Answers to History in Focus Questions
Chapter 1, page 26:
Q: These pyramids were built at the verybeginning of Egyptian civilization. Why has no one everbuilt a larger stone structure since then?
A: The early pharaohs built pyramids to awe their subjects and demonstrate their ability to mobilize huge numbers of workers. Once thepower of the rulers was established, their successors used it for other purposes, such as building temples and cities or waging war.
Chapter 1, page 24:
Q: Examine the image, paying particularattention to what the figures are doing. What aspects ofancient Egyptian culture and worldview does this modelrepresent?
A: The Egyptians placed models of daily-life activities into the tombs of powerful people because they believed these models would come to life and serve the powerful person in his or her afterlife.
Chapter 2, page 46:
Q:In what ways do the carvings on this object reflect Egyptian influences? What is distinctively Nubian about it?
A: The model of Gebel Barkal reflects the Nubian worship of the “Holy Mountain,” a feature of the landscape that is absent in the flat land of Egypt. Yet the carvings on the model – the palm trees on the bottom fringe and the clothing of the two figures on either side of the door – are clearly of Egyptian inspiration.
Chapter 3, page 58:
Q: What does the structure and placementof the building in the landscape tell you about the roleHatshepsut played in the Egypt of her day?
A: Because Queen Hatshepsut faced opposition from powerful men, she built one of Egypt’s most elaborate tombs to prove she was the equal to any male pharaoh.
Chapter 4, page 97:
Q: Why did the Athenians built their temple on top of a hill rather than in the city below? What does this tell you about their views on the relationship between gods and humans?
A: The Athenians viewed the gods as living well above humans in places that only a few priests and initiates could reach; not ordinary people.
Chapter 5, page 114:
Q: Besides the cloak and headband, doyou see any other clues to this person’s status? What does hisfacial expression tell you?
A: His chin held up and eyes half closed give the impression of a powerful man with an arrogant attitude.
Chapter 6, page 152:
Q: What does this image suggest aboutthe political situation in which Shi Huangdi came to imperial
power?
A: The great number of soldiers implies that Shi Huangdi’s power came from military conquest and totalitarian rule and hoped to retain his power in afterlife.
Chapter 7, page 170:
Q: Examine the image “The Great Plazaat Tikal.” Try to imagine the scale of these religious structures,
and keep in mind that the mass of common peoplestood below on the flat ground. What do you think they
would see during the frequent public rituals? What do youthink they would not see? What does that suggest to youabout the nature of Maya ritual and its role in public life?
A: Like the Athenians, the Maya saw the gods as distant beings existing out of reach of ordinary people. During rituals, commoners only saw certain religious rituals, such as the games played in the ball court. Most other rituals were conducted inside the temples out of sight of commoners
Chapter 8 page 198 (NOT ON PAGE 200 AS IT SAYS ON PAGE 207)
Q: Examine the paintings. What cluesdoes the depiction of people, animals, and objects give us
about early Saharan society and culture?
A: The paintings depict men and cattle, proving that cattle herders once lived in the Sahara, which was then a grassland and only later became a desert, and celebrated their lifestyle with rock paintings.
Chapter 9 page 213:
Q: Pay special attention to the placementof the figures in relation to each other in this image. What
does this suggest about social distinctions within the world
of Islamic scholarship?
A: This image shows three levels of society: a wealthy patron who hired scholars to write books, the scholars who were honored men of distinction, if not wealth, and students who learned by transcribing manuscripts. In all three images, the book is the centerpiece, held in high esteem by all classes of society.
Chapter 10 page 236:
Q: Examine the figures carefully; noticehow they appear and the space they occupy. What does thisimage suggest about the major goals of Byzantine religiousartists?
A: The central panel shows a crowd of people inside a church looking up at Christ in Majesty sitting on a throne. The two side panels show saints or Church fathers holding sacred texts. The artist is showing the Church as all-inclusive, unlike pagan temples which excluded ordinary people.
Chapter 11 page 275:
Q: Clothing is a marker of social status,a clue to the values of the day. What do the clothes of thesetwo women emphasize about them and suggest about thepriorities of their culture?
A: These two women are dressed in great quantities of silk cloth. Their slender figures, the very elaborate clothes they wear, and their mincing postures are meant to show that elite Song society valued women as decorative objects (like fashion models today) rather than as functional human beings.
Chapter 12 page 294:
Q: Why do governments insist thatforeigners traveling through their lands have passports
(and often visas as well)? Do you think that the Mongolsissuing paisasencouraged or discouraged travelers?
A: Governments insist on foreigners having passports and visas to prevent spying and ensure that only foreigners with legitimate business enter their country. The Mongols issued paisas to certain foreigners to ensure their safe passage and protect them from harassment by local officials.
Chapter 13 page 314:
Q: What vegetation do you see in thepicture? What do you think herds of animals do to thevegetation near watering places? How can herders in dryplaces balance their animals’ need for both water and food?
A: This image shows an area so dry that livestock have to walk long distances to find water. So many animals congregate near the few places with water that the animals eat all the available vegetation. Herders, facing a hard choice between water and food for their animals, prefer to have many emaciated animals rather than a few well-fed ones.
Chapter 14 page 347:
Q: Notice what the figures in this imageare doing, how they are dressed, and the features of thespace in which they work. What does this image suggestabout printing as a kind of work and the position of printersin society?
A: The printers in this picture work closely together in a small space. Yet their workshop is well equipped with complex machines and cabinets and the workers’ clothes are clean. This denotes that printers were among the more honored and better paid laborers in medieval society.
Chapter 15, page 363:
Q: Notice the figures in the foregroundaboard the ships and small boat. How do they reflectattitudes and goals that drove Spanish overseas expansion?Now, look at the figures in the background. Who do you
think they are? What might they suggest about the attitudeof the general Spanish populace to early overseas expansion?
A: The foreground shows Columbus kissing the hand of a friar, to show his devotion to the Catholic Church. The other figures in the foreground do not seem very interested. As for the people on the shore, a few are friars but most seem to be peasants interested in watching the ships depart, but it isn’t possible to tell whether they understood the purpose of the expedition.
Chapter 16 page 391:
Q: In the image, Tycho Brahe is showntwice, both times surrounded by clocks, globes, and otherinstruments, but no telescope. How much informationabout the heavens could he obtain without a Telescope?How much more could Galileo and other astronomers get
with the simple telescope of the sixteenth century?
A: Without a telescope, Tycho Brahe was able to determine the position and movement of the moon and the planets, but not their composition. Galileo, looking through a telescope, saw details such as sunspots, mountains and valleys on the moon, and the moons of other planets.
Chapter 17 page 414:
Q: Examine this image, paying specialattention to what the figures are wearing and appear tobe doing. What does the image suggest about the natureof the economy that black women dominated? Who were
their most likely customers, and what kind of living was itpossible for them to make?
A: One of the people in the picture is a market woman selling chickens, melons, and other foods on the street. Others are either customers or passers-by. This is a free market economy at its most minimal, carried out among lower-class African-Brazilians. Yet judging by their appearance and clothes, the people are not destitute.
Chapter 18, page 444:
Q: During the period described in thischapter, bath houses were common in the Ottoman Empire
and other parts of the Islamic world, but rare in ChristianEurope, even in royal palaces like Versailles. What role didreligion play in personal cleanliness?
A: Muslims were expected to be clean before entering a mosque, and bathing, usually in public bath house, was considered an act of piety. Christians, in contrast, thought of bathing as a Muslim habit, hence to be avoided.
Chapter 19, page 465:
Q: The caption for this image calls yourattention to the emperor’s representation as a refinedConfucian scholar. Look carefully at his dress, the furnishingsof the space he occupies, and the paper on the desk.
What do you notice about those features, and what moredo they suggest about how Kangxi wished to be seen?
A: Kangxi was an accomplished Confucian scholar and liked to be thought of as an intellectual. The painting, the carpet, the desk, the emperor’s calm demeanor all suggest a thinker rather than the military leader he also was.
Chapter 20 page 486:
Q: In addition to what the caption tells,what do the fi gures and their surroundings, particularly the
Liberty Tree, tell you about how some in Britain viewedthe American colonists and their cause? If this picture hadappeared in an American magazine, how might it havebeen different?
A: The image depicts the Bostonians as crude ruffians who clearly enjoy torturing an “empire-man” (that is a loyalist) while in the background other Bostonians are dumping tea into the harbor to protest the Stamp Act. In an American magazine, such a scene (if it were depicted at all) would show the Bostonians as noble heroes.
Chapter 21, page 512:
Q: What do you think the artist’s attitudetoward the new industrial technology is? Why?
A: The artist, trained in the traditional school of landscape painting, depicts the industrial machinery as a picturesque part of the landscape, like horses, donkeys, and trees, rather than seeing it as an ominous portent of the future.
Chapter 22, page 544:
Examine the image “NanjingEncircled,” paying particular attention to how it depictswarfare in nineteenth-century China. What does it tell youabout the disadvantages of the Qing Empire in the face of
Western imperialism?
A: The Qing troops attack Nanjing with swords, lances, and long-barreled muskets loaded with shot or pebbles. Such medieval weapons proved to be too weak to resist the cannon and rifles of Western soldiers.
Chapter 23, page 558:
Q: As the caption for this image suggests,the purpose of these parades was to showcase Indian
princes. What evidence of British colonial power can youdetect in this photo? In this context, does the date of theparade strike you as significant?
A: Although Indian princes figured prominently in this durbar, high British government officials seated on elephants led the parade, symbolizing their supremacy over all Indians. Yet by 1903, when this durbar was held, Indian nationalists was already loudly challenging British rule.
Chapter 24, page 592 (NOT PAGE 591 AS IT SAYS ON PAGE 598)
Q: Examine the image “Silk Factory inJapan,” and then look back at the image “The Pit Headof a Coal Mine” in Chapter 21. Compare the two images.How do these representations of machines and workers
resemble and differ from each other? What does theJapanese image suggest about the process of modernizationin Japan?
A: Both this picture and “Pit Head of a Coal Mine” in Chapter 21 show industrial workers. Yet the contrast is striking. In this image, the women are women (as were most textile workers in Great Britain as well), whereas coal mining was clearly man’s work. The pit head of a coal mine is out of doors and the work is dirty, whereas silk weaving takes place indoors and the workers are depicted as dressed in elegant kimonos. This is probably an exaggeration, but it symbolizes the willingness of the Japanese to modernize their technology while retaining their unique culture.
Chapter 25, page 605:
Q: Review the opening section, “TheNew Imperialism: Motives and Methods,” paying specialattention to Winston Churchill’s words quoted at theend of the section. Now examine the image “The Battleof Omdurman.” Does the painting illustrate Churchill’spronouncement? Does it depict the battle from a Europeanpoint of view? Why or why not? If so, how do you think thedepiction would be different if an African Mahdi sympathizerhad painted it?
A: The painting is clearly European, for it shows the British troops as calm and orderly, even as they massacre the Mahdi’s troops, while the Sudanese are shown charging wildly and in disorder. Had a follower of the Mahdi painted this picture, he probably would have shown the Sudanese as heroic rather than disorganized.
Chapter 26, page 648:
Q: The skyscraper and the automobiletransformed the twentieth-century urban environment.The photo “The Archetypal Automobile City” clearly illustratesthe effect of the automobile on Los Angeles. Does
the skyscraper appear to have had the same effect? Why orwhy not?
A: The automobile required a lot of room, as this six-lane street in Los Angeles shows. This meant that cities built after automobiles became popular, like Los Angeles, had to be very spread out to accommodate roads, highways, and parking lots. Skyscrapers also changed cities, but vertically, not horizontally. When skyscrapers were built in an existing city like New York or Chicago, they allowed more people to work in close proximity to one another, but to commute by railway or subway, rather than by car.
Chapter 27, page 665:
Q: What does this image tell you aboutthe effect—material and psychological—of the Germanblitzkrieg tactics?
A: The German blitzkrieg tactic, including using fighter planes to machine gun people on the ground, was designed to terrorize enemy troops far from the front lines as much as to win battles. This picture clearly shows the destructive power of fighter planes against infantry.
Chapter 28, page 683:
Q: Why did independence lead to theflight of millions of people from their homes? If tensionsexisted between Hindus and Muslims, why did they noterupt in violence before independence?
A: As long as the British controlled India, they prevented sectarian violence from breaking out. Once India achieved independence, however, the long-simmering hatred between Muslims and Hindus erupted throughout northern India, forcing millions to flee for their lives, as this famous photograph shows.
Chapter 29, page 711:
Q: To what extent do you think communistideology motivated many South Vietnamese to supportthe northern side?
A: Communist ideology was no doubt a motive for some, But for many South Vietnamese, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong represented a nationalist movement aimed at expelling from their land the foreigners who bombed villages and killed civilians, as this picture shows.
Chapter 30, page 735:
Q: Why, in an age of motor vehicles andskyscrapers, does the woman in the picture carry her goodsin baskets? What does this tell you about the pace andunevenness of modernization in China?
A: Baskets are the traditional means of carrying things. The woman in the picture, perhaps going to or coming from a market, cannot afford to take a taxi, and there may be no buses on this street. China’s modernization is no doubt very uneven, but such a scene is less common than it used to be. Most urban Chinese now own a bicycle or a motor scooter, and the number of cars is growing faster than in any other country.