Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity

exotic and unusual the ¿ rst Agrarian civilizations were when they appeared.) In 1000 B.C.E., Agrarian civilizations controlled ...

Lecture 33: Long Trends—Expansion and State Power this way “tributes,” to contrast them with “gifts” (which are given freely) an ...

areas by supervising the activities of local power brokers. The Achaemenid Empire, for example, set quotas in silver for each of ...

Lecture 33: Long Trends—Expansion and State Power What evidence is there that, broadly speaking, the power of tribute-taking st ...

Long Trends—Rates of Innovation ................................................. LECTURE vi One more example [of micro-innovati ...

Lecture 34: Long Trends—Rates of Innovation Feeding these growing populations depended on a constant trickle of mini- innovation ...

and refers to a large region linked within a single network of exchanges.) This meant that goods, ideas, religions, and technolo ...

Lecture 34: Long Trends—Rates of Innovation irrigation systems, and avoiding excessive taxation. Military and strategic factors ...

What evidence is there that signi¿ cant innovation occurred during the era of Agrarian civilizations? What were the main forces ...

Lecture 35: Long Trends—Disease and Malthusian Cycles Long Trends—Disease and Malthusian Cycles .............................. L ...

There is also a demographic oddity about this era. We have seen that, despite improved forms of agriculture and irrigation, popu ...

Lecture 35: Long Trends—Disease and Malthusian Cycles be constantly replenished by immigration from rural areas. Diseases spread ...

We will call these rhythms, which dominate the history of the later Agrarian era, “Malthusian cycles.” Thomas Malthus was one of ...

Lecture 35: Long Trends—Disease and Malthusian Cycles Christian, Maps of Time, chap. 10. Fernandez-Armesto, The World, chaps. 4, ...

Comparing the World Zones ........................................................... LECTURE The ice age continent of Sahul inc ...

Lecture 36: Comparing the World Zones extinctions and the widespread use of ¿ restick farming demonstrate that even where agricu ...

the similarity of their Austronesian languages, and the spread of a distinctive type of pottery (Lapita ware), has shown that th ...

Lecture 36: Comparing the World Zones and many large mammals had been driven to extinction. Estimates of the population of the A ...

Bentley and Ziegler, Traditions and Encounters, chaps. 6, 21. Christian, Maps of Time, chap. 10. Diamond, Collapse ———, Guns, Ge ...

Lecture 37: The Americas in the Later Agrarian Era The Americas in the Later Agrarian Era....................................... ...