Chapter 8-10

Chapter 8 - 10:

I am relieved to be back after the MCAT exam last week, hope you guys didn’t miss me too much ;) If any of you are considering medicine, do not underestimate the entrance exam...

These chapters were more interesting than the start of the book to me. I found it fascinating to read about how trading really started on a large scale. I found it interesting that the book speaks about trade having diminished the economic self-sufficiency of local societies. I believe this is true but looking at the bigger picture, this was a minute sacrifice as the rewards were so great. The Buddhist faith actually changing to due monks making money and no longer requiring begging bowls etc. The statues even changed by starting to have greek features.

Disease caused havoc in many areas that had not struggled with plagues before such as Constantinople where 10,000 people passed away each day for 40 days...

Using the monsoons to travel across the Indian Ocean was a genius plan. It’s amazing how they realized the winds would change and allow them to travel in various directions at a higher speed. It would be interesting to see what their ship yards looked like and how they worked.

Borobudur is clearly proof that religion had increasingly spread due to the oceanic trade routes.

Neoconfucianism is again proof that religions seem to change to suit the current environment. This new form of Confuncianism was an attempt at restoring it’s previous following by incorporating Buddhism and Daoism into it.

The new scholarly drive really had an impact on education. The testing facilities were very much like the ones that we now go to. The examinees were searched, only numbers and no names were used to avoid cheating and special treatment.

It was also interesting to see how Korea, Vietnam and Japan resisted being completely like the Chinese but they did participate in the tribute system and learned from many of the Chinese values.

Byzantium seemed to be quite a remarkable place as the rest of the Roman Empire had fallen. The church and state acting together was alarming and the start of the split between Orthodoxy and Catholicism.