Ch. 12 Fifteenth Century or How People Became Jaded

It is about time these men of the past, like Columbus, were deconstructed to reveal their true colors.

Thanks to the Agricultural Revolution, the American Indians have been reduced to relying on casinos as an economy.  What a shame.

“Things Fall Apart.”  They certainly do.

“Warfare replaced successful food getting as the avenue to male prestige.”  Damn straight because certainly women are not the instigators of war.  War is all about men flexing their almighty muscles to prove their manhood.  Sorry if I have offended any of you dudes out there, but it is true.

Those Iroquois had it together by creating the League of the Five Nations.  Right on!

The encyclopedia concept by Emperor Yongle was the best concept ever drummed up by a person of his ilk.  I used encyclopedias from about 7^th – 12^th grades and could not have gotten through school without them.  My dad bought them from a traveling salesman.  Best thing he ever purchased.

I want to hear more about these “eunuchs” (castrated men).  What was that all about, Alfie?

300 ships filled with 27,000 people?  That equates to 9,000 people per ship.  Those things must have been monstrosities, kind of like the cruise ships of today’s world.

Personally, I much prefer reading about Western Europe than places like China, Russia, Africa.  The Renaissance period is fascinating reading in my book.

I like this Christine de Pizan woman and just might read her City of Ladies when WH is over.

I must say, Strayer does a fine job of volleying back and forth between Europe, China, and the Islamic empires.

So, some of the Hindu and Buddhist rulers along Malay and Indonesia converted to Islam with the ulterior motive of attracting traders to their port city (p. 580).  Not surprising at all that religion is used as a method to gain something because that is how people operate.

That’s so cute that the Aztecs had rubber balls!  Rubber balls defined my childhood; I always had a rubber ball and broomstick ready for stickball games.

I am willing to bet that the people responsible for performing human sacrifice rituals were thanking their lucky stars that they were on the other side of the table.

A laundry list of gender parallelism, which sounded so even, then the bomb drops with “None of this meant gender equality” (p. 586).  I do not see a distinction between parallelism and equality.

Thank God, we are finally getting into the modern age!

I like how Strayer words population growth as an “unprecedented jump in human numbers.”  It is procreation, something humans excel at.

It is so much easier to read about modern society, since that is what we know.  Out with the old, in with the new!  The Euros have taken over the world with their dominance in everything, thus creating the jaded human being.

Of course, coincidence and chance played a part on history!  Coincidence and chance play a part in every aspect of life.  We can "what if" all we want, but that will not change what actually happened.  God only knows how much I would like to have changed many things from the past.