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Globalization and the Challenge to Historical Analysis

5 important questions on Globalization and the Challenge to Historical Analysis

What were agricultural villagers often linked to? What did develop?

- Agricultural villagers, in contrast, were often linked to specific properties passed from one generation to the next through inheritance and a family cottage.
- Deep cultural attachments to particular villages could readily develop, making even the next village down the road slightly suspect, and strangers from greater distances truly ominous.

What could be confirmed by the advent of agriculture?

Scattered populations and highly regional habits and cultures could be confirmed by the advent of agriculture.

What was the most obvious lure to pull people away from their region? Name examples.

- The most obvious lure to pull people away from purely regional interactions involved goods that could only be obtained through more distant ventures.
- Rare decorative materials might be a lure, like gold or precious stones.
- The advent of the use of bronze, after 4000 BCE, forced considerable travel in search of tin, one of the key alloys of this composite metal.

What was a more unconventional reason to go away from regions?

A quest for adventure and new experience, without a precise calculus of what social or personal gains would result. The confines of life in villages or even early agricultural cities could seem limited, sometimes even stiffling, and a few individuals undoubtedly looked to wider horizons for personal reasons.

What local conditions were reasons for leaving the region?

Purely local conditions could generate pressures to reach beyond conventional confines. Population crowding, exhaustion of local resources, military ambitions could push groups into patterns of migration or invasion that, in some instances, could move them considerable distances and produce a host of new (and often unwelcome) contacts for local populations.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

Globalization in World History | 9780367279868 | Peter N Stearns

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