Hickey
Western Civ to 1650
Study questions and ID questions on the Noble textbook
Chapter 1:
Study Questions: To be prepared for exams, quizzes, and class discussion, answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. Where and why did humans first begin to settle in the large communities that we define as "civilizations," and what made this possible?
2. In the period 3000-1500 BCE, how was society organized in the Mesopotamian city-states and what innovations in government, law, religion, culture, and science can be traced to ancient Mesopotamia?
3. In the period 3100-1100 BCE, how was Egyptian society organized and what innovations in government, law, religion, culture, and science can be traced to ancient Egypt?
4. In the period 2500-1150 BCE, what different sorts of societies existed in The Levant and Anatolia, what do we know abut their government, religion, and culture, and what important innovations can be traced to this region in this era?
ID terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 2:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What made the Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian Empires more effective than the empires that had preceded them?
2. What were the basic religious ideas of Persian Zoroastrianism and how might these have been related to Persian rulers' approach to power?
3. What developments shaped Hebrew religious practices and what was most distinctive about the Hebrew religion (Judaism)?
4. What do we know about the society and culture of the Mycenaean civilization and what impact did this culture seem to have on the culture of the Greeks at the time of Homer?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 3:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What was the Polis in Archaic Greece and how did the governmental practices of the polis differ in Sparta, Athens and Corinth?
2. What were the basic religious beliefs of the Archaic Greeks and how was religion related to early Greek philosophy?
3. What role did ordinary people (non-elites) play in moving Athens towards democracy and how did Athenian democracy actually function?
4. What role did the Persian Wars (499-479 BCE) play in shaping the relationship between Athens and the other Greek city states, and why did this lead to the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE)?
5. What were the most important characteristics of Greek religion, drama, and historical thought in the Classical period?
6. What were the most important elements of the thought of these philosophers: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 4:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What made it possible for Philip and Alexander of Macedon to conquer the Greek city-states and then the Persian Empire?
2. How were the successor states that ruled Alexander's empire after his death organized and what was the relationship between Greeks and the native peoples in these successor states?
3. In what sense was Hellenistic culture across Alexander's former empire a blending of Greek culture and the cultures of "conquered" peoples in Egypt, Persia and Indian cultures, and what were the most important developments in science and the arts in the Hellenistic world?
4. What were the most important developments in philosophy and religious practices in the Hellenistic era?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 5:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What about the location of Rome contributed to its rise in the Royal period (753-509 BCE), how was it ruled, and what relationship did it have with neighboring peoples?
2. How and why did the system of government in the Roman Republic change in the period 509-287 BCE?
3. How did Romans organize their families and how was family life related to Roman social relations (e.g., the patron-client system), Roman religion, and Roman values (virtues)?
4. What allowed the Roman Republic to conquer a vast empire, what advantages came along with empire, and what social groups benefited most from Roman imperial expansion?
5. In what sense did imperial conquests aggravate problems and tensions in Roman society and what new developments in Roman politics undermined the stability of republican rule?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 6:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. In what sense was the imperial political system created by Augustus a dictatorship disguised as a republic?
2. How did Augustus and his Julio-Claudian successors secure political and social stability?
3. What factors contributed to peace and prosperity in the period 69-235 CE?
4. What basic inequalities characterized Roman life in this era, and factors led to crisis in the mid-and late 200s CE?
5. Besides Christianity, what "imported" religions had an impact on Roman life in this era, and in what sense did Paul of Tarsus create Christianity as a faith distinct from Judaism?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 7:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What reforms did Diocletian (r. 284-305 CE) and Constantine (r. 306-337) institute to reserve the power of the Roman Empire, why were reforms necessary, and what impact did these have on Roman life?
2. What factors led to the emergence of Rome as the center of the Christian religious hierarchy (the Catholic Church), and how did the Church determine what was "proper" Christian practice and what was heresy?
3. Who were the "barbarians," what was their relationship to the Roman Empire, and what factors allowed various Germanic tribes to overthrow Roman rule in the west and establish their own kingdoms?
4. When the Germanic tribes conquered the Roman west, was that the end of the Roman Empire? How did Theodosius II (r. 408-450) and Justinian (r. 527-565) reform the Roman system in the East and what were the results?
5. Did the lives of ordinary people and the lives of elites change in any major ways as a result of the decline of Roman imperial rule in the West?
6. What were the major developments in Christian theology in the period 284-600 CE, and in particular what were the most influential ideas of St. Augustine (354-430 CE)?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 8:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What were the main elements of the religious teachings of Muhammad (570-632 CE) and how was Islam spread throughout and then beyond the Arab world?
2. What methods did the Abbasid dynasty use to rule over the Muslim world and what characterized the culture of the Islamic caliphate?
3. Why didn't the Byzantine Roman Empire collapse under the pressure of Arab expansion, how and why was the Byzantine system of government reformed in the Early Medieval period, and what was most distinctive about Byzantine religious culture?
4. What were the most important developments in Visigoth Spain, Italy, and the British Isles in this period?
5. What policies and ideas introduced by the Carolingian dynasty allowed them to create and then sustain an empire that ruled most of Western Europe, and why did Charlemagne's empire fragment?
6. What seem to have been the most common aspects of Early Medieval economic life and social order (were there social patterns that were common across the former Roman world, for example)?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 9:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs. (Lots of questions on this one!)
1. What specific aspects of life seemed to be changing most in the High Middle Ages? Be sure to consider changes in population, technology, agriculture, trade, the organization of urban life, and attitudes towards money and wealth.
2. What forces prevented Germany from becoming a stable imperial state in the High Middle Ages?
3. What was the Investiture Conflict (Controversy), and why was it so important to the fates of both the German Empire and the Roman Catholic Church?
4. What different forms of government developed in different parts of Italy in this period?
5. What allowed for the transformation of France from a patchwork of feudal states into a centralized monarchy under the Capetian Dynasty (987-1314)?
6. When we compare it to the other kingdoms discussed in this chapter, what was most distinctive about England and the system that of rule that developed there?
7. What main points do the authors make regarding Spain, Scandinavia, and the Slavic world during this period?
8. Did the motives behind the Crusades change over time, and what were the most important results?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 10:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. How was High Medieval society ordered? (In other words, who were "those who pray," "those who fight," and "those who work," how were their lives organized, and what groups did not fit into these three "orders")
2. What were the major "heretical" groups that emerged in this period, what made them "heretics," and how did their beliefs differ from those of reformers who remained within the Church?
3. What were the most significant developments in High Medieval intellectual life, what role did Christian theologians and universities play in these ideas, and did non-Christians also an influence on Medieval thought?
4. What was "vernacular literature" and why was its development in this era of cultural significance?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 11:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. Explain how each of these affected the power of the Papacy and the authority of the Catholic hierarchy: The Babylonian Captivity (1309-1377), the Great Schism (1378-1417), the rise of movements known as the Lollards and the Hussites (1370s-1430s), and the reunification of the Papacy with the election of Pope Martin V (1417)
2. Explain what countries were involved in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), why they went to war, and what the story of Joan of Arc tells us about this war.
3. Explain the different forms of government/political power that existed in Italy in the 1300s-1400s, the nature of the social and political conflicts that broke out in these states in this period, and why Italy was so susceptible to foreign dominance in the late 1400s and early 1500s.
4. What social and economic conditions set the stage for the Black Death in the 1300s, and what impact did the plague have on European society. Be sure to consider the lng-term impact on religion, trade patterns, the rural economy, and life in the towns.
5. Explain the major similarities and differences between the systems of government/political power that developed in the following lands in the period 1450-1500: France, England, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, and Germany.
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 12:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What was humanism and how did the perspective of humanists change between the time of Petrarch and the time of Lorenzo Valla?
2. How did the Humanist perspective manifest itself in philosophy and political thought?
3. What was "new" about Renaissance art (and the "business" of art) and how did Renaissance art in the North differ from Renaissance art in Italy?
4. What institutions and technological innovations helped spread humanism and why?
5. How did European rulers use Renaissance art, architecture, music and literature to project and increase their own political power?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 13:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What kinds of contacts did Europeans have with the non-European world in the 1200s-1450s and what did Europeans actually know about the rest of the world?
2. Why did the Portuguese begin to explore the globe, what gave them the capacity to do this, and what did they achieve?
3. Why did the Spanish, French, and English explore the western hemisphere?
4. What factors allowed the Spanish to conquer a colonial empire in the Americas and how did they organize their system of colonial rule?
5. What impact did Europeans have on the Americas and what impact did the Americas have on Europe in the late 1400s-1500s?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 14:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. Explain the basic theological positions taken by the following that made them "Protestants": Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, the Anabaptists.
2. Why wasn't Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (r. 1519-1556) able to crush the Protestants and what was the result of the Peace of Augsburg (1555)?
3. Why did the rulers of England lead the reformation in that country and what sort of "settlement" between Catholics and Protestants was reached under Elizabeth I?
4. What impact did the Reformation have on political conflicts in France?
5. In what ways did the Catholic Church reform itself in the late 1500s and what were the results?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences:
Chapter 15:
Study Questions: Answer each question in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs.
1. What factors limited Spain's attempt to dominate European politics in the 1500s and early 1600s and contributed to Spain's decline?
2. What factors led to civil war in France in the late 1500s and how did the legacy of the civil war influence the policies of the French monarchy in the early 1600s?
3. What factors made England potentially unstable politically in the late 1500s-early 1600s and led to a civil war in the 1640s?
4. What caused the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), what countries were involved, and who were the "big winners" and "big losers" in that war?
5. What were the major causes of social unrest in the late 1500s and early 1600s and what were some of the major manifestations of these social tensions?
6. In politics, society, and religion this was a period of great turmoil and conflict--did the art and literature of the period reflect this, and if so, how?
ID Terms: Be prepared to explain these terms in your own words in 1-3 sentences: