World History AP

Chapter 4 Big Picture Questions 1. What common features can you identify in the empires described in this chapter? • All empires controlled large areas and populations. • All empires were brought together by conquest and funded in part by extracting wealth from conquered peoples. • All empires stimulated the exchange of ideas, cultures, and values among the peoples they conquered. • All empires sought to foster an imperial identity that transcended more local identities and loyalties. • All empires ultimately collapsed. 2. In what ways did these empires differ from one another? What accounts for those differences? • Some empires sought to rule through local elites; other empires sought to rule with a more centralized power structure. • Some empires were new; others drew on older traditions. • Some empires lasted for considerably longer periods than others. • Some empires assimilated conquered peoples more quickly and completely than others. 3. Are you more impressed with the “greatness” of empires or with their destructive and oppressive features? Why?
This question can reasonably be answered either way: • Empires were impressive because of the impact they had on regions that they conquered; their sheer size and the number of subjects over which they ruled; their military conquests; and their monumental architecture, often associated with the promotion of political authority. • Their use of force in the creation of empires and their use of coercion to extract resources, particularly from conquered peoples, offer a strong argument that they were destructive and oppressive. 4. Do you think that the classical empires hold “lessons” for the present, or are contemporary circumstances sufficiently unique as to render the distant past irrelevant? • This question can be answered successfully from several perspectives, although in order to argue that the classical empires are irrelevant a student would have to address the arguments made in the Reflections