Mongol Empire/Global Connections Test

Mongol Empire/Global Connections Test

1. (1) Ethnocentrism is looking at one’s own culture and placing it above other cultures, constantly comparing it to the other cultures “below”. In America today, many people look at conflicted areas in the globe such as the Middle East and wonder why their system cannot keep a stable democracy. This idea of constantly comparing other cultures to one’s own and expecting them to be alike or follow the example is a problem in reading historical documents and understanding history as a whole. Nomadic invaders such as the Mongols were described as horrible savage people in the written accounts of the sedentary peoples. This must not be taken quite as literally because accounts tend to be biased more often than not. In examining ethnocentrism, one must always remember that few, if not none, cultures behave extremely irrationally as they may seem. For example, referring back to the views of Middle East today, one must remember that the system of Islamic law and customs has held for centuries, and would not have survived that long if they truly are as irrational as they might seem. Referring back to the example of the Mongols, the attacked people were obviously biased and the Mongols would not have had ruled for so long if they were cruel, savage, irrational monsters. Ethnocentrism is extremely difficult to avoid and is apparent in many documents, such as Columbus’s description of the American Natives (in comparison to the “civilized” Europeans), and should be dealt with carefully. In order to understand all sides of an account, one must look at what is written with deference and understanding.

2. (6) During the Yuan dynasty, the years of Confucian rule was overturned by the Mongolian rulers. For...

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...ents. They were highly mobile people, capable of picking up and leaving with their belongings. They prized their livestock on the steppes, as seen by their food customs involving mostly of animal products, and their priorities in the horses (the drink is offered to the nature spirits in the four directions and the horse before being consumed by the man) and the bravery of warriors. On horseback, using technologies such as their saddles and stirrups, they could ride for days bandaged to the saddle, living off their dried meat and drinking horse blood. These traits of their lifestyle made them the ultimate warriors, combined with their highly terrorizing war tactics. These methods, however, were no match later when sedentary societies got the technologies of gunpowder and nomads were no longer threats.

On my honor, I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid