Hello everyone. This my first blog of the semester and also my first
blog I have ever posted on the internet. So, this is pretty much a new
experience for me. I am doing this for my World History class at NDNU. I
have a lot of opinions and personal beliefs on things so I just ask
that we all be respectful of it and keep this a fun and educational
environment. Just remember that I am not here to change anyone's mind or
prove a point I am just simply reflecting on the readings for the
course.
The Ways of the World by Robert W. Strayer,
begins in a similar way that several other history books begin that I
have read in previous classes, from the beginning of time. It is
interesting to me because many of these resources seem to have their own
idea of how it all began. In fact, this book's version seems to be the
most developed out compared to the previous versions that I have read
about or studied about. I have always personally seen these things as
just theories because they always seem to change over the years. the Big
Bang theory, I thought was an old theory, but I originally first
learned years ago that it dealt with two large orbiting bodies colliding
into each other and the collision created the universe. Another theory I
also read about was a ball of energy that kept condensing, until it
underwent so much pressure that it exploded and created the universe. I
don't ever take them as fact but as things that people seem to believe
"may" have happened before. No one can ever know because no one ever
lived that long to tell, but it is always interesting to me to see what
people think.
It also seems that people still believe
that we have evolved from chimpanzees somewhere in Africa. Interesting
enough, our more modern time has only taken up 5% of the total amount of
time that we have dominated the planet. This is all fascinating to hear
that people believe this, but I have always been a religious believe
and that animals and humans are two separate things and always have
been.
After the book finishes explaining all this
interesting theory stuff that you can hear in many completely different
way from many different books is when you finally have me begin to
actually learn about what most likely happened in our past. When the
book begins talking about migration and how we advanced, then you have
me convinced. Thankfully the authors begins talking about this quite
quickly.
It is believed that the earliest forms of
human revolution may have began in Africa. From there many of the
earliest humans migrated, and hunted and gathered. They were the first
to use tools to hunt for their food. They would use forms of rock, and
stone and they later on experimented with its shape to see what
different results they could come up with, for better or for worse. This
section of the reading is what may have caught most of my attention
because it was the easiest to relate to. I have heard it many times and
even though the story may have been a little different every time I read
it and it may had started in a different region, it is normally the
same story. This story is normally the origins of hunting and gathering.
I first heard of this technique back in my first year of middle school
and I still continue to hear about it in text books today.
I
seem to enjoy the structure of this book, much more over earlier
textbooks that I read because of the order it follows. It follows an
order of human progress, which is nice to know the book always keeps you
at an easy pace to follow and doesn't jump back and forth between times
and regions. The book continues on talking about more discovery of
skills the earliest humans had acquired and how they used these skills
to begin to travel. This was the earliest migrations that we know about.
I
also had found it interesting that the book mentions about the ice age,
and how humans had used it to their advantage to travel. I actually
haven't heard about the ice age in quite a long time and wasn't sure if
historians still believed that humans lived during those times. I
remember learning about this technique of travel years ago, but I only
heard it mentioned in class once and that was it. Most of the history
classes I took after middle school were more about more modern history,
and cultures. This book brings me back to things I haven't heard about
in about over 10 years ago.
The remainder of the first
part of the chapter went on talking about the human migration and how
it may have happened what became of it. It became a bit harder for me to
focus during this point, mainly because there was many dates that were
being stated and a lot of different theories of how this all may have
happened.
I feel that the section "The Ways We Were"
was far more interesting to me. It spoke more about the development of
humankind and create the roles of the woman, the man, and the teenagers
in the different cultures that existed. The textbook also talks about
the creation of leaders and rules, and sexual relationships between and
man and woman. This kind of development has always been quite
interesting for me to read about. For some reason I have always been
intrigued in development and the process, time and effort it takes.
In
conclusion to the first blog of the semester, this textbook
surprisingly seems to keep me interested. It feels as if it is more like
talking to you, other than just stating facts and dates and just
expecting you to remember them. The author really kept the reader in
mind when it was being written. At times the author puts in questions
such as "how did this become possible" or "what caused this to happen"
or even the classic "what if" questions. In other words, this textbook
makes it easy to read, and guides you through this long journey what
happened in this world's past and who our ancestors were and how things
got to be the way they are today. Already, I am beginning to feel more
comfortable about this course and that the reading assignments may be
more manageable then I first thought.
by Andrew Murillo
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