WEBCAST

UCLA History 20

World History to AD 600

 

 

 

OID Webcast Link

Professor Courtenay Raia-Grean

Class Time: TR 12:30P -- 1:45PM   

Location:  DODD 147

E-mail:craia@ucla.edu

 

 

Homo sapiens sapiens has been roaming the earth for over a 100,000 years, but only in the last five thousand years has the human drive towards civilization been unleashed upon the world.  Why after all these millennia of living so close to nature, did we break with our evolutionary past to enter a world of our own making? What made this possible?  What were the first forms of our cultural creativity? This course will examine the first foundations and early development of human civilization in Asia, Africa, Europe and the New World beginning with the Paleolithic revolution to roughly 600 C.E.  In following the patterns of advancement from the simple agricultural settlements to the rise of complex empires, there are several major guiding themes for the course:  urbanization and the rise of statecraft, politics and law;  the relationship between systems of belief and social organization; the importance of agricultural, military, linguistic and bureaucratic technologies; and the centrality of contact between cultures in social development.   

 

 

Required Textbooks at UCLA Bookstore:

 

Jerry Bentley and Herb Ziegler, Traditions and Encounters:  A Global Perspective on the Past, Volume A >From the Beginning to 1000 (Fourth Edition, 2008) 

 

Petronius, Satyricon

 

Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

 

** Additionally, weekly readings are posted on the web **

 

Course expectations:

Lecture attendance Tuesday and Thursday. (10%)

Two hour mandatory section meeting once a week.  (25%)

*Please note, you cannot pass the course without regular section attendance.

One 6-7 page paper due Tuesday of Week 9.  (15%)

Midterm: In-class, Thursday,  October 30th. (15%)

Final Exam – Cumulative.  Thursday, December 11, 2008, 11:30am-2:30pm (35%)

Weekly Reading Assignments

 

The Early Complex Societies

( 3,500 to 500 BCE)

 

 

Week 0,  Sept 25^th   (No Section)

Lecture One

Reading: 

Website: Evolutionary History, watch all segments

http://www.becominghuman.org/

 

         

          Human Origins

Neolithic Revolution

Ancient Mesopotamia: First River Civilization

Week 1, Sept 30^th

Lecture Two

Readings:  

Primaries:

Sumerian Texts:

The Epic of Gilgamesh & The Epic of the Flood & Code of Hammurabi

 

Indo-European Migrations and Mesopotamian Empires

Early records and the development of writing

Hammurabi

Hebrews and Phoenicians

            Ancient Egypt : Old Kingdom

Lecture Three PDF

 

Week 2: October 7^th

Lecture Four PDF

 

Reading :  Bentley/Ziegler Continue Chapter 3, Chapter  4 ; Clifford Geertz, “Religion as Cultural System” pp 87-124

Primaries:

Egyptian Texts: Pyramid Texts, Precepts of Ptah-hotep,Hymn to Aten,Egyptian Love Poetry

Hindu Texts: Hymns of the Rig Veda & Upanishads

 

Website: Tour of the Pyramids

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/

            Ancient Egypt Cont.

Harappan  Society

Mohenjo-daro

            Aryan migrations

            Vedic Civilization

            Caste System

Lecture 5 PDF

Week 3:  October 14th

Lecture 6 PDF 

Lecture 7 PDF

Reading: Bentley/Ziegler Chapters 5, 6; Jared Diamond, “The Maya Collapses” from Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, pp. 157- 176.

Primaries:

China: Pre -Confucian Documents: Read only - CHAPTER I. THE NATURE AND HISTORY OF THE SHŰ.,Shijing (The Book of Songs), CHASING THE PHANTOM,The Art of War (Save Kongzi and the rest of the Classical Documents for when we do Chapter 8)

Mayan Mythology & Hawaiian Epic

Websites: Optional http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/8919/decip1.html

(The Decipherment of the Olmec Writing System)

                       

            Dynasties of Early China (Chapter 5)

            Olmecs

            Maya

            Teotihuacan

            Andean States

            Peoples of Oceania

                         

 

The Formation of Classical Societies

(500 BCE to 500 CE)

 

Week 4: October 21^st

Lecture 8 PDF

Lecture 9 PDF

Reading:  Bentley/Ziegler Chapters 7 & begin 8; Pericles B. Georges, Persian Ionia under Darius: The Revolt Reconsidered 

Primaries:

Herodotus, Xenophon, Zarathustra

Websites:  Virtual Tour of Persepolis

http://www.virtualtourengine.com/tour.aspx?id=17&langindex=1

 

Persian Empire

Persepolis

Achaemenid Emperors

Imperial Bureaucracy

The Unification of China: Legalists, Confucians, Taoists

Han Dynasty

           

                       

Week 5: October 28^th

 Lecture 10 PDF

Reading:  Chapter 8 continued 

Primaries: 

Documents from the Chinese Classical Period

 

            Confucians, Taoists, Legalists 

            Han Dynasty

 

            ** MIDTERM, Thursday, Oct. 30th**

 

 

 

Week 6:  November 4^th

 Lecture 11 PDF

Lecture 12 PDF

Reading: Bentley/Ziegler Chapter 9; Peter von Sivers, “All and Nothing: Reflections on Experience and Transcendence in the Eurasian Axial Age, c. 800-200 BCE”

Primary Sources:

Laws of Manu, Bhagavad Gita, Jain Doctrines, Buddhism

 

            Early Dynasties of India

Attempts at Unification

Ashoka

The caste of consciousness

Buddhism and the Hindu Synthesis

 

 

Week 7: November 11^th  

 

Lecture 13 PDF

Reading: Bentley/Ziegler Chapter 10

Primary:  Oedipus Rex 

 

            Minoan and Mycenaean Societies

            The emergence of the Greek City-State

            Persian Wars

            Athens and Sparta

            Thought and culture of the Hellenic period

           

** NO CLASS TUESDAY NOV. 11^th  **

Veterans  Day Holiday

 

 

Week 8  November 18^th

Lecture 14 PDF

 ^{Lecture 15 PDF}

Reading: Bentley/Ziegler Chapter 10

Primary Sources:

Sparta, Athens, Greek Philosophy [.doc]

 

          Greece Continued

 

** NO CLASS, Thursday NOVEMBER 27th **

Thanksgiving Day Holiday

 

          

Week 9: November 25th

Lecture 16 PDF

Reading: Bentley/Ziegler, Chapter 11

Primary Sources:  

Petronius, Satyricon

 

Caesar, Pompey and Crassus: The First Triumvirate

Anthony and Cleopatra

Caesar Augustus and the Julio Claudian Emperors

Imperial Frontiers

Jesus and Pontius Pilatus

 

 

Week 10:  December 2^th    (Week 0 sections rescheduled to week 10)

Lecture 17 PDF

Lecture 18 PDF

Reading:  Bentley/Ziegler Chapter 12  

Primaries:

Christian Rome, Gospels, Nestorians

 

Paul and the Apostles

Christianity as Roman Cult Religion of Salvation

Constantine, First Christian Emperor

      Silk Road and Religious Syncretism

 

           

 

 

 

**FINAL EXAM**

Final Exam Code  (14) Thursday, December 11, 2008, 11:30am-2:30pm