"Ways of the World" by Robert W. Strayer Chapter 1 & Chapter 2

I am starting off by saying I will try to recap and put my feelings down as best as possible with what I can understand and retain from the readings from “Ways of the World” by Robert W. Strayer. This is a subject very difficult for me yet interesting so bare with me on this blogging journey. In the beginning it all started with Science called “Big History”, I had no idea but makes sense to me. I wont touch too much on that because we don’t really get into that in this class but boy I would love to learn more. Science is in our everyday life and may make more sense about certain things that are happening around us. I understand why we need to remember the major eras; they have already come about in the readings. The five major eras that will be discussed in the blog are; Paleolithic Era (old stone age), Neolithic Era (new stone age), Ancient Era, Classical Era and Modern Era. The book has started with the first peoples and first farmers. In Africa is where Homo-sapiens have appeared to be present. Much human activity has come about like hand axes, hunting and fishing. These people would settle depending on the food supply and where it was. They had gone many places and where in many places again due to the food supply and where it was located such as Eurasia, Australia, Americas and the Pacific. This is where the Paleolithic era was explained along with the Neolithic era. Paleolithic “old stone age” was a small society with about 20 to 40 people where they had structure and rules within their society. People would move to new environments constantly as the population grew. Neolithic era “new stone age” was considered and agricultural revolution. People showed signs of being able to actual start living of the land and growing their won foods and breeding animals for survival. The people & farmers started to depend on plant and animal life for survival, in the end this led to increase in population. People from this era had to work harder to survive now well because they found ways to use the land and animals it took great lengths to survive in preparation. People were getting sick due to the living conditions, too close with animals and plant life. The book then starts to wonder over to the first civilizations, cities, states and unequal societies. The first civilization emerged in 3500 – 3000 BCE according to Strayer. The economy was a rich fishing industry and they started to exchange cotton for fishing nets, squash, beans and guava. Egypt and Mesopotamia societies were discussed as developing pottery and writing. Central Asian civilization was a commercial exchange and the Olmec was the first civilization which was on the Gulf of Mexico. There were seven total first civilizations but smaller ones remain as well. Cities roles were the center of production for the cultures such as art, literature and ceremony. The market places were for the local people and also contributed with distant exchanges. Unequal societies existed back then as they do now I feel but maybe more extreme but had to do with wealth as power kind of like are days in 2018. I don’t feel much of a difference besides slavery but yet again some people feel they are still slaves to our country. Upper class was based on land, salary but not physical labor, political standings, military, religion and often noticeable by the clothing worn from the people. Lower class were lower level officials, soldiers, police and farmers. Lower than this would be slaves and they all supported the upper class people in some way. This is a small recap of what Strayer discussed this far in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 that I found important or significant. The details are in depth in the book and I can’t wait to learn more and see what is next to share to stay tuned until next weeks updated blog.