How did the Romans manage to effectively combine their whole empire into one unit?

In order for the Romans to combine the empire into one unit they had to have done a lot of things. One MAJOR thing was building roads. The saying "all roads lead to rome" had a greater truthfulness than it does today. The roads were the glue that held the city together. Without the roads the empire wouldn't have been able to travel from place to place. Another thing the Romans had to do was creating a passenger, freight, and express system that traveled on the roads. This way the Empire could carry out trades.

Blog Entry #6

I believe that the Athenian government wouldn't approve of our way of governing. They wouldn't because they had the actual people governing the country. They rotated every 36 days. That may not seem like a very large amount of time to do anything, but it assured that a lot more people could be part of governing the country. We have an election every 2, 4, or 6 years, depending on what branch or house you are voting for. Also the way we do it is that the person with the majority of the votes, so if one person wanted a person that didn't get the majority, then the person they voted for won't be elected. Therefore, that isn't the "people's choice".

Mayan values and traditions in our modern world

Mayan traditions and values still are represented in our modern world. For example the Mayan ball game is just like our modern day volleyball, except with no net. Another example of the ancient Mayan traditions is their food. The Mayan people made a dish that is a lot like our salsa. Just like in the modern world, well not in the last 30 years but before that, the men were the strong, working, money earning people. And the women were in charge of "home life" (cooking, cleaning, etc.). One of their calendar is like our modern day one. it has 365 days. It is biased on the sun. And it has months. They have 18, 20 day months and one five day one, but the basic idea is the same. Although we may not represent every detail of the Mayan culture, the general basis of a lot of our features of are modern world are representing the Mayan values and traditions.

#4 Chinese Philosophies

The two Philosophies I chose were Daoism and Legalism. Daoiam is like the hippie movement. They were care free people. They didn't believe in formal education, they thought one should learn by nature. They also thought one should always be happy In the primary source packet on page 36 is says "There is no disaster greater than not being content." To me, that means that if your not content or happy with your life, that is a BIG, BIG disaster.

Legalism on the other hand was very strict about a central government. Legalists believe in 3 ways for a leader to lead: 1) Fa; there must be a clearly written law code and it must be public

2) Shu; pecial tactics and secrets are to be enforced by the ruler to make sure others don't take over control of the state.

3) shi; It is the position of the ruler, not the ruler himself or herself, that holds the power.

What is the most effective way for a ruler to maintain order.

The most effective way a ruler to maintain order is to listen to the people of the country/empire their ruling. If the ruler doesn't listen to the people they might revolt and that would not turn out good. In the face of history if the people revolt it won't look very good in the future when people teach the history of your empire/country.

Jared Diamond's thesis

I agree with Jared Diamond's thesis. I agree with it because i too believe in geographical luck. geographical luck is very important. having a good geographical area for you civilization is important because in order to have a good civilization you need a good climate, available food, and you need to be near a water source.

1. Advantages and Disadvantages of Farming

In my opinion the advantages of agriculture and farming outweigh the disadvantages. It does because without farming how would we have food? I mean i guess we could go out and search for our food, but in our society, where almost everyone has a full time job, no one has the time. Plus in the city there is not enough space so we have to rely on the farmers for our food. We could could lessen the negative effects of global warming by buying food from local farms, instead of buying from farms across the country.