David Fromkin begins this chapter to his book, The Way of the World: From the Dawn of Civilizations to the Eve of the 21st Century, with the bold claim that, 'The modern world had its beginnings sometime in our own millennium [i.e. the last 1000 years]; its first stirrings in science, invention, and commerce can be detected from about 1000 A.D.' (p. 87).
Based on your own reading of this chapter, which THREE examples do you think best demonstrate Fromkin's claim i.e. pick one example for science, one for invention, and one for commerce.
Fromkin's aim is to trace the roots of western-style modernism deep in the past -- i.e well before 1500 -- and to link it with a particular western-style rationality. In your own words, offer a definition of 'rationality' (or 'rationalism' if you prefer) and say why, based on your reading of this chapter and again in your own words, Fromkin concludes that, 'It was rationalism that brought us from 1000 A.D. to 2000' (p. 111). (2 marks)
The purpose of this exercise is to gain a sense of how and why the West (at this stage, mainly western Europe plus Britain) in 1500 did have a distinctive outlook on the world but, as yet, was not in a position to dominate the world in any sense.