A history of the world in 6 glasses summer assignment
Assignment:
In order to prepare for AP World History, you are to read the non-fiction book A History of the World in Six Glasses. You will write short answers to a number of questions that will be turned in the first day of school.
Book:
Title: A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Author: Tom Standage
Paperback: 274 pages
Publisher: Walker Publishing Company Language: English ISBN: 13 978-0-8027-1552-4
Summary of Book:
“6 Glasses” is a book that takes an innovative approach to world history. The author looks at the development of world civilization through the prism of the beverages that people drank in various time periods. These are (in chronological order): beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola. The use of this book as a summer reading assignment in no way represents any endorsement by the teacher of the use or misuse of any of these beverages, alcoholic, caffeinated or otherwise. The book merely offers an innovative and (hopefully) interesting perspective to initiate our semester long discussion of world history. Our purpose in reading the book is to get a sense of how civilizations and cultures develop and how numerous forces (political, technological, economic, social, religious, cultural, ecological) all affect even the most mundane aspects of people’s daily lives.
Expectations for Short Answers:
• Each answer should be about one to two paragraphs long.
• Start each answer with a sentence or two that express your main idea(s). Think in terms of patterns or themes.
• The idea(s) must be clear, logical, and argumentative (can be supported by evidence from the book).
• Provide specific evidence (examples) from the book that will support ideas expressed at the beginning of your short answer. Whether it is a direct quote from the book or a reference (paraphrase), indicate the page in parenthesis.
• Your answers should be done in complete sentences with no or minimal grammar and sentence structure mistakes. “6 Glasses” Questions
1. How might beer have influenced the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural based societies?
2. What opportunities associated with wine drinking did men have in ancient Greece that women did not?
3. Why was wine adopted as a ritual drink in Christianity, but Islam prohibited the use of alcohol?
4. Read the following quote from the book. Do you agree? Why or why not? (Support your argument with specific examples. It is not enough to say “yes, I agree’ or “ no, I do not.”)
“Distilled drinks, alongside firearms and infectious diseases, helped to reshape the modern world by helping the inhabitants of the Old World to establish themselves as rulers of the New World.” (p. 129)
5. Describe coffee’s effect on the balance of power between various regions of the world.
6. Why was tea important to China’s economy and its relationship with other countries?
7. How did tea change history in India?
8. How did Coca-Cola become the world’s most recognized product? How does Coca-Cola affect, and how is it affected by, people’s views of the United States?
9. Of the six that the author discusses, which beverage do you think has played the most significant role in history? Defend your choice. What beverages have been left out of this book that might have had an effect on society?
10. What do you think is the beverage for the next era in history? (Do you agree with the author’s choice in the epilogue?) Defend your choice.
Description of AP World History Course Themes
The five course themes below present areas of historical inquiry that should be investigated at various points throughout the course and revisited as manifested in particular historical developments over time. These themes articulate at a broad level the main ideas that are developed throughout the entire span of the course. Each theme includes a list of related key topics as well as a description. You should read through each course theme and try to relate your book summary to the themes. You don’t necessarily need to connect every question to every theme. The goal is for you to start developing an understanding of what each theme is all about.
The key concepts were derived from an explicit consideration of these themes, with the goal of making the themes more concrete for the course content within each historical period. This clear connection between themes and key concepts means students can put what is particular about one historical period into a larger framework. In this way, the themes facilitate cross-period questions and help students recognize broad trends and processes that have developed over centuries in various regions of the world.
Theme 1: Interaction between Humans and the Environment
• Demography and disease
• Migration
• Patterns of settlement
• Technology
The interaction between humans and the environment is a fundamental theme for world history. The environment shaped human societies, but, increasingly, human societies also affected the environment. During prehistory, humans interacted with the environment as hunters, fishers and foragers, and human migrations led to the peopling of the earth. As the Neolithic revolution began, humans exploited their environments more intensively, either as farmers or pastoralists. Environmental factors such as rainfall patterns, climate, and available flora and fauna shaped the methods of exploitation used in different regions. Human exploitation of the environment intensified as populations grew and as people migrated into new regions. As people flocked into cities or established trade networks, new diseases emerged and spread, sometimes devastating an entire region. During the Industrial Revolution, environmental exploitation increased exponentially. In recent centuries, human effects on the environment —and the ability to master and exploit it — increased with the development of more sophisticated technologies, the exploitation of new energy sources and a rapid increase in human populations. By the twentieth century, large numbers of humans had begun to recognize their effect on the environment and took steps toward a “green” movement to protect and work with the natural world instead of exploiting it.
Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures
• Religions
• Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies
• Science and technology
• The arts and architecture
This theme explores the origins, uses, dissemination, and adaptation of ideas, beliefs, and knowledge within and between societies. Studying the dominant belief system(s) or religions, philosophical interests, and technical and artistic approaches can reveal how major groups in society view themselves and others, and how they respond to multiple challenges. When people of different societies interact, they often share components of their cultures, deliberately or not. The processes of adopting or adapting new belief and knowledge systems are complex and often lead to historically novel cultural blends. A society’s culture may be investigated and compared with other societies’ cultures as a way to reveal both what is unique to a culture and what it shares with other cultures. It is also possible to analyze and trace particular cultural trends or ideas across human societies.
Theme 3: State-Building, Expansion, and Conflict
• Political structures and forms of governance
• Empires
• Nations and nationalism
• Revolts and revolutions
• Regional, trans-regional, and global structures and organizations
This theme refers to the processes by which hierarchical systems of rule have been constructed and maintained and to the conflicts generated through those processes. In particular, this theme encourages the comparative study of different state forms (for example, kingdoms, empires, nation-states) across time and space, and the interactions among them. Continuity and change are also embedded in this theme through attention to the organizational and cultural foundations of long-term stability on one hand, and to internal and external causes of conflict on the other. Students should examine and compare various forms of state development and expansion in the context of various productive strategies (for example, agrarian, pastoral, mercantile), various cultural and ideological foundations (for example, religions, philosophies, ideas of nationalism), various social and gender structures, and in different environmental contexts. This theme also discusses different types of states, such as autocracies and constitutional democracies. Finally, this theme encourages students to explore interstate relations, including warfare, diplomacy, commercial and cultural exchange, and the formation of international organizations.
Theme 4: Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems
• Agricultural and pastoral production
• Trade and commerce
• Labor systems
• Industrialization
• Capitalism and socialism
This theme surveys the diverse patterns and systems that human societies have developed as they exploit their environments to produce, distribute, and consume desired goods and services across time and space. It stresses major transitions in human economic activity, such as the growth and spread of agricultural, pastoral, and industrial production; the development of various labor systems associated with these economic systems (including different forms of household management and the use of coerced or free labor); and the ideologies, values, and institutions (such as capitalism and socialism) that sustained them. This theme also calls attention to patterns of trade and commerce between various societies, with particular attention to the relationship between regional and global networks of communication and exchange, and their effects on economic growth and decline. These webs of interaction strongly influence cultural and technological diffusion, migration, state formation, social classes, and human interaction with the environment.
Theme 5: Development and Transformation of Social Structures
• Gender roles and relations
• Family and kinship
• Racial and ethnic constructions
• Social and economic classes
This theme is about relations among human beings. All human societies develop ways of grouping their members, as well as norms that govern interactions between individuals and social groups. Social stratification comprises distinctions based on kinship systems, ethnic associations, and hierarchies of gender, race, wealth, and class. The study of world history requires analysis of the processes through which social categories, roles, and practices were created, maintained, and transformed. It also involves analysis of the connections between changes in social structures and other historical shifts, especially trends in political economy, cultural expression, and human ecology.
Assignment:
In order to prepare for AP World History, you are to read the non-fiction book A History of the World in Six Glasses. You will write short answers to a number of questions that will be turned in the first day of school.
Book:
Title: A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Author: Tom Standage
Paperback: 274 pages
Publisher: Walker Publishing Company Language: English ISBN: 13 978-0-8027-1552-4
Summary of Book:
“6 Glasses” is a book that takes an innovative approach to world history. The author looks at the development of world civilization through the prism of the beverages that people drank in various time periods. These are (in chronological order): beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola. The use of this book as a summer reading assignment in no way represents any endorsement by the teacher of the use or misuse of any of these beverages, alcoholic, caffeinated or otherwise. The book merely offers an innovative and (hopefully) interesting perspective to initiate our semester long discussion of world history. Our purpose in reading the book is to get a sense of how civilizations and cultures develop and how numerous forces (political, technological, economic, social, religious, cultural, ecological) all affect even the most mundane aspects of people’s daily lives.
Expectations for Short Answers:
• Each answer should be about one to two paragraphs long.
• Start each answer with a sentence or two that express your main idea(s). Think in terms of patterns or themes.
• The idea(s) must be clear, logical, and argumentative (can be supported by evidence from the book).
• Provide specific evidence (examples) from the book that will support ideas expressed at the beginning of your short answer. Whether it is a direct quote from the book or a reference (paraphrase), indicate the page in parenthesis.
• Your answers should be done in complete sentences with no or minimal grammar and sentence structure mistakes. “6 Glasses” Questions
1. How might beer have influenced the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural based societies?
2. What opportunities associated with wine drinking did men have in ancient Greece that women did not?
3. Why was wine adopted as a ritual drink in Christianity, but Islam prohibited the use of alcohol?
4. Read the following quote from the book. Do you agree? Why or why not? (Support your argument with specific examples. It is not enough to say “yes, I agree’ or “ no, I do not.”)
“Distilled drinks, alongside firearms and infectious diseases, helped to reshape the modern world by helping the inhabitants of the Old World to establish themselves as rulers of the New World.” (p. 129)
5. Describe coffee’s effect on the balance of power between various regions of the world.
6. Why was tea important to China’s economy and its relationship with other countries?
7. How did tea change history in India?
8. How did Coca-Cola become the world’s most recognized product? How does Coca-Cola affect, and how is it affected by, people’s views of the United States?
9. Of the six that the author discusses, which beverage do you think has played the most significant role in history? Defend your choice. What beverages have been left out of this book that might have had an effect on society?
10. What do you think is the beverage for the next era in history? (Do you agree with the author’s choice in the epilogue?) Defend your choice.
Description of AP World History Course Themes
The five course themes below present areas of historical inquiry that should be investigated at various points throughout the course and revisited as manifested in particular historical developments over time. These themes articulate at a broad level the main ideas that are developed throughout the entire span of the course. Each theme includes a list of related key topics as well as a description. You should read through each course theme and try to relate your book summary to the themes. You don’t necessarily need to connect every question to every theme. The goal is for you to start developing an understanding of what each theme is all about.
The key concepts were derived from an explicit consideration of these themes, with the goal of making the themes more concrete for the course content within each historical period. This clear connection between themes and key concepts means students can put what is particular about one historical period into a larger framework. In this way, the themes facilitate cross-period questions and help students recognize broad trends and processes that have developed over centuries in various regions of the world.
Theme 1: Interaction between Humans and the Environment
• Demography and disease
• Migration
• Patterns of settlement
• Technology
The interaction between humans and the environment is a fundamental theme for world history. The environment shaped human societies, but, increasingly, human societies also affected the environment. During prehistory, humans interacted with the environment as hunters, fishers and foragers, and human migrations led to the peopling of the earth. As the Neolithic revolution began, humans exploited their environments more intensively, either as farmers or pastoralists. Environmental factors such as rainfall patterns, climate, and available flora and fauna shaped the methods of exploitation used in different regions. Human exploitation of the environment intensified as populations grew and as people migrated into new regions. As people flocked into cities or established trade networks, new diseases emerged and spread, sometimes devastating an entire region. During the Industrial Revolution, environmental exploitation increased exponentially. In recent centuries, human effects on the environment —and the ability to master and exploit it — increased with the development of more sophisticated technologies, the exploitation of new energy sources and a rapid increase in human populations. By the twentieth century, large numbers of humans had begun to recognize their effect on the environment and took steps toward a “green” movement to protect and work with the natural world instead of exploiting it.
Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures
• Religions
• Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies
• Science and technology
• The arts and architecture
This theme explores the origins, uses, dissemination, and adaptation of ideas, beliefs, and knowledge within and between societies. Studying the dominant belief system(s) or religions, philosophical interests, and technical and artistic approaches can reveal how major groups in society view themselves and others, and how they respond to multiple challenges. When people of different societies interact, they often share components of their cultures, deliberately or not. The processes of adopting or adapting new belief and knowledge systems are complex and often lead to historically novel cultural blends. A society’s culture may be investigated and compared with other societies’ cultures as a way to reveal both what is unique to a culture and what it shares with other cultures. It is also possible to analyze and trace particular cultural trends or ideas across human societies.
Theme 3: State-Building, Expansion, and Conflict
• Political structures and forms of governance
• Empires
• Nations and nationalism
• Revolts and revolutions
• Regional, trans-regional, and global structures and organizations
This theme refers to the processes by which hierarchical systems of rule have been constructed and maintained and to the conflicts generated through those processes. In particular, this theme encourages the comparative study of different state forms (for example, kingdoms, empires, nation-states) across time and space, and the interactions among them. Continuity and change are also embedded in this theme through attention to the organizational and cultural foundations of long-term stability on one hand, and to internal and external causes of conflict on the other. Students should examine and compare various forms of state development and expansion in the context of various productive strategies (for example, agrarian, pastoral, mercantile), various cultural and ideological foundations (for example, religions, philosophies, ideas of nationalism), various social and gender structures, and in different environmental contexts. This theme also discusses different types of states, such as autocracies and constitutional democracies. Finally, this theme encourages students to explore interstate relations, including warfare, diplomacy, commercial and cultural exchange, and the formation of international organizations.
Theme 4: Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems
• Agricultural and pastoral production
• Trade and commerce
• Labor systems
• Industrialization
• Capitalism and socialism
This theme surveys the diverse patterns and systems that human societies have developed as they exploit their environments to produce, distribute, and consume desired goods and services across time and space. It stresses major transitions in human economic activity, such as the growth and spread of agricultural, pastoral, and industrial production; the development of various labor systems associated with these economic systems (including different forms of household management and the use of coerced or free labor); and the ideologies, values, and institutions (such as capitalism and socialism) that sustained them. This theme also calls attention to patterns of trade and commerce between various societies, with particular attention to the relationship between regional and global networks of communication and exchange, and their effects on economic growth and decline. These webs of interaction strongly influence cultural and technological diffusion, migration, state formation, social classes, and human interaction with the environment.
Theme 5: Development and Transformation of Social Structures
• Gender roles and relations
• Family and kinship
• Racial and ethnic constructions
• Social and economic classes
This theme is about relations among human beings. All human societies develop ways of grouping their members, as well as norms that govern interactions between individuals and social groups. Social stratification comprises distinctions based on kinship systems, ethnic associations, and hierarchies of gender, race, wealth, and class. The study of world history requires analysis of the processes through which social categories, roles, and practices were created, maintained, and transformed. It also involves analysis of the connections between changes in social structures and other historical shifts, especially trends in political economy, cultural expression, and human ecology.
Assignment:
In order to prepare for AP World History, you are to read the non-fiction book A History of the World in Six Glasses. You will write short answers to a number of questions that will be turned in the first day of school.
Book:
Title: A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Author: Tom Standage
Paperback: 274 pages
Publisher: Walker Publishing Company Language: English ISBN: 13 978-0-8027-1552-4
Summary of Book:
“6 Glasses” is a book that takes an innovative approach to world history. The author looks at the development of world civilization through the prism of the beverages that people drank in various time periods. These are (in chronological order): beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola. The use of this book as a summer reading assignment in no way represents any endorsement by the teacher of the use or misuse of any of these beverages, alcoholic, caffeinated or otherwise. The book merely offers an innovative and (hopefully) interesting perspective to initiate our semester long discussion of world history. Our purpose in reading the book is to get a sense of how civilizations and cultures develop and how numerous forces (political, technological, economic, social, religious, cultural, ecological) all affect even the most mundane aspects of people’s daily lives.
Expectations for Short Answers:
• Each answer should be about one to two paragraphs long.
• Start each answer with a sentence or two that express your main idea(s). Think in terms of patterns or themes.
• The idea(s) must be clear, logical, and argumentative (can be supported by evidence from the book).
• Provide specific evidence (examples) from the book that will support ideas expressed at the beginning of your short answer. Whether it is a direct quote from the book or a reference (paraphrase), indicate the page in parenthesis.
• Your answers should be done in complete sentences with no or minimal grammar and sentence structure mistakes. “6 Glasses” Questions
1. How might beer have influenced the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural based societies?
2. What opportunities associated with wine drinking did men have in ancient Greece that women did not?
3. Why was wine adopted as a ritual drink in Christianity, but Islam prohibited the use of alcohol?
4. Read the following quote from the book. Do you agree? Why or why not? (Support your argument with specific examples. It is not enough to say “yes, I agree’ or “ no, I do not.”)
“Distilled drinks, alongside firearms and infectious diseases, helped to reshape the modern world by helping the inhabitants of the Old World to establish themselves as rulers of the New World.” (p. 129)
5. Describe coffee’s effect on the balance of power between various regions of the world.
6. Why was tea important to China’s economy and its relationship with other countries?
7. How did tea change history in India?
8. How did Coca-Cola become the world’s most recognized product? How does Coca-Cola affect, and how is it affected by, people’s views of the United States?
9. Of the six that the author discusses, which beverage do you think has played the most significant role in history? Defend your choice. What beverages have been left out of this book that might have had an effect on society?
10. What do you think is the beverage for the next era in history? (Do you agree with the author’s choice in the epilogue?) Defend your choice.
Description of AP World History Course Themes
The five course themes below present areas of historical inquiry that should be investigated at various points throughout the course and revisited as manifested in particular historical developments over time. These themes articulate at a broad level the main ideas that are developed throughout the entire span of the course. Each theme includes a list of related key topics as well as a description. You should read through each course theme and try to relate your book summary to the themes. You don’t necessarily need to connect every question to every theme. The goal is for you to start developing an understanding of what each theme is all about.
The key concepts were derived from an explicit consideration of these themes, with the goal of making the themes more concrete for the course content within each historical period. This clear connection between themes and key concepts means students can put what is particular about one historical period into a larger framework. In this way, the themes facilitate cross-period questions and help students recognize broad trends and processes that have developed over centuries in various regions of the world.
Theme 1: Interaction between Humans and the Environment
• Demography and disease
• Migration
• Patterns of settlement
• Technology
The interaction between humans and the environment is a fundamental theme for world history. The environment shaped human societies, but, increasingly, human societies also affected the environment. During prehistory, humans interacted with the environment as hunters, fishers and foragers, and human migrations led to the peopling of the earth. As the Neolithic revolution began, humans exploited their environments more intensively, either as farmers or pastoralists. Environmental factors such as rainfall patterns, climate, and available flora and fauna shaped the methods of exploitation used in different regions. Human exploitation of the environment intensified as populations grew and as people migrated into new regions. As people flocked into cities or established trade networks, new diseases emerged and spread, sometimes devastating an entire region. During the Industrial Revolution, environmental exploitation increased exponentially. In recent centuries, human effects on the environment —and the ability to master and exploit it — increased with the development of more sophisticated technologies, the exploitation of new energy sources and a rapid increase in human populations. By the twentieth century, large numbers of humans had begun to recognize their effect on the environment and took steps toward a “green” movement to protect and work with the natural world instead of exploiting it.
Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures
• Religions
• Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies
• Science and technology
• The arts and architecture
This theme explores the origins, uses, dissemination, and adaptation of ideas, beliefs, and knowledge within and between societies. Studying the dominant belief system(s) or religions, philosophical interests, and technical and artistic approaches can reveal how major groups in society view themselves and others, and how they respond to multiple challenges. When people of different societies interact, they often share components of their cultures, deliberately or not. The processes of adopting or adapting new belief and knowledge systems are complex and often lead to historically novel cultural blends. A society’s culture may be investigated and compared with other societies’ cultures as a way to reveal both what is unique to a culture and what it shares with other cultures. It is also possible to analyze and trace particular cultural trends or ideas across human societies.
Theme 3: State-Building, Expansion, and Conflict
• Political structures and forms of governance
• Empires
• Nations and nationalism
• Revolts and revolutions
• Regional, trans-regional, and global structures and organizations
This theme refers to the processes by which hierarchical systems of rule have been constructed and maintained and to the conflicts generated through those processes. In particular, this theme encourages the comparative study of different state forms (for example, kingdoms, empires, nation-states) across time and space, and the interactions among them. Continuity and change are also embedded in this theme through attention to the organizational and cultural foundations of long-term stability on one hand, and to internal and external causes of conflict on the other. Students should examine and compare various forms of state development and expansion in the context of various productive strategies (for example, agrarian, pastoral, mercantile), various cultural and ideological foundations (for example, religions, philosophies, ideas of nationalism), various social and gender structures, and in different environmental contexts. This theme also discusses different types of states, such as autocracies and constitutional democracies. Finally, this theme encourages students to explore interstate relations, including warfare, diplomacy, commercial and cultural exchange, and the formation of international organizations.
Theme 4: Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems
• Agricultural and pastoral production
• Trade and commerce
• Labor systems
• Industrialization
• Capitalism and socialism
This theme surveys the diverse patterns and systems that human societies have developed as they exploit their environments to produce, distribute, and consume desired goods and services across time and space. It stresses major transitions in human economic activity, such as the growth and spread of agricultural, pastoral, and industrial production; the development of various labor systems associated with these economic systems (including different forms of household management and the use of coerced or free labor); and the ideologies, values, and institutions (such as capitalism and socialism) that sustained them. This theme also calls attention to patterns of trade and commerce between various societies, with particular attention to the relationship between regional and global networks of communication and exchange, and their effects on economic growth and decline. These webs of interaction strongly influence cultural and technological diffusion, migration, state formation, social classes, and human interaction with the environment.
Theme 5: Development and Transformation of Social Structures
• Gender roles and relations
• Family and kinship
• Racial and ethnic constructions
• Social and economic classes
This theme is about relations among human beings. All human societies develop ways of grouping their members, as well as norms that govern interactions between individuals and social groups. Social stratification comprises distinctions based on kinship systems, ethnic associations, and hierarchies of gender, race, wealth, and class. The study of world history requires analysis of the processes through which social categories, roles, and practices were created, maintained, and transformed. It also involves analysis of the connections between changes in social structures and other historical shifts, especially trends in political economy, cultural expression, and human ecology.
Assignment:
In order to prepare for AP World History, you are to read the non-fiction book A History of the World in Six Glasses. You will write short answers to a number of questions that will be turned in the first day of school.
Book:
Title: A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Author: Tom Standage
Paperback: 274 pages
Publisher: Walker Publishing Company Language: English ISBN: 13 978-0-8027-1552-4
Summary of Book:
“6 Glasses” is a book that takes an innovative approach to world history. The author looks at the development of world civilization through the prism of the beverages that people drank in various time periods. These are (in chronological order): beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola. The use of this book as a summer reading assignment in no way represents any endorsement by the teacher of the use or misuse of any of these beverages, alcoholic, caffeinated or otherwise. The book merely offers an innovative and (hopefully) interesting perspective to initiate our semester long discussion of world history. Our purpose in reading the book is to get a sense of how civilizations and cultures develop and how numerous forces (political, technological, economic, social, religious, cultural, ecological) all affect even the most mundane aspects of people’s daily lives.
Expectations for Short Answers:
• Each answer should be about one to two paragraphs long.
• Start each answer with a sentence or two that express your main idea(s). Think in terms of patterns or themes.
• The idea(s) must be clear, logical, and argumentative (can be supported by evidence from the book).
• Provide specific evidence (examples) from the book that will support ideas expressed at the beginning of your short answer. Whether it is a direct quote from the book or a reference (paraphrase), indicate the page in parenthesis.
• Your answers should be done in complete sentences with no or minimal grammar and sentence structure mistakes. “6 Glasses” Questions
1. How might beer have influenced the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural based societies?
2. What opportunities associated with wine drinking did men have in ancient Greece that women did not?
3. Why was wine adopted as a ritual drink in Christianity, but Islam prohibited the use of alcohol?
4. Read the following quote from the book. Do you agree? Why or why not? (Support your argument with specific examples. It is not enough to say “yes, I agree’ or “ no, I do not.”)
“Distilled drinks, alongside firearms and infectious diseases, helped to reshape the modern world by helping the inhabitants of the Old World to establish themselves as rulers of the New World.” (p. 129)
5. Describe coffee’s effect on the balance of power between various regions of the world.
6. Why was tea important to China’s economy and its relationship with other countries?
7. How did tea change history in India?
8. How did Coca-Cola become the world’s most recognized product? How does Coca-Cola affect, and how is it affected by, people’s views of the United States?
9. Of the six that the author discusses, which beverage do you think has played the most significant role in history? Defend your choice. What beverages have been left out of this book that might have had an effect on society?
10. What do you think is the beverage for the next era in history? (Do you agree with the author’s choice in the epilogue?) Defend your choice.
Description of AP World History Course Themes
The five course themes below present areas of historical inquiry that should be investigated at various points throughout the course and revisited as manifested in particular historical developments over time. These themes articulate at a broad level the main ideas that are developed throughout the entire span of the course. Each theme includes a list of related key topics as well as a description. You should read through each course theme and try to relate your book summary to the themes. You don’t necessarily need to connect every question to every theme. The goal is for you to start developing an understanding of what each theme is all about.
The key concepts were derived from an explicit consideration of these themes, with the goal of making the themes more concrete for the course content within each historical period. This clear connection between themes and key concepts means students can put what is particular about one historical period into a larger framework. In this way, the themes facilitate cross-period questions and help students recognize broad trends and processes that have developed over centuries in various regions of the world.
Theme 1: Interaction between Humans and the Environment
• Demography and disease
• Migration
• Patterns of settlement
• Technology
The interaction between humans and the environment is a fundamental theme for world history. The environment shaped human societies, but, increasingly, human societies also affected the environment. During prehistory, humans interacted with the environment as hunters, fishers and foragers, and human migrations led to the peopling of the earth. As the Neolithic revolution began, humans exploited their environments more intensively, either as farmers or pastoralists. Environmental factors such as rainfall patterns, climate, and available flora and fauna shaped the methods of exploitation used in different regions. Human exploitation of the environment intensified as populations grew and as people migrated into new regions. As people flocked into cities or established trade networks, new diseases emerged and spread, sometimes devastating an entire region. During the Industrial Revolution, environmental exploitation increased exponentially. In recent centuries, human effects on the environment —and the ability to master and exploit it — increased with the development of more sophisticated technologies, the exploitation of new energy sources and a rapid increase in human populations. By the twentieth century, large numbers of humans had begun to recognize their effect on the environment and took steps toward a “green” movement to protect and work with the natural world instead of exploiting it.
Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures
• Religions
• Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies
• Science and technology
• The arts and architecture
This theme explores the origins, uses, dissemination, and adaptation of ideas, beliefs, and knowledge within and between societies. Studying the dominant belief system(s) or religions, philosophical interests, and technical and artistic approaches can reveal how major groups in society view themselves and others, and how they respond to multiple challenges. When people of different societies interact, they often share components of their cultures, deliberately or not. The processes of adopting or adapting new belief and knowledge systems are complex and often lead to historically novel cultural blends. A society’s culture may be investigated and compared with other societies’ cultures as a way to reveal both what is unique to a culture and what it shares with other cultures. It is also possible to analyze and trace particular cultural trends or ideas across human societies.
Theme 3: State-Building, Expansion, and Conflict
• Political structures and forms of governance
• Empires
• Nations and nationalism
• Revolts and revolutions
• Regional, trans-regional, and global structures and organizations
This theme refers to the processes by which hierarchical systems of rule have been constructed and maintained and to the conflicts generated through those processes. In particular, this theme encourages the comparative study of different state forms (for example, kingdoms, empires, nation-states) across time and space, and the interactions among them. Continuity and change are also embedded in this theme through attention to the organizational and cultural foundations of long-term stability on one hand, and to internal and external causes of conflict on the other. Students should examine and compare various forms of state development and expansion in the context of various productive strategies (for example, agrarian, pastoral, mercantile), various cultural and ideological foundations (for example, religions, philosophies, ideas of nationalism), various social and gender structures, and in different environmental contexts. This theme also discusses different types of states, such as autocracies and constitutional democracies. Finally, this theme encourages students to explore interstate relations, including warfare, diplomacy, commercial and cultural exchange, and the formation of international organizations.
Theme 4: Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems
• Agricultural and pastoral production
• Trade and commerce
• Labor systems
• Industrialization
• Capitalism and socialism
This theme surveys the diverse patterns and systems that human societies have developed as they exploit their environments to produce, distribute, and consume desired goods and services across time and space. It stresses major transitions in human economic activity, such as the growth and spread of agricultural, pastoral, and industrial production; the development of various labor systems associated with these economic systems (including different forms of household management and the use of coerced or free labor); and the ideologies, values, and institutions (such as capitalism and socialism) that sustained them. This theme also calls attention to patterns of trade and commerce between various societies, with particular attention to the relationship between regional and global networks of communication and exchange, and their effects on economic growth and decline. These webs of interaction strongly influence cultural and technological diffusion, migration, state formation, social classes, and human interaction with the environment.
Theme 5: Development and Transformation of Social Structures
• Gender roles and relations
• Family and kinship
• Racial and ethnic constructions
• Social and economic classes
This theme is about relations among human beings. All human societies develop ways of grouping their members, as well as norms that govern interactions between individuals and social groups. Social stratification comprises distinctions based on kinship systems, ethnic associations, and hierarchies of gender, race, wealth, and class. The study of world history requires analysis of the processes through which social categories, roles, and practices were created, maintained, and transformed. It also involves analysis of the connections between changes in social structures and other historical shifts, especially trends in political economy, cultural expression, and human ecology.
In order to prepare for AP World History, you are to read the non-fiction book A History of the World in Six Glasses. You will write short answers to a number of questions that will be turned in the first day of school.
Book:
Title: A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Author: Tom Standage
Paperback: 274 pages
Publisher: Walker Publishing Company Language: English ISBN: 13 978-0-8027-1552-4
Summary of Book:
“6 Glasses” is a book that takes an innovative approach to world history. The author looks at the development of world civilization through the prism of the beverages that people drank in various time periods. These are (in chronological order): beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola. The use of this book as a summer reading assignment in no way represents any endorsement by the teacher of the use or misuse of any of these beverages, alcoholic, caffeinated or otherwise. The book merely offers an innovative and (hopefully) interesting perspective to initiate our semester long discussion of world history. Our purpose in reading the book is to get a sense of how civilizations and cultures develop and how numerous forces (political, technological, economic, social, religious, cultural, ecological) all affect even the most mundane aspects of people’s daily lives.
Expectations for Short Answers:
• Each answer should be about one to two paragraphs long.
• Start each answer with a sentence or two that express your main idea(s). Think in terms of patterns or themes.
• The idea(s) must be clear, logical, and argumentative (can be supported by evidence from the book).
• Provide specific evidence (examples) from the book that will support ideas expressed at the beginning of your short answer. Whether it is a direct quote from the book or a reference (paraphrase), indicate the page in parenthesis.
• Your answers should be done in complete sentences with no or minimal grammar and sentence structure mistakes. “6 Glasses” Questions
1. How might beer have influenced the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural based societies?
2. What opportunities associated with wine drinking did men have in ancient Greece that women did not?
3. Why was wine adopted as a ritual drink in Christianity, but Islam prohibited the use of alcohol?
4. Read the following quote from the book. Do you agree? Why or why not? (Support your argument with specific examples. It is not enough to say “yes, I agree’ or “ no, I do not.”)
“Distilled drinks, alongside firearms and infectious diseases, helped to reshape the modern world by helping the inhabitants of the Old World to establish themselves as rulers of the New World.” (p. 129)
5. Describe coffee’s effect on the balance of power between various regions of the world.
6. Why was tea important to China’s economy and its relationship with other countries?
7. How did tea change history in India?
8. How did Coca-Cola become the world’s most recognized product? How does Coca-Cola affect, and how is it affected by, people’s views of the United States?
9. Of the six that the author discusses, which beverage do you think has played the most significant role in history? Defend your choice. What beverages have been left out of this book that might have had an effect on society?
10. What do you think is the beverage for the next era in history? (Do you agree with the author’s choice in the epilogue?) Defend your choice.
Description of AP World History Course Themes
The five course themes below present areas of historical inquiry that should be investigated at various points throughout the course and revisited as manifested in particular historical developments over time. These themes articulate at a broad level the main ideas that are developed throughout the entire span of the course. Each theme includes a list of related key topics as well as a description. You should read through each course theme and try to relate your book summary to the themes. You don’t necessarily need to connect every question to every theme. The goal is for you to start developing an understanding of what each theme is all about.
The key concepts were derived from an explicit consideration of these themes, with the goal of making the themes more concrete for the course content within each historical period. This clear connection between themes and key concepts means students can put what is particular about one historical period into a larger framework. In this way, the themes facilitate cross-period questions and help students recognize broad trends and processes that have developed over centuries in various regions of the world.
Theme 1: Interaction between Humans and the Environment
• Demography and disease
• Migration
• Patterns of settlement
• Technology
The interaction between humans and the environment is a fundamental theme for world history. The environment shaped human societies, but, increasingly, human societies also affected the environment. During prehistory, humans interacted with the environment as hunters, fishers and foragers, and human migrations led to the peopling of the earth. As the Neolithic revolution began, humans exploited their environments more intensively, either as farmers or pastoralists. Environmental factors such as rainfall patterns, climate, and available flora and fauna shaped the methods of exploitation used in different regions. Human exploitation of the environment intensified as populations grew and as people migrated into new regions. As people flocked into cities or established trade networks, new diseases emerged and spread, sometimes devastating an entire region. During the Industrial Revolution, environmental exploitation increased exponentially. In recent centuries, human effects on the environment —and the ability to master and exploit it — increased with the development of more sophisticated technologies, the exploitation of new energy sources and a rapid increase in human populations. By the twentieth century, large numbers of humans had begun to recognize their effect on the environment and took steps toward a “green” movement to protect and work with the natural world instead of exploiting it.
Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures
• Religions
• Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies
• Science and technology
• The arts and architecture
This theme explores the origins, uses, dissemination, and adaptation of ideas, beliefs, and knowledge within and between societies. Studying the dominant belief system(s) or religions, philosophical interests, and technical and artistic approaches can reveal how major groups in society view themselves and others, and how they respond to multiple challenges. When people of different societies interact, they often share components of their cultures, deliberately or not. The processes of adopting or adapting new belief and knowledge systems are complex and often lead to historically novel cultural blends. A society’s culture may be investigated and compared with other societies’ cultures as a way to reveal both what is unique to a culture and what it shares with other cultures. It is also possible to analyze and trace particular cultural trends or ideas across human societies.
Theme 3: State-Building, Expansion, and Conflict
• Political structures and forms of governance
• Empires
• Nations and nationalism
• Revolts and revolutions
• Regional, trans-regional, and global structures and organizations
This theme refers to the processes by which hierarchical systems of rule have been constructed and maintained and to the conflicts generated through those processes. In particular, this theme encourages the comparative study of different state forms (for example, kingdoms, empires, nation-states) across time and space, and the interactions among them. Continuity and change are also embedded in this theme through attention to the organizational and cultural foundations of long-term stability on one hand, and to internal and external causes of conflict on the other. Students should examine and compare various forms of state development and expansion in the context of various productive strategies (for example, agrarian, pastoral, mercantile), various cultural and ideological foundations (for example, religions, philosophies, ideas of nationalism), various social and gender structures, and in different environmental contexts. This theme also discusses different types of states, such as autocracies and constitutional democracies. Finally, this theme encourages students to explore interstate relations, including warfare, diplomacy, commercial and cultural exchange, and the formation of international organizations.
Theme 4: Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems
• Agricultural and pastoral production
• Trade and commerce
• Labor systems
• Industrialization
• Capitalism and socialism
This theme surveys the diverse patterns and systems that human societies have developed as they exploit their environments to produce, distribute, and consume desired goods and services across time and space. It stresses major transitions in human economic activity, such as the growth and spread of agricultural, pastoral, and industrial production; the development of various labor systems associated with these economic systems (including different forms of household management and the use of coerced or free labor); and the ideologies, values, and institutions (such as capitalism and socialism) that sustained them. This theme also calls attention to patterns of trade and commerce between various societies, with particular attention to the relationship between regional and global networks of communication and exchange, and their effects on economic growth and decline. These webs of interaction strongly influence cultural and technological diffusion, migration, state formation, social classes, and human interaction with the environment.
Theme 5: Development and Transformation of Social Structures
• Gender roles and relations
• Family and kinship
• Racial and ethnic constructions
• Social and economic classes
This theme is about relations among human beings. All human societies develop ways of grouping their members, as well as norms that govern interactions between individuals and social groups. Social stratification comprises distinctions based on kinship systems, ethnic associations, and hierarchies of gender, race, wealth, and class. The study of world history requires analysis of the processes through which social categories, roles, and practices were created, maintained, and transformed. It also involves analysis of the connections between changes in social structures and other historical shifts, especially trends in political economy, cultural expression, and human ecology.
Assignment:
In order to prepare for AP World History, you are to read the non-fiction book A History of the World in Six Glasses. You will write short answers to a number of questions that will be turned in the first day of school.
Book:
Title: A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Author: Tom Standage
Paperback: 274 pages
Publisher: Walker Publishing Company Language: English ISBN: 13 978-0-8027-1552-4
Summary of Book:
“6 Glasses” is a book that takes an innovative approach to world history. The author looks at the development of world civilization through the prism of the beverages that people drank in various time periods. These are (in chronological order): beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola. The use of this book as a summer reading assignment in no way represents any endorsement by the teacher of the use or misuse of any of these beverages, alcoholic, caffeinated or otherwise. The book merely offers an innovative and (hopefully) interesting perspective to initiate our semester long discussion of world history. Our purpose in reading the book is to get a sense of how civilizations and cultures develop and how numerous forces (political, technological, economic, social, religious, cultural, ecological) all affect even the most mundane aspects of people’s daily lives.
Expectations for Short Answers:
• Each answer should be about one to two paragraphs long.
• Start each answer with a sentence or two that express your main idea(s). Think in terms of patterns or themes.
• The idea(s) must be clear, logical, and argumentative (can be supported by evidence from the book).
• Provide specific evidence (examples) from the book that will support ideas expressed at the beginning of your short answer. Whether it is a direct quote from the book or a reference (paraphrase), indicate the page in parenthesis.
• Your answers should be done in complete sentences with no or minimal grammar and sentence structure mistakes. “6 Glasses” Questions
1. How might beer have influenced the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural based societies?
2. What opportunities associated with wine drinking did men have in ancient Greece that women did not?
3. Why was wine adopted as a ritual drink in Christianity, but Islam prohibited the use of alcohol?
4. Read the following quote from the book. Do you agree? Why or why not? (Support your argument with specific examples. It is not enough to say “yes, I agree’ or “ no, I do not.”)
“Distilled drinks, alongside firearms and infectious diseases, helped to reshape the modern world by helping the inhabitants of the Old World to establish themselves as rulers of the New World.” (p. 129)
5. Describe coffee’s effect on the balance of power between various regions of the world.
6. Why was tea important to China’s economy and its relationship with other countries?
7. How did tea change history in India?
8. How did Coca-Cola become the world’s most recognized product? How does Coca-Cola affect, and how is it affected by, people’s views of the United States?
9. Of the six that the author discusses, which beverage do you think has played the most significant role in history? Defend your choice. What beverages have been left out of this book that might have had an effect on society?
10. What do you think is the beverage for the next era in history? (Do you agree with the author’s choice in the epilogue?) Defend your choice.
Description of AP World History Course Themes
The five course themes below present areas of historical inquiry that should be investigated at various points throughout the course and revisited as manifested in particular historical developments over time. These themes articulate at a broad level the main ideas that are developed throughout the entire span of the course. Each theme includes a list of related key topics as well as a description. You should read through each course theme and try to relate your book summary to the themes. You don’t necessarily need to connect every question to every theme. The goal is for you to start developing an understanding of what each theme is all about.
The key concepts were derived from an explicit consideration of these themes, with the goal of making the themes more concrete for the course content within each historical period. This clear connection between themes and key concepts means students can put what is particular about one historical period into a larger framework. In this way, the themes facilitate cross-period questions and help students recognize broad trends and processes that have developed over centuries in various regions of the world.
Theme 1: Interaction between Humans and the Environment
• Demography and disease
• Migration
• Patterns of settlement
• Technology
The interaction between humans and the environment is a fundamental theme for world history. The environment shaped human societies, but, increasingly, human societies also affected the environment. During prehistory, humans interacted with the environment as hunters, fishers and foragers, and human migrations led to the peopling of the earth. As the Neolithic revolution began, humans exploited their environments more intensively, either as farmers or pastoralists. Environmental factors such as rainfall patterns, climate, and available flora and fauna shaped the methods of exploitation used in different regions. Human exploitation of the environment intensified as populations grew and as people migrated into new regions. As people flocked into cities or established trade networks, new diseases emerged and spread, sometimes devastating an entire region. During the Industrial Revolution, environmental exploitation increased exponentially. In recent centuries, human effects on the environment —and the ability to master and exploit it — increased with the development of more sophisticated technologies, the exploitation of new energy sources and a rapid increase in human populations. By the twentieth century, large numbers of humans had begun to recognize their effect on the environment and took steps toward a “green” movement to protect and work with the natural world instead of exploiting it.
Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures
• Religions
• Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies
• Science and technology
• The arts and architecture
This theme explores the origins, uses, dissemination, and adaptation of ideas, beliefs, and knowledge within and between societies. Studying the dominant belief system(s) or religions, philosophical interests, and technical and artistic approaches can reveal how major groups in society view themselves and others, and how they respond to multiple challenges. When people of different societies interact, they often share components of their cultures, deliberately or not. The processes of adopting or adapting new belief and knowledge systems are complex and often lead to historically novel cultural blends. A society’s culture may be investigated and compared with other societies’ cultures as a way to reveal both what is unique to a culture and what it shares with other cultures. It is also possible to analyze and trace particular cultural trends or ideas across human societies.
Theme 3: State-Building, Expansion, and Conflict
• Political structures and forms of governance
• Empires
• Nations and nationalism
• Revolts and revolutions
• Regional, trans-regional, and global structures and organizations
This theme refers to the processes by which hierarchical systems of rule have been constructed and maintained and to the conflicts generated through those processes. In particular, this theme encourages the comparative study of different state forms (for example, kingdoms, empires, nation-states) across time and space, and the interactions among them. Continuity and change are also embedded in this theme through attention to the organizational and cultural foundations of long-term stability on one hand, and to internal and external causes of conflict on the other. Students should examine and compare various forms of state development and expansion in the context of various productive strategies (for example, agrarian, pastoral, mercantile), various cultural and ideological foundations (for example, religions, philosophies, ideas of nationalism), various social and gender structures, and in different environmental contexts. This theme also discusses different types of states, such as autocracies and constitutional democracies. Finally, this theme encourages students to explore interstate relations, including warfare, diplomacy, commercial and cultural exchange, and the formation of international organizations.
Theme 4: Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems
• Agricultural and pastoral production
• Trade and commerce
• Labor systems
• Industrialization
• Capitalism and socialism
This theme surveys the diverse patterns and systems that human societies have developed as they exploit their environments to produce, distribute, and consume desired goods and services across time and space. It stresses major transitions in human economic activity, such as the growth and spread of agricultural, pastoral, and industrial production; the development of various labor systems associated with these economic systems (including different forms of household management and the use of coerced or free labor); and the ideologies, values, and institutions (such as capitalism and socialism) that sustained them. This theme also calls attention to patterns of trade and commerce between various societies, with particular attention to the relationship between regional and global networks of communication and exchange, and their effects on economic growth and decline. These webs of interaction strongly influence cultural and technological diffusion, migration, state formation, social classes, and human interaction with the environment.
Theme 5: Development and Transformation of Social Structures
• Gender roles and relations
• Family and kinship
• Racial and ethnic constructions
• Social and economic classes
This theme is about relations among human beings. All human societies develop ways of grouping their members, as well as norms that govern interactions between individuals and social groups. Social stratification comprises distinctions based on kinship systems, ethnic associations, and hierarchies of gender, race, wealth, and class. The study of world history requires analysis of the processes through which social categories, roles, and practices were created, maintained, and transformed. It also involves analysis of the connections between changes in social structures and other historical shifts, especially trends in political economy, cultural expression, and human ecology.
Assignment:
In order to prepare for AP World History, you are to read the non-fiction book A History of the World in Six Glasses. You will write short answers to a number of questions that will be turned in the first day of school.
Book:
Title: A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Author: Tom Standage
Paperback: 274 pages
Publisher: Walker Publishing Company Language: English ISBN: 13 978-0-8027-1552-4
Summary of Book:
“6 Glasses” is a book that takes an innovative approach to world history. The author looks at the development of world civilization through the prism of the beverages that people drank in various time periods. These are (in chronological order): beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola. The use of this book as a summer reading assignment in no way represents any endorsement by the teacher of the use or misuse of any of these beverages, alcoholic, caffeinated or otherwise. The book merely offers an innovative and (hopefully) interesting perspective to initiate our semester long discussion of world history. Our purpose in reading the book is to get a sense of how civilizations and cultures develop and how numerous forces (political, technological, economic, social, religious, cultural, ecological) all affect even the most mundane aspects of people’s daily lives.
Expectations for Short Answers:
• Each answer should be about one to two paragraphs long.
• Start each answer with a sentence or two that express your main idea(s). Think in terms of patterns or themes.
• The idea(s) must be clear, logical, and argumentative (can be supported by evidence from the book).
• Provide specific evidence (examples) from the book that will support ideas expressed at the beginning of your short answer. Whether it is a direct quote from the book or a reference (paraphrase), indicate the page in parenthesis.
• Your answers should be done in complete sentences with no or minimal grammar and sentence structure mistakes. “6 Glasses” Questions
1. How might beer have influenced the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural based societies?
2. What opportunities associated with wine drinking did men have in ancient Greece that women did not?
3. Why was wine adopted as a ritual drink in Christianity, but Islam prohibited the use of alcohol?
4. Read the following quote from the book. Do you agree? Why or why not? (Support your argument with specific examples. It is not enough to say “yes, I agree’ or “ no, I do not.”)
“Distilled drinks, alongside firearms and infectious diseases, helped to reshape the modern world by helping the inhabitants of the Old World to establish themselves as rulers of the New World.” (p. 129)
5. Describe coffee’s effect on the balance of power between various regions of the world.
6. Why was tea important to China’s economy and its relationship with other countries?
7. How did tea change history in India?
8. How did Coca-Cola become the world’s most recognized product? How does Coca-Cola affect, and how is it affected by, people’s views of the United States?
9. Of the six that the author discusses, which beverage do you think has played the most significant role in history? Defend your choice. What beverages have been left out of this book that might have had an effect on society?
10. What do you think is the beverage for the next era in history? (Do you agree with the author’s choice in the epilogue?) Defend your choice.
Description of AP World History Course Themes
The five course themes below present areas of historical inquiry that should be investigated at various points throughout the course and revisited as manifested in particular historical developments over time. These themes articulate at a broad level the main ideas that are developed throughout the entire span of the course. Each theme includes a list of related key topics as well as a description. You should read through each course theme and try to relate your book summary to the themes. You don’t necessarily need to connect every question to every theme. The goal is for you to start developing an understanding of what each theme is all about.
The key concepts were derived from an explicit consideration of these themes, with the goal of making the themes more concrete for the course content within each historical period. This clear connection between themes and key concepts means students can put what is particular about one historical period into a larger framework. In this way, the themes facilitate cross-period questions and help students recognize broad trends and processes that have developed over centuries in various regions of the world.
Theme 1: Interaction between Humans and the Environment
• Demography and disease
• Migration
• Patterns of settlement
• Technology
The interaction between humans and the environment is a fundamental theme for world history. The environment shaped human societies, but, increasingly, human societies also affected the environment. During prehistory, humans interacted with the environment as hunters, fishers and foragers, and human migrations led to the peopling of the earth. As the Neolithic revolution began, humans exploited their environments more intensively, either as farmers or pastoralists. Environmental factors such as rainfall patterns, climate, and available flora and fauna shaped the methods of exploitation used in different regions. Human exploitation of the environment intensified as populations grew and as people migrated into new regions. As people flocked into cities or established trade networks, new diseases emerged and spread, sometimes devastating an entire region. During the Industrial Revolution, environmental exploitation increased exponentially. In recent centuries, human effects on the environment —and the ability to master and exploit it — increased with the development of more sophisticated technologies, the exploitation of new energy sources and a rapid increase in human populations. By the twentieth century, large numbers of humans had begun to recognize their effect on the environment and took steps toward a “green” movement to protect and work with the natural world instead of exploiting it.
Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures
• Religions
• Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies
• Science and technology
• The arts and architecture
This theme explores the origins, uses, dissemination, and adaptation of ideas, beliefs, and knowledge within and between societies. Studying the dominant belief system(s) or religions, philosophical interests, and technical and artistic approaches can reveal how major groups in society view themselves and others, and how they respond to multiple challenges. When people of different societies interact, they often share components of their cultures, deliberately or not. The processes of adopting or adapting new belief and knowledge systems are complex and often lead to historically novel cultural blends. A society’s culture may be investigated and compared with other societies’ cultures as a way to reveal both what is unique to a culture and what it shares with other cultures. It is also possible to analyze and trace particular cultural trends or ideas across human societies.
Theme 3: State-Building, Expansion, and Conflict
• Political structures and forms of governance
• Empires
• Nations and nationalism
• Revolts and revolutions
• Regional, trans-regional, and global structures and organizations
This theme refers to the processes by which hierarchical systems of rule have been constructed and maintained and to the conflicts generated through those processes. In particular, this theme encourages the comparative study of different state forms (for example, kingdoms, empires, nation-states) across time and space, and the interactions among them. Continuity and change are also embedded in this theme through attention to the organizational and cultural foundations of long-term stability on one hand, and to internal and external causes of conflict on the other. Students should examine and compare various forms of state development and expansion in the context of various productive strategies (for example, agrarian, pastoral, mercantile), various cultural and ideological foundations (for example, religions, philosophies, ideas of nationalism), various social and gender structures, and in different environmental contexts. This theme also discusses different types of states, such as autocracies and constitutional democracies. Finally, this theme encourages students to explore interstate relations, including warfare, diplomacy, commercial and cultural exchange, and the formation of international organizations.
Theme 4: Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems
• Agricultural and pastoral production
• Trade and commerce
• Labor systems
• Industrialization
• Capitalism and socialism
This theme surveys the diverse patterns and systems that human societies have developed as they exploit their environments to produce, distribute, and consume desired goods and services across time and space. It stresses major transitions in human economic activity, such as the growth and spread of agricultural, pastoral, and industrial production; the development of various labor systems associated with these economic systems (including different forms of household management and the use of coerced or free labor); and the ideologies, values, and institutions (such as capitalism and socialism) that sustained them. This theme also calls attention to patterns of trade and commerce between various societies, with particular attention to the relationship between regional and global networks of communication and exchange, and their effects on economic growth and decline. These webs of interaction strongly influence cultural and technological diffusion, migration, state formation, social classes, and human interaction with the environment.
Theme 5: Development and Transformation of Social Structures
• Gender roles and relations
• Family and kinship
• Racial and ethnic constructions
• Social and economic classes
This theme is about relations among human beings. All human societies develop ways of grouping their members, as well as norms that govern interactions between individuals and social groups. Social stratification comprises distinctions based on kinship systems, ethnic associations, and hierarchies of gender, race, wealth, and class. The study of world history requires analysis of the processes through which social categories, roles, and practices were created, maintained, and transformed. It also involves analysis of the connections between changes in social structures and other historical shifts, especially trends in political economy, cultural expression, and human ecology.
Assignment:
In order to prepare for AP World History, you are to read the non-fiction book A History of the World in Six Glasses. You will write short answers to a number of questions that will be turned in the first day of school.
Book:
Title: A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Author: Tom Standage
Paperback: 274 pages
Publisher: Walker Publishing Company Language: English ISBN: 13 978-0-8027-1552-4
Summary of Book:
“6 Glasses” is a book that takes an innovative approach to world history. The author looks at the development of world civilization through the prism of the beverages that people drank in various time periods. These are (in chronological order): beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola. The use of this book as a summer reading assignment in no way represents any endorsement by the teacher of the use or misuse of any of these beverages, alcoholic, caffeinated or otherwise. The book merely offers an innovative and (hopefully) interesting perspective to initiate our semester long discussion of world history. Our purpose in reading the book is to get a sense of how civilizations and cultures develop and how numerous forces (political, technological, economic, social, religious, cultural, ecological) all affect even the most mundane aspects of people’s daily lives.
Expectations for Short Answers:
• Each answer should be about one to two paragraphs long.
• Start each answer with a sentence or two that express your main idea(s). Think in terms of patterns or themes.
• The idea(s) must be clear, logical, and argumentative (can be supported by evidence from the book).
• Provide specific evidence (examples) from the book that will support ideas expressed at the beginning of your short answer. Whether it is a direct quote from the book or a reference (paraphrase), indicate the page in parenthesis.
• Your answers should be done in complete sentences with no or minimal grammar and sentence structure mistakes. “6 Glasses” Questions
1. How might beer have influenced the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural based societies?
2. What opportunities associated with wine drinking did men have in ancient Greece that women did not?
3. Why was wine adopted as a ritual drink in Christianity, but Islam prohibited the use of alcohol?
4. Read the following quote from the book. Do you agree? Why or why not? (Support your argument with specific examples. It is not enough to say “yes, I agree’ or “ no, I do not.”)
“Distilled drinks, alongside firearms and infectious diseases, helped to reshape the modern world by helping the inhabitants of the Old World to establish themselves as rulers of the New World.” (p. 129)
5. Describe coffee’s effect on the balance of power between various regions of the world.
6. Why was tea important to China’s economy and its relationship with other countries?
7. How did tea change history in India?
8. How did Coca-Cola become the world’s most recognized product? How does Coca-Cola affect, and how is it affected by, people’s views of the United States?
9. Of the six that the author discusses, which beverage do you think has played the most significant role in history? Defend your choice. What beverages have been left out of this book that might have had an effect on society?
10. What do you think is the beverage for the next era in history? (Do you agree with the author’s choice in the epilogue?) Defend your choice.
Description of AP World History Course Themes
The five course themes below present areas of historical inquiry that should be investigated at various points throughout the course and revisited as manifested in particular historical developments over time. These themes articulate at a broad level the main ideas that are developed throughout the entire span of the course. Each theme includes a list of related key topics as well as a description. You should read through each course theme and try to relate your book summary to the themes. You don’t necessarily need to connect every question to every theme. The goal is for you to start developing an understanding of what each theme is all about.
The key concepts were derived from an explicit consideration of these themes, with the goal of making the themes more concrete for the course content within each historical period. This clear connection between themes and key concepts means students can put what is particular about one historical period into a larger framework. In this way, the themes facilitate cross-period questions and help students recognize broad trends and processes that have developed over centuries in various regions of the world.
Theme 1: Interaction between Humans and the Environment
• Demography and disease
• Migration
• Patterns of settlement
• Technology
The interaction between humans and the environment is a fundamental theme for world history. The environment shaped human societies, but, increasingly, human societies also affected the environment. During prehistory, humans interacted with the environment as hunters, fishers and foragers, and human migrations led to the peopling of the earth. As the Neolithic revolution began, humans exploited their environments more intensively, either as farmers or pastoralists. Environmental factors such as rainfall patterns, climate, and available flora and fauna shaped the methods of exploitation used in different regions. Human exploitation of the environment intensified as populations grew and as people migrated into new regions. As people flocked into cities or established trade networks, new diseases emerged and spread, sometimes devastating an entire region. During the Industrial Revolution, environmental exploitation increased exponentially. In recent centuries, human effects on the environment —and the ability to master and exploit it — increased with the development of more sophisticated technologies, the exploitation of new energy sources and a rapid increase in human populations. By the twentieth century, large numbers of humans had begun to recognize their effect on the environment and took steps toward a “green” movement to protect and work with the natural world instead of exploiting it.
Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures
• Religions
• Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies
• Science and technology
• The arts and architecture
This theme explores the origins, uses, dissemination, and adaptation of ideas, beliefs, and knowledge within and between societies. Studying the dominant belief system(s) or religions, philosophical interests, and technical and artistic approaches can reveal how major groups in society view themselves and others, and how they respond to multiple challenges. When people of different societies interact, they often share components of their cultures, deliberately or not. The processes of adopting or adapting new belief and knowledge systems are complex and often lead to historically novel cultural blends. A society’s culture may be investigated and compared with other societies’ cultures as a way to reveal both what is unique to a culture and what it shares with other cultures. It is also possible to analyze and trace particular cultural trends or ideas across human societies.
Theme 3: State-Building, Expansion, and Conflict
• Political structures and forms of governance
• Empires
• Nations and nationalism
• Revolts and revolutions
• Regional, trans-regional, and global structures and organizations
This theme refers to the processes by which hierarchical systems of rule have been constructed and maintained and to the conflicts generated through those processes. In particular, this theme encourages the comparative study of different state forms (for example, kingdoms, empires, nation-states) across time and space, and the interactions among them. Continuity and change are also embedded in this theme through attention to the organizational and cultural foundations of long-term stability on one hand, and to internal and external causes of conflict on the other. Students should examine and compare various forms of state development and expansion in the context of various productive strategies (for example, agrarian, pastoral, mercantile), various cultural and ideological foundations (for example, religions, philosophies, ideas of nationalism), various social and gender structures, and in different environmental contexts. This theme also discusses different types of states, such as autocracies and constitutional democracies. Finally, this theme encourages students to explore interstate relations, including warfare, diplomacy, commercial and cultural exchange, and the formation of international organizations.
Theme 4: Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems
• Agricultural and pastoral production
• Trade and commerce
• Labor systems
• Industrialization
• Capitalism and socialism
This theme surveys the diverse patterns and systems that human societies have developed as they exploit their environments to produce, distribute, and consume desired goods and services across time and space. It stresses major transitions in human economic activity, such as the growth and spread of agricultural, pastoral, and industrial production; the development of various labor systems associated with these economic systems (including different forms of household management and the use of coerced or free labor); and the ideologies, values, and institutions (such as capitalism and socialism) that sustained them. This theme also calls attention to patterns of trade and commerce between various societies, with particular attention to the relationship between regional and global networks of communication and exchange, and their effects on economic growth and decline. These webs of interaction strongly influence cultural and technological diffusion, migration, state formation, social classes, and human interaction with the environment.
Theme 5: Development and Transformation of Social Structures
• Gender roles and relations
• Family and kinship
• Racial and ethnic constructions
• Social and economic classes
This theme is about relations among human beings. All human societies develop ways of grouping their members, as well as norms that govern interactions between individuals and social groups. Social stratification comprises distinctions based on kinship systems, ethnic associations, and hierarchies of gender, race, wealth, and class. The study of world history requires analysis of the processes through which social categories, roles, and practices were created, maintained, and transformed. It also involves analysis of the connections between changes in social structures and other historical shifts, especially trends in political economy, cultural expression, and human ecology.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Answer in college-level sentences with proper grammar and spelling. Answer each part of the question for full credit.…
- 883 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Beer influenced the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural based societies because it gave people a keen interest in grain storage. Beer was discovered as gruel, a mixture of water and grain, that was heated. It stimulated a dopaminergic release, causing the people that experienced the flavor to yearn for that rewarding sensation more. Standage noted that people could store a pound of grain a year, which caused the transition away from the savage – minded lifestyle even more appealing (13). Beer is a drink used to relax and celebrate, and seeing that the world functions through the ability to communicate, beer was extremely valuable to the people of the time period. In addition, it is possible that a trade-off of some sort was made possible, as some would convert to beer-making and exchange their craft for meat and berries. In the book, it was said that beer “was truly the defining drink of those first great civilizations,” and these various new abilities brought into play through beer makes this understandable (30). All of these positive and attractive new possibilities are ways that beer influenced the switch from the traditional hunt – and – gather mentality to a more society – oriented lifestyle with agriculture.…
- 1918 Words
- 8 Pages
Good Essays -
How did beer lead to the development of cities in Mesopotamia and Egypt? Grains grew widespread in the Fertile Crescent (The crescent shaped area which had an ideal climate and soil for growing plants and raising livestock, it stretches from Egypt, up the Mediterranean coast to Turkey, and then down again to the border between Iraq and Iran.) causing the unintentional discovery of beer. The Fertile Crescent’s extremely rich soil was suitable for the growth of cereal grains after the last ice age, which occurred around 10,000 BCE. Hunter-gatherers were drawn to the cereal grains and, the ability to keep the grains for long periods of time stimulated them to stay. If they hunter-gatherers could thrive of off the wild grain if they were willing to stay near it and harvest at its peak. After the hunter-gatherers had spent so much time collecting the grain they would have been reluctant to leave the grain that they had collected nor could they travel with it. For this reason hunter-gatherers began to settle on the land. These settlers soon found that the grain could be stockpiled for long periods of time without spoiling. The technology of these settlers was still in development so storage spaces were not usually watertight, and when the water got into the stockpile of the collected grains they started to sprout and acquired a sweet taste. Thus becoming malted grains. When gruel, which is made of boiled malted grains, was left to sit for a couple of days it undertakes an interesting transformation. It becomes a pleasantly intoxicating and slightly bubbly liquid, as the yeasts from the gruel turn it to alcohol. The cereal grains used to make beer was often used as an eatable currency, because everyone needed it. People traded and sold it, causing the development and expansion of cities.…
- 2569 Words
- 7 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Refer to Chapter 2 of your text, additional resources and your own insights/experiences. Respond to at least two classmates’ postings.…
- 471 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage is about six drinks (beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and coca-cola) and how they have affected the world in the past and the present. All of these drinks were invented in different eras, and the inventions of these drinks were affected by what had occurred in the time period.…
- 2482 Words
- 10 Pages
Good Essays -
How Six Beverages changed the Face of the EarthThroughout history certain drinks have marked a trend that has changed the face of the earth. Each drinks including beer, wine, spirits (distilled alcohol), coffee, tea, and coca-cola have been a catalyst for the development of our society. As a result, the alcohol and the caffeine in the drinks have not only quenched our thirst through history, but have done much more than that; they have helped different cultures intertwine. Each one of them set humankind on a path towards modernity. Six beverages precisely, three alcoholic, and three caffeine marked the tendency; the first beverage to mark a trend was beer that both served as a currency and for political purposes. Later came the Greeks with a fermented grape juice, named "wine" that with the help of formal drinking parties helped diffuse ideas and thoughts. With the coming of the age of exploration and the discovery of America, raw goods and the distillation process arrived and helped the development of distilled drinks such as brandy, rum, and whiskey which were used as currency to buy slaves and became popular in North America. As alcoholism spread, other people especially professionals looked for that drink that instead of confusing the mind rather promoted clarity. Coffee, the black gift from the Arabs promoted clarity that was what professionals were looking for such a long time. However the emergence of the British Empire as a world dominion helped China's flagship drink, tea helped to open lucrative trade routes with the east. Perhaps, the most affluent of all, or at least the one single drink that reached every corner of earth is the carbonated soft beverage called Coca-Cola; Coca-Cola marked the start of the globalization period. Six drinks, six different stories that mark our world today.…
- 3123 Words
- 9 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Most people were taught to divide history in ages, eras, and in some cases decades , Tom Standage seems to divide history in the popular beverage of the time period. In "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" the author brings the reader to an interesting timeline of our history. Fantastically written and catches attention to all who wants to learn about everyday drinks and how they became so popular. Not only does this book share information about these beverages it also brings light to the actual history of the world and with vibrant tone and interesting facts, Standage successfully made an interesting historical novel.…
- 1428 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays -
What does the story of beer tell you about social and gender roles in ancient SW Asia and Egypt?…
- 2694 Words
- 11 Pages
Good Essays -
Before 10,000 BCE the primary source of drink was water. When beer was discovered in Mesopotamia it was considered a step up from water. Water was…
- 451 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
1. The author’s main argument in setting up his book is that human history is formed by several different types of drinks.…
- 1089 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
Instructions: This is an honors level course. Answer all questions fully using complete sentences. If you want full credit, please provide plenty of details.…
- 1587 Words
- 7 Pages
Good Essays -
2. As brewing beer became more widespread, what is most important benefit from drinking beer?…
- 511 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Angela Richardson Mrs. Witte Honors World History October 9th, 2014 For almost all my life, I have been conditioned into believing that the world I have come to know was shaped by the discovery of diverse religions, turbulent revolutions, years-long tempestuous wars, and an ongoing list of other events that impacted history forever. However, Tom Standage’s bestseller uncovers a different perspective on the history of the world - a standpoint that gives every day beverages a more significant role besides quenching thirst. A History of the World in 6 Glasses demonstrates the magnitude refreshments had in shaping the lives of human beings, including beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and coca-cola. Utilizing over 100 sources, Standage examined…
- 676 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
150,00 years ago, water had been the basic drink that mankind drank. Nomads would rely on water to survive, however, water had many pesticides and impurities that caused people to become sick and die. Beer was the first staple beverage in civilizations. It became important to all aspects of ancient life, social, religious, and economical. As civilizations began to brew beer it led them into a more modern world. Beer transitioned the nomadic life of early people to a stationary life. Beer was not invented though, it was simply a mistake that was waiting to he discovered. As nomads began to settle and harvest grain, it became a major staple in their diet. Storing was difficult to store in a way where it would stay safe for consumption. A popular porridge dish called gruel was a very common meal made with cereal grains. When left out, a chemical transformation would take place converting it into beer. Once discovered, beer was brewed constantly, improving the taste. Beer played a large part in the development of civilizations; it brought people together to share drinks and showed hospitality and familiarity. Beer was also very important in religion. This is because the process that converted gruel into beer was believed to be a gift from the gods. The finest and sweetest brews would be offered to gods as thanks. In Egypt, many people believed that Osiris, the god of the afterlife and agriculture, discovered beer. Therefore, beer was used as an offering in the afterlife and was buried with people when they died. As time went on, beer was not only a drink, but also a sign of being civilized and human. When beer was drunk, it showed that a person was sophisticated. As time progressed and people and civilizations became more advanced, beer was used as currency. Men, women, and children were granted amounts of beer as pay. Beer was also believed to cure…
- 3533 Words
- 15 Pages
Good Essays -
In the beginning, beer was just a social thing. It was used for special occasions, and because of that they were more social making them more civilized. “Beer has brought people together since the dawn of civilization.” Then beer became very popular it was used for more than just a social drink, more than a drink at all! They used it as currency, as trade and used it to barter with. Because they had an abundance of grain, this was convenient. Using it as currency, in turn, saved them money. They then could use that money to develop cities and expand.…
- 2332 Words
- 10 Pages
Good Essays