1.1 First Civilizations
Unlike traditional lectures that highlight key points through either the spoken word (in face-to-face classes) or written essays (in online classes), the eText in this course are designed to provide an overview of the material to be covered in the module and course in general. Incorporated within the e-text are explorations of focused historical context within each module, links to helpful resources, and videos that will allow you to dig more in depth into each topic.
The study of history requires that we think about the past on two levels: the broad and the specific. One of the tasks of an historian is to look for changes in political structures, economic systems, class/gender/racial relationships, cultural movements, and religious beliefs over time. In order to track these changes, it is necessary to consider how specific events or circumstances fit within broader trends or themes that span time and geographic location. By taking a step back, and examining history in these broad terms, the relationship between the past and the present becomes clearer, and we gain an understanding of how history has shaped the modern world – the world in which we live.
In the Beginning
The study of Western Civilization begins before civilizations were established. There is even much debate about what is classified as a civilization. In general though there is agreement that the first civilizations began roughly 12,000 years ago in Ancient Near East (the geographic area bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea). You will read stories and watch videos about the transformation from nomadic to settled peoples, the emergence and development of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia), as well as the development of political and religious systems in Ancient Egypt, Israel, and Archaic Greece.
As you read and review the story of human beginnings, you should reflect on how and why the political, economic, social, and religious aspects of each culture took developed as it did. What factors drove this development? Why did people choose to settle? What form did these settlements take? What types of government did they choose and was government necessary? Themes such as these serve to organize and inform your research as you build the picture of what happened in the past and how it has led to the present.
The Origins of Civilization
What is “civilization”? In English, the word encompasses a wide variety of meanings, often implying a culture possessing some combination of learning, refinement, and political identity. It is also a “loaded” term, replete with an implied division between civilization and its opposite, barbarism, with “civilized” people often eager to describe people who are of a different culture as being “uncivilized” in so many words. Fortunately, more practical and value-neutral definitions of the term also exist. Civilization as a historical phenomenon speaks to certain foundational technologies, most significantly agriculture, combined with a high degree of social specialization, technological progress, and cultural sophistication as expressed in art, learning, and spirituality.
