Sivers and/or McGuire build precise arguments about development and civilizations out of geographical considerations. How exactly do we understand these factors to affect the civilization involved? Do you see any instances in which the emphasis on geography obscures other important factors?