APWH Ch

1. The consequences of agricultural revolution was a turning point. Civilizations began focusing on making surpluses rather than producing new food and crafts. They became more modern. (pg.20)

Diamond explains that our worst mistake was the transition from hunter-gathers to farmers. Diamond believes that humans were better off chasing our food rather than planting it due to the consequences that followed after such a dramatic change of life. His reasoning expands further out than one might think of about this subject. He talks about the social changes that were created when agriculture began. Diamond spews empowering points that leave a reader pondering if he is correct. People are only sure of how the world is now but the possibilities are endless on what our world could have been if agriculture had not begun.

iii.The trade introduced new products to Europe and European products to peoples around the world.

Europeans had many goals throughout the 1500s and 1600s. To achieve their goals, they deferred to the non-European culture. However, the question remains how did the Europeans accommodate themselves to Non-European culture? The European traders and missionaries would accommodate themselves by integrating into the Non-European culture, by adapting their physical appearance, by referring to the traditional practices, and through the response of the nations wants to European goods.

7.) Comparison - In what different ways did the Agricultural Revolution take shape in various part of the world?

In "The Worst Mistake In Human History?" written by Jared Diamond, there are several valid points to prove that agriculture was the wrong step in human history. One example that Diamond provided would be that agriculture created a struggle for power. In these agricultural societies, people were divided into classes, the higher class, such as royals, and the lower class, such as farmers and peasants. The people in the higher class had more advantages because of their power, which means they had better care and also better food than others. Diamond states, " Among Chilean mummies from c. A. D. 1000, the elite were distinguished not only by ornaments and gold hair clips but also by a fourfold lower rate of bone lesions caused by disease." This quote

In the 1930's, V. Gordon Childe proposed that the shift to food production was one of the two major events in human history that improved the condition of human societies. Childe described the origins of agriculture as a 哲eolithic Revolution.But the shift from hunting and gathering to food production was not as advantageous to humanity as Childe believed. Although there were benefits, there were also serious drawbacks, and humans paid a price for the advantages of agriculture.

The advancement of technology made being a farmer lucrative but complex. Our influence over nature increased as we began to use new tools and techniques to cultivate land, along with the use of animals and increased transportation, farming large amounts of crop became feasible with moving large amounts of produce just as quick. Eventually this would lead to the standardization of farming regulations thus eventually solidifying farming as a human construct that would be profit focused as opposed to earth focused from the regions early days. Cronans arguments through these sections are indeed backed by fact but as an economist does fixate on the economic influence and glorification but seems to gloss over the agricultural back lash that seems to have sprung during this

In Iris H. W. Engstrand article, “Perception and Perfection: Picturing the Spanish and Mexican Coastal West,” I initially did not know what to expect of the article. I figured Engstrand would discuss multiple views and perspectives when moving to the Spanish and Mexican Coastal front. I found the thesis, after reading through the article as it was not outrightly stated, to be: “Artists and illustrators depicted the past -- or the observable present -- in pictorial documents that became the records of current events, journalism, of reportage, and of scientific exploration, discovery, and adventure.” I believe Engstrand’s purpose is to reveal to her readers the predominant primary sources of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century and how the art could be manipulated to please specific cultures or people.

Farming has many pros and cons. Influences such as where a person grew up, what values and beliefs a person holds, and his/her worldview effects a person’s opinion about farming. In his essay, “Renewing Husbandry,” Wendell Berry explains his views on industrialization and its outcomes in the economy. Berry sheds light on his opinions regarding farming due to his firsthand experiences with it. In his essay, Berry expresses his concerns for the lack of effort put forth by America’s Society regarding farming, but he also states the benefits from industrialization. Therefore, the lack of responsibility regarding industrialization diminishes its applicable benefits.

When looking at these woodcuts and engravings in “Going to the Source” on page 11, from Europe that represent Colonial America, you notice that these are

The pictures of the Tupinambas and Secota are two of many paintings done by Europeans throughout the time of colonization of the Americas. These paintings, in their whole, were extremely important for the way in which other Europeans would come to see and understand Native American culture. Visual evidence is simply always stronger than any words written on paper, and much more easily circulated. Because of this, the paintings had an incredible effect on European’s desire to deal with native peoples, the way in which they approached them, and ultimately whether or not they believed they could become civilized (or if they already were). These paintings ranged from the two previously mentioned, to paintings of the Inuit at Bloody Creek, of their burial practices, paintings of the Jesuits being tortured, and the image of Pocahontas done after her arrival in England. Each conveys a different view on the Natives, ultimately creating an extremely complex and oftentimes conflicting representation.

Jared Diamond’s article, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race”, is a well written and thoughtful piece of text that properly defines the negative effects that agriculture is associated with. I definitely agree with him that agriculture was not a beneficial change as most people would believe. Reading his article has shed a new light on the subject, and now I understand his perspective on this important subject, and I could not agree with him more. Agriculture was a major revolution in the history of the world, but it degraded the environment drastically, boosted the population of the world, helped the rapid spreading of diseases, contributed to social hierarchy, and increased pollution levels. The Agricultural Revolution brought

The Agricultural Revolution was the single most important advancement in the way that humans lived making civilization possible, until the 19th Century. The Age of Revolution occurred when the modern world was birthed with the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution, a shift in the means of producing goods and food, from manual to mechanized labor, transformed the economy, society, politics, and culture first beginning in Britain and spreading through Western Europe. This spread to “the West” (also later to include the United States), brought them into modernity and empowered them to dominate nations in the periphery, less developed countries, “the Rest”.

The essays in the beginning of the book, gives substantial background knowledge on several examples of crafts by artists, whose narratives were thought to be long forgotten. Besides the utilitarian functions of many of these crafts, many of them go beyond the practical and were perceived to be emblematic of social commentaries, family histories, etc. Such examples include the intricate and ornate lacemaking by Puerto Rican women whose matrilineal histories are interwoven in the delicate threads, Native American pottery that combined “traditional” forms with American iconography and the crafts of the Southern Appalachians whose ingenuity from isolation aided them in the marketplace. While these essays are informative, the syntax of the text in many of the essays conveys the impression that the reader has prior knowledge of American craft styles, with somewhat fragmented explanations of the technical