Ch 7, 8 & 10

Chapter Seven, Eight & Ten

Commerce & Culture was an interesting chapter to read in regards to the trading world. Trade was important for the economy, as it shaped the daily lives of the people, encouraging them to produce specialized products. Trade became the main form of spreading religious ideas, new technology, germs, and animals and plants to regions to the central and east Asia, and Islam to Sahara into West Africa. Silk Road was the beginning of the trading network that brought multiple states to security for merchants and travelers. The Silk Roads had mapped 2,000 years of goods, ideas, technologies, and diseases made their way across Eurasia on many routes. The 6th century was in depth with the knowledge and technology in producing raw silk from China. The industrialization of Western European countries was the most balanced and multicentered more than the other eras. 

China and the World was the set stone for the Chinese civilization, "Golden Age". Strayer states the culture of the Chinese dynasty has been "regarded as a 'golden age' of arts and literature" (pg 367) that has set goals of excellence in artworks; such as poetry, paintings, and ceramics. Taking a glance back to the history of China, it can show us and give ideas as to how society has managed to utilize the power that they had and to stay in that position. Trade was spreading throughout China as if its cultural influence of the South, primarily than the North since the Turkic people were on their own. Needing each other's resources, horses and fur, some luxury goods that the Chinese had a taste for. The Chinese were also influencing surrounding countries, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. 

The Worlds of Christendom was a rapid growth of faith. Islam was a large measure that was the answer as to how Christianity had spread over Europeans and diminishing communities of the Asian and Africans. Islam had a huge impact on the Middle East, where Jewish and Christain communities were taken over. Although in Egypt, Christianity was the main religion of the time the Muslim conquest. In this time frame, 500 -1300 years, the most serious of expansion was of the Orthodox Christianity. Occurring among the Slavic peoples,  present-day Ukraine and western Russia. Religion was a mirror of the region's cultural diversity; people practicing and with god. A small number of Christians, Muslims, and Jews were all apart of this cultural diversity. Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholicism still have a rift between them, still dividing the Christian world.