Look at the diagram showing the positive feedback mechanism on page 13. Can you list the inputs that went into tool making? What were the processes that were strengthened by tool making?

Why would the early temple have been much like a house?

What do ancient stories tell us about the civilisation of Mesopotamia?

Compare the Venetian idea of good government with those in contemporary France.

Compare the conditions of life for a French serf and a Roman slave.

Why do we say that it was not natural fertility and high levels of food production that were the causes of early urbanisation?

What was the function of medieval monasteries?

Why did knights become a distinct group and when did they decline?

Why did Genghis Khan feel the need to fragment the Mongol tribes into new social and military groupings?

How did long-term changes in population levels affect economy and society in Europe

Why was trade so significant to the Mongols?

What were the major developments before the Meiji restoration that made it possible for Japan to modernise rapidly?

What new food items were transmitted from South America to the rest of the world?

Why was trade so significant to the Mongols?

Of the new institutions that came into being once city life had begun, which would have depended on the initiative of the king?

What do ancient stories tell us about the civilisation of Mesopotamia?

What was the function of medieval monasteries?

Indicate how the supply of raw materials affected the nature of British industrialization.

Did Japan’s policy of rapid industrialization lead to wars with its neighbors and destruction of the environment?

How does the following account enlarge upon the character of the Pax Mongolica created by the Mongols by the middle of the thirteenth century? The Franciscan monk, William of Rubruck, was sent by Louis IX of France on an embassy to the great Khan Mongke’s court. He reached Karakorum, the capital of Mongke, in 1254 and came upon a woman from Lorraine (in France) called Paquette, who had been brought from Hungary and was in the service of one of the prince’s wives who was a Nestorian Christian. At the court he came across a Parisian goldsmith named Guillaume Boucher, ‘whose brother dwelt on the Grand Pont in Paris’. This man was first employed by the Queen Sorghaqtani and then by Mongke’s younger brother. Rubruck found that at the great court festivals the Nestorian priests were admitted first, with their regalia, to bless the Grand Khan’s cup, and were followed by the Muslim clergy and Buddhist and Taoist monks.

Why did knights become a distinct group and when did they decline?