The Fascination of the Scientific Revolution (1550-1700)

        The "Scientific Revolution" was a period in history from 1550 to 1700, that exploded with non-traditional ideas about important terms concerning world religions, politics, science, biology, astronomy, ethics, acceptable reasoning for philosophy, and evidence of proof for law, or the different systems mentioned above. 
        How could humans possibly live in a society without these major thinkers and all their major achievements within the second century? It was not like, us being able to live without: the invention of a dishwasher, iPhone, or the recent philosophy for gangs shooting innocent people in ghettos. 
        There was Nicholas Copernicus saying the sun is at the center of the solar system, earth rotates on its axis, and earth and planets revolve around sun. Andreas Vesalius was the "Father of Anatomy." Francis Bacon who focused on observation and experiments as the key to modern science. Rene Descartes expressed how important math and logical reasoning in the physical world to give one of my favorite quotes: "I think, therefore I am." Isaac Newton synthesized the concept of universal gravitation, designed calculus, concept of inertia and laws of motion.
        All these major thinkers (and more that I did not mention right now) were pioneers of life-changing innovative ideas! Typical of human nature at that time in history to absolutely not readily accept new revolutionary ideas about anything in life easily. When it comes to science, religion, politics, philosophy, even new styles of art, the government and general public in society ( and I emphasize again at that time in history) did not accept new ideas, and/or change easily.

Lorraine Domingo

The world of pastoral societies from 1200-1500 was a "utopian" community that shared several key issues, making them different from settled agricultural communities and civilizations. Pastoral societies lived in small related encampments of kinfolk called clans. I  use the word "utopian" as to what one refers to their own "ideal society?" To the pastoral societies in the world between 1200-1500, they had an ideal life that still exists in the San people of southern Africa today. Their value system stressed equality, less productive economies, individual achievements encouraged to be strong, and women were offered greater roles in public life, productive labor, able to remarry after being a widower, allowed to divorce, and many opportunities for the freedom to learn skills, or even ride horse, have choices and some control. Nomads were never homeless, "they know where they are going and why."

Blog # 3

   
" As in all civilizations, slavery found a place in West Africa, and most of them were women working as domestic servants and concubines." Not going on a personal women's lib crusade against anyone in particular, rather, I am expressing my own feelings from a female's  opinion. Women and slavery developed in the early stages of civilizations because of wealth and power. Oh yeah, for the same reason that still exists today for women, status, and ethnicity being oppressive issues in our society. Strayer portrays this story of the trade in slaves across the Sahara, " between 1100 and 1400, around 5,500 slaves per year made this perilous trek." I enjoy reading Strayer's portrayal of history mixed with stories and facts. Allows us the opportunity to view these readings with some imagination, instead of the typical boring world history textbooks I used to put myself to sleep, when counting sheep didn't work?  I always wondered how the term " Slav " was started? Strayer explains that slaves in Europe from the Slavic - speaking regions along the northern coast of the Black Sea were so numerous that's how the word "slave" began in European languages, then " Slav."
The women in the " golden age " of the Song Dynasty around 1000 C.E., was not a walk in the park, by any means, for women. Women were considered a distraction and not equal to a man in any way possible. Women at an early age were expected to go through the extremely long painful process of " foot binding," lasting until the 20th century ( wow, I would have really been stuck forever since my shoe size is 10).
This was all relative to one's opinion again on the balance of women's lives in the Song Dynasty, so as property rights made progress, the advancement for SOME new doors of opportunities opened for women.