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Justin D

The Fall Of Ancient Rome - 2 views

  • Rome was engaged in border skirmishes with the tribes north of the great European rivers
  • Strong emperors occasionally extended the empire over the rivers while weak emperors tended to lose those land
  • The largest organised rival of the Romans was the Persian Empire to the east, occupying modern Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The Persians were the political descendants of the Parthians who had revolted away from Greek rule following Alexander's conquests and, thereafter, successfully resisted Roman invasions.
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  • The Romans had existed as an important power for over 1000 years
  • They had brought stability, prosperity, and order to the civilised West
  • Roman law kept the internal peace and 20 to 30 Roman legions defended the frontiers.
  • Emperors held absolute authorit
  • but incompetent ones could do great harm
  • The rules for succession to the throne were never clear, and debilitating civil wars often resulted.
  • in the hands of a minority while a large slave population did most of the work.
  • Roman conquests had ceased in the second century A.D., bringing an end to massive inflows of plunder and slaves
  • A plague may have killed 20 percent of the empire's population in the third and fourth centuries, further reducing trade and production.
  • late third century, the Roman Empire was split into eastern and western halves in an attempt to make for easier rule and better contro
  • 323 Constantine became emperor after a civil war and established his eastern capital at Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople.
  • eastern and western parts of the empire gradually established separate identities, although nominally the same empire
  • These identities were partially due to the different pressures brought to bear on them from the outside and the local culture.
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    A site that goes into some details
Garth Holman

Untitled - 2 views

  • Warlike Games of the Nobles; the Tournament. So eager for war and adventure were the nobles that times of peace seemed dull. Even hunting, of which they were very fond, was not exciting enough. So they had "tournaments." These were simply play-wars in which knights contended, either in single combat or in opposing troops.
  • Galleries were erected from which the ladies might view the combats and applaud their champions; and high nobles and even kings in splendid costume eagerly attended. The knights in their shining armor, with colored streamers fluttering from their lances, made a gallant picture.
  • One of them was "chivalry," which taught that every boy of noble birth should strive to be a true "knight" and every girl a "lady."
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  • A true knight was a brave warrior who feared nothing, who was always ready to fight for the poor or the unfortunate, and who would never do a mean or underhand thing. To perform a gallant feat of arms, or to help any one in distress, he would gladly risk any danger and never ask for pay. A true knight must be a good Christian and serve the church. But most of all he was to select some noble lady for whose sake he would win renown and whose smile would be his highest reward.
  • chivalry marked out for each young noble what he was to learn. At about the age of seven his training began. Usually he was sent by his father to the castle of his lord or to that of some other famous knight. Here he became a "page." He waited constantly upon the lord and his wife, and by the ladies of the castle was taught courtly manners and perhaps how to play and sing. But when he grew strong enough for more active tasks, perhaps at fourteen or fifteen, he became a "squire." He now attended more especially upon the lord. He must care for his horses, keep his arms bright, and go with him on his campaigns. Meanwhile, under the direction of his lord, he practiced constantly in the use of arms, learning to ride, to wear the heavy armor, and to wield the lance. The older squires fought beside their lords in battle.
  • The giving of "knighthood" was an impressive ceremony. After bathing and arraying himself in the required costume of red, white, and black, the young man was required to watch for a whole night before the altar of a church in which his weapons and armor had been placed. In the morning he attended mass and then, in the presence of all his family, friends, and vassals, advanced to his lord and knelt. The lord drew his sword and with the flat of the blade smote the young man on the shoulder, saying as he did so, "In the name of God,’ St. Michael, and St. George, I dub thee knight. Be brave and loyal." Then the newly made knight arose joyfully, and leaping upon his horse showed his skill in riding and in the use of his sword and lance. The ceremony ended with a great feast.
sasha p

Slavery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 1 views

shared by sasha p on 16 Nov 11 - Cached
  • Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property and are forced to work.[1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Conditions that can be considered slavery include debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, adoption in which children are effectively forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.[2]
  • Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property and are forced to work . [1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Conditions that can be considered slavery include debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, adoption in which children are effectively forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.[2]
  • Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property and are forced to work.[1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Conditions that can be considered slavery include debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, adoption in which children are effectively forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.[2]
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  • Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property and are forced to work . [1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Conditions that can be considered slavery include debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, adoption in which children are effectively forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage
  • Slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures . [3] The number of slaves today is higher than at any point in history , [4] remaining as high as 12 million [5] to 27 million, [6][7][8] though this is probably the smallest proportion of the world's population in history. [
  • Slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures.[3] The number of slaves today is higher than at any point in history,[4] remaining as high as 12 million[5] to 27 million,[6][7][8] though this is probably the smallest proportion of the world's population in history.
  • Chattel slavery, so named because people are treated as the personal property of an owner and are bought and sold as commodities, is the traditional form of slavery. It is the least prevalent form of slavery today.[10]
  • Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed in many cultures.[3] Prehistoric graves from about 8000 BC in Lower Egypt suggest that a Libyan people enslaved a San[disambiguation needed ]-like tribe.[16] Slavery is rare among hunter–gatherer populations, as slavery is a system of social stratification. Mass slavery also requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Due to these factors, the practice of slavery would have only proliferated after the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago.[17] The earliest records of slavery can be traced to the oldest known records, which treat it as an established institution, not one newly instituted. The Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1760 BC), for example, stated that death was prescribed for anyone who helped a slave to escape, as well as for anyone who sheltered a fugitive.[18] The Bible refers to slavery as an established institution.[3] Slavery was known in civilizations as old as Sumer, as well as almost every other ancient civilization, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas.[3] Such institutions were a mixture of debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves.
Paige S.

Medieval Warfare - 2 views

  •  
    This is a lot of war of the middle ages.  
Amanda W

Horrible Histories - Medieval War - YouTube - 2 views

shared by Amanda W on 09 Mar 12 - No Cached
Amanda W liked it
  •  
    Hilarious video showing a knight stealing another knights land.
jashapiro j

Timeline for the Crusades and Christian Holy War - 0 views

  • The crusades were a series of holy wars called by popes with the promise of indulgences for those who fought in them and directed against external and internal enemies of Christendom for the recovery of Christian property or in defense of the Church or Christian people. 
  • crusading was an act of Christian love and piety that compensated for and paid the penalties earned by sin. 
  • crusades were fought not only in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, but in Spain, the Baltic (Latvia and Prussia), Italy, Sicily, and southern France. 
  •  
    Higher level reading, but lots of details.
jdanielpour j

History: Ancient Greece for Kids - 1 views

  •  
    periods of greece
Samuel H

Ancient Greece - History, mythology, art, war, culture, society, and architecture. - 2 views

    • Sami Z
       
      This website is very organized it breaks what you want to learn down into sections.
    • mberkley m
       
      It is separated into sections based on what you want to learn. It is very organized.
  •  
    Has some adds, but still informative.
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    This seems like a great website to explore many different aspects of Ancient Greece.
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    Facts about ancient Greece
  •  
    Information Resource on Ancient Greece, history, mythology, art and architecture, olympics, wars, culture and society, playwrights, philosophers, historians, geography and essays etc...
Neha C

Greek achievements and Greek history - 0 views

  • Art (Pathenon, sculptures of Phidias, etc., source of inspiration for Roman and all sorts of sub. art)
  • The Greeks excelled in sculpture.
  • Also impressive: Greek architecture.
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  • Greek scupture inspired the Romans and (indirectly) the great sculptors of the Renaissance.
  • Elements of Greek architecture have been copied again and again from Roman times onward--and we still see many elements of Greek architecture in at least some of our public buildings today.
  • Sports (Olympic games)
  • The Greeks also are important for the contribution to sports.
  • There are lots of other echoes of the Greeks in our sports tradition of today.
  •   History (first and some of greatest historians, including HERODOTUS, Thucydides, and Xenophon)
  • The Greeks give us the first true historical works, and it was a Greek (Herodotus) that first used the term "history" for what we call history today.  Not only did the Greeks give us our first historical works, they also give us some of  our greatest.
  • The buildings on the Athenian acropolis are a great example.
  • First of all, it is impressive because it moves beyond the mere chronicling of events (something that had been done before) and attempts to explain why certain events happen and what those events means: what lesssons we can learn from history.
  •   Herodotus might be considered, not just the father of history, but the father of cultural anthropology as well.
  • And particular this is so when one looks at Herodotus' central theme: freedom.  A central theme of Herodotus' book is the value of living in a free society (even though it means sacrifice) rather than living under despotism no matter how well-organized and prosperous a society run by a despot might seem.  Herodotus book is one of the sources of the Western love of freedom.
  • Political science Not only do the Greeks give us our first history, they give us also our first political science, the systematic study of human government.  When one studies political science today, one constantly uses Greek terms (monarchy, democracy, etc.). Why?  Because the Greeks were the first to study the various forms of human government and to identify the strengths and weakness of each.
  • Aristotle's Politics and Plato's Republic are still much read in political science/political philosophy classes today, another good example of the lasting influence of the Greeks.
  • Poetry In poetery too, the Greek had a lasting influence.  When we analyze poetry today, we use Greek words (iamb, dactyl, trochee, etc.).  Why?  Because the Greeks were the first to systematically analyze poetry.  Here too Aristotle is a key figure.  His "Poetics" is as influential in literary criticism as his "Politics" is in political science.
  • Among the greatest and most influential of epic poems are the two great poems of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. 
  • The Greeks also excelled at lyric poetry. 
  • Mathematics Math is another area in which the Greeks made important contributions.  You are all familiar with the Pythagorean theorum, and the Greek reverence for numbers that starts with Pythagoras is certainly an important contribution of the Greeks.
  • Now what's important here is *not* the practical application of geometry.  What's important is the systematic, rigorous thinking process one must go through in coming up with these proofs.  The study of Euclid taught generation after generation to think clearly and logically: and it is a pity that the current geometry texts have drifted away from this.
  •   Science The Greeks also made important contributions to the sciences.  Biology, Physics, Physiology, Zoology: all Greek names, because the Greeks were the first to systematically explore these areas.  Thales, the first Greek philosopher, also is the father of physics, asking a fundamental question: what are all things made of?  The Greeks explored the question, coming up with promising answers.  Ultimately, Greeks like Aristotle believed that the world was made up of four fundamental elements. Other Greeks added the idea that these elements in their turn were made up of invisible, indivisable particles they called atoms.  Now we have a lot more elements than the Greek four, and we believe the atom can be divided into evern more fundamental particles, but note that the Greeks are certainly on the right track.
  • Perhaps most impressive of all was Archimedes
  •   But its not just in literature the Greeks excelled. They produced some of the world's greatest art, the first true science, and some of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen.  In fact, of all the ancient peoples, it was the Greeks who contributed the most to subsequent civilization in virtually every field of human endeavor.  What's all the more amazing is that the Greek were able to do all these things despite the fact that they were constantly at war--or maybe because they were constantly at war. Generalization: Greeks made more important contributions to sub. civilization than any other ancient people.  Achievements:
sbabbush s

Ancient Greek technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 6 views

    • Alex Orloff
       
      Wow the greeks really helped contribute to society
    • evan p
       
      I agree
  • Ancient Greek technology developed at an unprecedented speed during the 5th century BC, continuing up to and including the Roman period, and beyond. Inventions that are credited to the ancient Greeks such as the gear, screw, rotary mills, screw press, bronze casting techniques, water clock, water organ, torsion catapult and the use of steam to operate some experimental machines and toys and a chart to find prime numbers.
  • further exploitation on a
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  • large scale under the Romans.
  • How ever, peaceful uses are shown by their early development of the watermill , a device which pointed to  further exploitation on a  large scale under the Romans.
  • . Many of these inventions occurred late in the Greek period, often inspired by the need to improve weapons and tactics in war.      How
  • developed at an unprecedented speed during the 5th century BC, continuing up to and including the Roman period, and beyond. Inventions that are credited to the ancient Greeks    such as the gear, screw, rotary mills, screw press, bronze casting techniques, water clock, water organ, torsion catapult and the use of steam to operate some experimental machines and toys and a chart to find prime numbers . Many of these inventions occurred late in the Greek period, often inspired by the need to improve weapons and tactics in war.       How ever, peaceful uses are shown by their early development of the watermill , a device which pointed to   further exploitation on a   large scale under the Romans
  • as groundwater exploitation, construction of aqueducts for water supply, storm water and wastewater sewerage systems, flood protection and drainage, construction and use of fountains, baths and other sanitary and purgatory facilities, and even recreational uses of water.
    • nick s
       
      Technologies of Ancient Greece
    • ryan c
       
      cool
    • sbabbush s
       
      Ancient Greek technology developed during the 5th century B.C.
Cameryn C

Ancient Greece - History of Ancient Greek World, Time Line and Periods, Archaic, Classi... - 2 views

    • Cameryn C
       
      Telling about how ancient Greece was tracked, how farmers came after followed by war and invasions.
  • The history
  • traced back to Stone Age hunters
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  • came early farmers and thecivilizations of the Minoan and Mycenaean kings
  • Greece
  • Later
  • followed by a period of wars
  • invasions, known as the Dark Ages
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    Ancient Greece History
Garth Holman

Bishops in the Middle Ages | Middle Ages - 1 views

  • The Bishops being a key figure of the society and being wealthy by virtue of his position in the clergy used to live either in a castle or a manor
  • Every king was supposed to have one Bishop in his court for consultation.
  • The rulings of the clergy affected everyone during the Middle Ages.
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  • Bishops had become so powerful that it was mandatory for the king to take orders and consult the Bishop in everyday affairs over the state.
  • f you were born in one class of the society, you belonged to that class for your entire life with no chances of improving your status through hard work.
  • They were generally from a noble family or a wealthy family from some town.
  • He used to take tours around the country to many churches within the country. There was a seat reserved for the Bishop in every church in the country.
  • Listening to the plights of all the priests and clergymen below him; Levy taxes on the peasants; Settling of important issues such as annulment of marriage; Maintaining an army of his own to assist the king during war; Leading his army in the war was common in the Early Middle Ages for Bishops; Take care of the spiritual soundness of his diocese; Implement the code of the church in the diocese; Take care of the business of the church in their diocese and supervise the priests, nuns and monks in their activities.
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    tells about key ideas a being a bishop 
Paige W

BBC - History - Ancient History in depth: The Democratic Experiment - 1 views

  • Take politics for example: apart from the word itself (from polis, meaning city-state or community) many of the other basic political terms in our everyday vocabulary are borrowed from the ancient Greeks: monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy and - of course - democracy.
  • demokratia
  • It meant literally 'people-power'
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  • The Greek word demos could mean either
  • Was it all the people
  • Or only some of the people
  • There's a theory that the word demokratia was coined by democracy's enemies, members of the rich and aristocratic elite who did not like being outvoted by the common herd, their social and economic inferiors.
  • By the time of Aristotle (fourth century BC) there were hundreds of Greek democracies. Greece in those times was not a single political entity but rather a collection of some 1,500 separate poleis or 'cities' scattered round the Mediterranean and Black Sea shores 'like frogs around a pond', as Plato once charmingly put it.
  • cities that were not democracies
  • power was in the hands of the few richest citizens
  • monarchies, called 'tyrannies' in cases where the sole ruler had usurped power by force rather than inheritanc
  • most stable,
  • most long-lived,
  • most radical, was Athens.
  • origin of the Athenian democracy of the fifth and fourth centuries can be traced back to Solon,
  • flourished
  • 600 BC.
  • was a poet and a wise statesman
  • but not - contrary to later myth - a democrat.
  • Solon's constitutional reform package that laid the basis on which democracy could be pioneered
  • Cleisthenes was the son of an Athenian, but the grandson and namesake of a foreign Greek tyrant
  • also the brother-in-law of the Athenian tyrant, Peisistratus,
  • eized power three times
  • before finally establishing a stable and apparently benevolent dictatorship.
    • Paige W
       
      Interesting insight on the beginning of democracy.
  • nder this political system that Athens successfully resisted the Persian onslaughts of 490 and 480/79
  • victory in turn encouraged the poorest Athenians to demand a greater say in the running of their city
  • Ephialtes and Pericles presided over a radicalisation of power that shifted the balance decisively to the poorest sections of society
  • he democratic Athens that won and lost an empire,
  • built the Parthenon,
  • eschylus, Sophocles,
  • Euripides and Aristophanes
  • laid the foundations of western rational and critical thought
  • was not, of course, without internal critics
  • when Athens had been weakened by the catastrophic Peloponnesian War (431-404) these critics got their chance
  • n 411 and again in 404 Athenian oligarchs led counter-revolutions that replaced democracy with extreme oligarchy
  • oligarchs were supported by Athens's old enemy, Sparta
  • mpossible to maintain themselves in power
  • democracy was restored
  • 'blips' such as the trial of Socrates - the restored Athenian democracy flourished stably and effectively for another 80 years
  • There were no proper population censuses in ancient Athens,
  • total population of fifth-century Athens, including its home territory of Attica, at around 250,000 - men, women and children, free and unfree, enfranchised and disenfranchised. Of those
  • 250,000 some 30,000 on average were fully paid-up citizens -
  • adult males of Athenian birth and full status
  • second key difference is the level of participation.
  • representative
  • we choose politicians to rule for us
  • Athenian
  • democracy
  • was direct
  • and in-your-face.
  • most officials and all jurymen were selected by lot.
  • This was thought to be the democratic way, since election favoured the rich, famous and powerful over the ordinary citizen.
  • mid fifth century, office holders, jurymen, members of the city's main administrative Council of 500, and even Assembly attenders were paid a small sum from public funds to compensate them for time spent on political service away from field or workshop.
  • eligibility
  • adult male citizens need apply for the privileges and duties of democratic government, and a birth criterion of double descent - from an Athenian mother as well as father -
  • Athenian democracy did not happen only in the Assembly and Council. The courts were also essentially political spaces, located symbolically right at the centre of the city.
  • defined the democratic citizen as the man 'who has a share in (legal) judgment and office'.
  • Athenian drama,
  • was a fundamentally political activity as well,
  • One distinctively Athenian democratic practice that aroused the special ire of the system's critics was the practice of ostracism -
  • potsherd
  • rom the Greek word for
  • decide which leading politician should be exiled for ten years
  • on a piece of broken pottery.
  • voters scratched or painted the name of their preferred candidate
  • 6,000 citizens had to 'vote' for an ostracism to be valid,
  • biggest
  • political
  • risked being fried
  • For almost 100 years ostracism fulfilled its function of aborting serious civil unrest or even civil war
  • Power to the people, all the people, especially the poor majority, remained the guiding principle of Athenian democracy.
  •  
    About of Greek Democracy
km21dcs

Feudal System - 4 views

  • prisoner of war, his life was saved by his nobility, and his ransom had practically to be raised by the "villains" of his domains.
    • Garth Holman
       
      So, Nobles would not be killed and the people below in the social class had to raise money to pay his ransom.  Sweet deal, if you are a noble. 
  • The Feudal System Right of Hunting
  • privileges dearest to and most valued by the nobles.
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    • Garth Holman
       
      With the Right of Hunting: What would peasants not have access to in their diet? 
    • Gilmore Dashon
       
      Maybe meat
    • Austin David
       
      Meat
    • Dakota Houston
       
      Meat
    • Luke Jennings Sanders
       
      Meat
    • Tolga Cavusoglu
       
      meat
    • Maximilian Uhlir
       
      meat
    • Teren Landis
       
      Meat
    • Alexander Johnson
       
      Meat
    • anonymous
       
      Meat
  • Feudal System Right of Jurisdiction
  • which gave judicial power to the nobles and lords in cases arising in their domains, had no appeal save to the King himself.
  • The Feudal System Right of Safe Convoy
  • that it even applied itself to the lower orders, and its violation was considered the most odious crime.
  • The Feudal System Right of Wearing Spurs
  • privileges that of wearing spurs of silver or gold according to their rank of knighthood
  • Feudal System Rights of Knighthood
  • Knights had the right of receiving double rations when prisoners of war; the right of claiming a year's delay when a creditor wished to seize their land; and the right of never having to submit to torture after trial, unless they were condemned to death for the crime they had committed.
  • Feudal System Right of having seats of honour in churches and Monuments
  • Feudal System Right of Disinheritance
  • The nobles enjoyed also the right of disinheritance, that is to say, of claiming the goods of a person dying on their lands who had no direct heir
  • Feudal System Right of Shelter
  • The right of shelter, was the principal charge imposed upon the noble. When a great baron visited his lands, his tenants were not only obliged to give him and his followers shelter, but also provisions and food, the nature and quality of which were all arranged beforehand with the most extraordinary detail.
  • The Feudal System was sustained by the rights and privileges given to the Upper Classes and in most cases enacted by laws. Everything was a source of privilege for the nobles.
  • villains
    • km21dcs
       
      This is a type of Peasant. Meaning Peasants weren't allowed to hunt
Ethan W

Best content in Historywithholman&pennington | Diigo - Groups - 0 views

  • Historywithholman&pennington
  • This is a place for students to save web resources for use in Mr. Holman's and Mr. Pennington's World History classrooms.
  • Much less evidence survives about Sparta than Athens, but we do know that it was a military state. Sparta was surrounded by mountains which protected it from invaders.
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  • Sparta was the only city state which had a full time army. The Spartan men were well known for being brave and fierce, and they spent their whole lives training and fighting.
  • Spartans lived in harsh conditions, without luxuries, to make them tough fighters. Physical training and fitness was considered to be an important part of a Spartan child’s education. Girls did not fight in wars but they took part in physical activities because Spartans believed fit and strong women would have healthy babies that would be good soldiers. Boys went to live at an army barracks at the age of 7.
  • Government Sparta had its own system of government which was very different from the other city states. Rule was shared between two kings, the Gerousia and the Assembly. Most citizens Spartans were either Perioeci (citizens who paid taxes, served in the army and were protected by Spartan laws) or Helots (people from lands conquered and ruled by Sparta who had no rights).
  • The Helots Spartan citizens were given land which was farmed for them by the Helots. The Helots were treated as serfs (slaves) and had to give half their crops to their Spartan master.
  • Much less evidence survives about Sparta than Athens, but we do know that it was a military state. Sparta was surrounded by mountains which protected it from invaders.
Kalina P

The Thomas Paine Society - Common Sense - 1 views

  • e most important piece of writing of the American Revolution
  • powerful, dramatic and often scathing -- especially when describing the monarchy. Paine described the kings of England as mere usurpers who, like criminals, had seized power by force:
  • against the monarchy and British domination spread like wildfire throughout the colonies and turned the public tide toward independence. General George Washington wrote to a friend in Massachusetts: "I find that Common Sense is working a powerful change there in the minds of many men. Few pamphlets have had so dramatic an effect on political events."
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  • write in plain language
  • accessible to colonists rich and poor.
  • , there was still talk of reconciliation among the colonists.
  • sold over one hundred fifty thousand copies in its first printing
  • profits instead turning his share over to the American cause. *
  • irrefutable argument for separation from England
  • revolution as not only achievable but inevitable.
  •   The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which, their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling; of which class, regardless of party censure is.
Kalina P

Common Sense: The Rhetoric of Popular Democracy | EDSITEment - 0 views

  • first comprehensive, public call for independence, advancing arguments that far exceeded previous critiques of English rule in their radicalism and scope.
  • mass audience, extending beyond the literate public as colonists read it aloud in a wide variety of settings. George Washington, for example, was so affected by Common Sense that he relinquished all personal hop
  • of mending fences with England and ordered the pamphlet to be distributed to his troops.
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  • clear case for independence
  • directly attacked the political, economic, and ideological obstacles to achieving it.
  • British rule was responsible for nearly every problem in colonial society
  • Challenging the King's paternal authority in the harshest terms, he mocked royal actions in America and declared that "even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their own families."
  • unified action.
  • only be resolved by colonial independence.
  • in the most graphic, compelling and recognizable terms the suffering that the colonies had endured, reminding his readers of the torment and trauma that British policy had inflicted upon them.
  • resonated with their firm belief in liberty and determined opposition to injustice
  • blunt language that colonists of different backgrounds could understand.
Daryl Bambic

For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of WWII |... - 0 views

  • This forest is the last and greatest of Earth's wildernesses. It stretches from the furthest tip of Russia's arctic regions as far south as Mongolia, and east from the Urals to the Pacific: five million square miles of nothingness, with a population, outside a handful of towns, that amounts to only a few thousand people.
  • iberia is the source of most of Russia's oil and mineral resources, and, over the years, even its most distant parts have been overflown by oil prospectors and surveyors on their way to backwoods camps where the work of extracting wealth is carried on.
  • summer of 1978
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  • more than 150 miles from the nearest settlement,
  • Well, since you have traveled this far, you might as well come in.'
  • omething from the middle ages. Jerry-built from whatever materials came to hand, the dwelling was not much more than a burrow—"a low, soot-blackened log kennel that was as cold as a cellar," with a floor consisting of potato peel and pine-nut shells. Looking around in the dim light, the visitors saw that it consisted of a single room. It was cramped, musty and indescribably filthy, propped up by sagging joists—and, astonishingly, home to a family of five:
  • Have you ever eaten bread?
  • "We are not allowed that!"
  • he daughters spoke a language distorted by a lifetime of isolation. "When the sisters talked to each other, it sounded like a slow, blurred cooing."
  • a member of a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect, worshiping in a style unchanged since the 17th century.
  • Peter was a personal enemy and "the anti-Christ in human form"—a point he insisted had been amply proved by Tsar's campaign to modernize Russia by forcibly "chopping off the beards of Christians."
  • Things had only got worse for the Lykov family when the atheist Bolsheviks took power. Under the Soviets, isolated Old Believer communities that had fled to Siberia to escape persecution began to retreat ever further from civilization. During the purges of the 1930s, with Christianity itself under assault, a Communist patrol had shot Lykov's brother on the outskirts of their village while Lykov knelt working beside him. He had responded by scooping up his family and bolting into forest.
  • our Lykovs then—Karp;
  • wife, Akulina
  • son named Savin
  • Natalia, a daughter who was only 2.
  • wo more children had been born in the wild—Dmitry in 1940 and Agafia in 1943—
  • d neither of the youngest Lykov children had ever seen a human being who was not a member of their famil
  • new there were places called cities where humans lived crammed together in tall buildings. They had heard there were countries other than Russia. But such concepts were no more than abstractions to them. Their only reading matter was prayer books and an ancient family Bible. Akulina had used the gospels to teach her children to read and write, using sharpened birch sticks dipped into honeysuckle juice as pen and ink. When Agafia was shown a picture of a horse, she recognized it from her mother's Bible stories. "Look, papa," she exclaimed. "A steed!"
  • e traversed 250 kilometres [155 miles] without seeing a single human dwelling!"
  • They fashioned birch-bark galoshes in place of shoes. Clothes were patched and repatched until they fell apart, then replaced with hemp cloth grown from seed.
  • pinning wheel a
  • A couple of kettles served them well for many years, but when rust finally overcame them, the only replacements they could fashion came from birch bark.
  • heir staple diet was potato patties mixed with ground rye and hemp seeds.
  • bundance
  • stream. Stands of larch, spruce, pine and birch yielded all that anyone could take.... Bilberries and raspberries were close to hand, firewood as well, and pine nuts fell right on the roof."
  • rmanently on the edge of famine.
  • not until the late 1950s, when Dmitry reached manhood, that they first trapped animals for their meat and skins. Lacking guns and even bows, they could hunt only by digging traps or pursuing prey across the mountains until the animals collapsed from exhaustion
  • Old Karp was usually delighted by the latest innovations that the scientists brought up from their camp, and though he steadfastly refused to believe that man had set foot on the moon, he adapted swiftly to the idea of satellites.
  • "What amazed him most of all," Peskov recorded, "was a transparent cellophane package. 'Lord, what have they thought up—it is glass, but it crumples!
  • Agafia's unusual speech—she had a singsong voice and stretched simple words into polysyllables—convinced some of her visitors she was slow-witted; in fact she was markedly intelligent, and took charge of the difficult task, in a family that possessed no calendars, of keeping track of time. 
  • mitry, a
  • urious and perhaps the most forward-looking member of the family
  • Perhaps it was no surprise that he was also the most enraptured by the scientists' technology.
  • many happy hours in its little sawmill, marveling at how easily a circular saw and lathes could finish wood.
  • Karp Lykov fought a long and losing battle with himself to keep all this modernity at bay. When they first got to know the geologists, the family would accept only a single gift—salt
  • hey took knives, forks, handles, grain and eventually even pen and paper and an electric torch.
  • but the sin of television, which they encountered at the geologists' camp, proved irresistible for them.... On their rare appearances, they would invariably sit down and watch. Karp sat directly in front of the screen. Agafia watched poking her head from behind a door. She tried to pray away her transgression immediately—whispering, crossing herself.... The old man prayed afterward, diligently and in one fell swoop.
  • he Lord would provide, and she would stay, she said—as indeed she has. A quarter of a century later, now in her seventies herself, this child of the taiga lives on alone, high above the Abakan.
  •  
    An amazing story of a Russian Orthodox family who ran from Soviet persecution in the 1930 and survived in the wilderness of Siberia. The children had never seen other humans, developed their own dialect and lived on the perpetual edge of the world.  Several family members were enthralled with technology, others were fearful but all were exceptionally intelligent.
Kalina P

Barbara Ehrenreich: Nickel and Dimed (2011 Version) - 2 views

  • , “Make love not war,” and then -- down at the bottom -- “Screw it, just make money.”
  • A Florida woman wrote to tell me that, before reading it, she’d always been annoyed at the poor for what she saw as their self-inflicted obesity.
  • . I started with my own extended family, which includes plenty of people without jobs or health insurance, and moved on to trying to track down a couple of the people I had met while working on Nickel and Dimed
  • ...58 more annotations...
  • widely read among low-wage workers. In the last few years, hundreds of people have written to tell me their stories: the mother of a newborn infant whose electricity had just been turned off, the woman who had just been given a diagnosis of cancer and has no health insurance, the newly homeless man who writes from a library computer.
  • t things have gotten much worse, especially since the economic downturn that began in 2008.
  • earned less than a barebones budget covering housing, child care, health care, food, transportation, and taxes -- though not, it should be noted, any entertainment, meals out, cable TV, Internet service, vacations, or holiday gifts. Twenty-nine percent is a minority, but not a reassuringly small one, and other studies in the early 2000s came up with similar figures.
  • -- the skipped meals, the lack of medical care, the occasional need to sleep in cars or vans -
  • The economy was growing, and jobs, if poorly paid, were at least plentiful.
  • many of these jobs had disappeared and there was stiff competition for those that remained
  • a healthy diet wasn’t always an option.  And if I had a quarter for every person who’s told me he or she now tipped more generously, I would be able to start my own foundation.
  • and and was subsisting on occasional cleaning and catering jobs. Neither seemed unduly afflicted by the recessi
  • suicide a “coping strategy,” but it is one way some people have responded to job los
  • Media attention has focused, understandably enough, on the “nouveau poor” -- formerly middle and even upper-middle class people who lost their jobs, their homes, and/or their investments in the financial crisis of 2008 and the economic downturn that followed it, but the brunt of the recession has been borne by the blue-collar working class, which had already been sliding downwards since de-industrialization began in the 1980s.
  • were especially hard hit for the simple reason that they had so few assets and savings to fall back on as jobs disappea
  • cut back on health care.
  • e to moves and suspensions of telephone service
  • Food i
  • “food auctions,” which offer items that may be past their sell-by dates.
  • urban hunting. In Racine, Wisconsin, a 51-year-old laid-off mechanic told me he was supplementing his diet by “shooting squirrels and rabbits and eating them stewed, baked, and grilled.” In Detroit, where the wildlife population has mounted as the human population ebbs, a retired truck driver was doing a brisk business in raccoon carcasses, which he recommends marinating with vinegar and spices.
  • ncrease the number of paying people per square foot of dwelling space -- by doubling up or renting to couch-surfer
  • “people who’ve lost their jobs, or at least their second jobs, cope by doubling or tripling up in overcrowded apartments, or by paying 50 or 60 or even 70 percent of their incomes in rent.”
  • g members of my extended family, have given up their health insurance.
  • - a government safety net that is meant to save the poor from spiraling down all the way to destitutio
  • The food stamp program has responded to the crisis fairly well, to the point where it now reaches about 37 million people, up about 30% from pre-recession levels.
  • ? There is a right to food stamps. You go to the office and, if you meet the statutory definition of need, they h
  • elp you. For welfare, the street-level bureaucrats can, pretty much at their own discretion, just say no.
  • Delaware residents who had always imagined that people turned to the government for help only if “they didn’t want to work.
  • ace a state-sponsored retraining course in computer repairs -- only to find that those skills are no longer in demand.
  • 44% of laid-off people at the time, she failed to meet the fiendishly complex and sometimes arbitrary eligibility requirements for unemployment benefits. Their car started falling apart.
  • Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.
  • TANF does not offer straightforward cash support like Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which it replaced in 1996. It’s an income supplementation program for working parents, and it was based on the sunny assumption that there would always be plenty of jobs for those enterprising enough to get them.
  • When the Parentes finally got into “the system” and began receiving food stamps and some cash assistance, they discovered why some recipients have taken to calling TANF “Torture and Abuse of Needy Families.” From the start, the TANF experience was “humiliating,” Kristen says. The caseworkers “treat you like a bum. They act like every dollar you get is coming out of their own paychecks.”
  • 40 jobs a week
  • miles a day to attend “job readiness” classes offered by a private company called Arbor, wh
  • were “frankly a joke.”
  • , “applying for welfare is a lot like being booked by the police.”  There may be a mug shot, fingerprinting, and lengthy interrogations as to one’s children’s true paternity. The ostensible goal is to prevent welf
  • fraud, but the psychological impact is to turn poverty itself into a kind of crime.
  • The most shocking thing I learned from my research on the fate of the working poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed been criminalized in America.
  • Perhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered in low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when you leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well have given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation.
  • Most cities, for example, have ordinances designed to drive the destitute off the streets by outlawing such necessary activities of daily life as sitting, loitering, sleeping, or lying down. Urban officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about such laws: “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a St. Petersburg, Florida, city attorney stated in June 2009, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges...”
  • the criminalization of poverty has actually intensified as the weakened economy generates ever more poverty.
  • ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with the harassment of the poor for more “neutral” infractions like jaywalking, littering, or carrying an open container.
  • ban on begging
  • grizzled 62-year-old, he inhabits a wheelchair and is often found on G Street in Washington, D.C. -- the city that is ultimately responsible for the bullet he took in the spine in Phu Bai, Vietnam, in 1972.
  • “They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless?”
  • , led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances forbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places, leadi
  • way to be criminalized by poverty is to have the wrong color skin. Indignation runs high when a celebrity professor succumbs to racial profiling, but whole communities are effectively “profiled” for the suspicious combination of being both dark-skinned and poor. Flick a cigarette and you’re “littering”; wear the wrong color T-shirt and you’re displaying gang allegiance. Just strolling around in a dodgy neighborhood can mark you as a potential suspect. And don’t get grumpy about it or you could be “resisting arrest.”
  • e government defunds services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement.
  •  Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Generate no public-sector jobs, then penalize people for falling into debt.
  • The experience of the poor, and especially poor people of color, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks. And if you should try to escape this nightmare reality into a brief, drug-induced high, it’s “gotcha” all over again, because that of course is illegal too.
  • r staggering level of incarceration,
  • g. And what public housing remains has become ever more prison-like, with random police sweeps and, in a growing number of cities, proposed drug tests for residents.
  • The safety net, or what remains of it, has been transformed into a dragnet.
  • official level of poverty increasing -- to over 14% in 2010 -- some states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty, using alternative sentencing methods, shortening probation, and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missing court appointments. But others, diabolically enough, are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of “crimes,” but charging prisoners for their room and board, guaranteeing they’ll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt.
  • a higher minimum wage, universal health care, affordable housing, good schools, reliable public transportation, and all the other things we, uniquely among the developed nations, have neglected to do.
  • : if we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions.
  • : if we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions.
  • : if we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions.
  • : if we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions.
  • Stop the institutional harassment of those who turn to the government for help or find themselves destitute in the streets
  • But at least we should decide, as a bare minimum principle, to stop kicking people when they’re down.
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