topic 2 Flashcards
(40 cards)
What is a mini system
Society with a reciprocal social economy, each individual
specializes in specific tasks (e.g., caring for
animals, cooking or making pottery) and freely
gives the surplus product to others. Each one
responds in turn by giving away the surplus
product of his own specialization.
Transition to mini system
between
9000 and 7000 BCE and was based on a series of
technological preconditions:
o The use of fire to process food.
o The use of grindstones to mill grains.
o The development of improved tools to
prepare and store food.
PREMODERN WORLD
Hearth Areas
Neolithic revolution
Health areas (four major regions)
1) middle east
2) South Asia
3) China
4) In the Americas
Transition to food-producing mini-systems had several implications for the long-term evolution of
the world’s geographies:
1) Allowed much higher
population densities
2) Change in social organization
3) Specialization in nonagricultural crafts
4) Specialization let to a fourth development
Examples of mini systems
bushmen of the Kalahari, the
hill tribes of Papua New Guinea, and the tribes of the Amazon rain forest.
Hearth Areas
What is a world empire?
A group of mini-systems that have been absorbed into a common political system.
This redistribution of
wealth is most often achieved
through military coercion, religious
persuasion, or a combination of the
two.
Best known world empires (Larges and longest lasting ancient civilizations)
Egypt, Greece, China, Byzantium and Rome.
What important new element did world-empires brought?
Colonization and Urbanization
Where does the word colonization comes from?
Colonus (Inhabitant) which means the settlement of
people and the establishment of settler colonies.
Law of diminishing returns
Tendency for productivity to decline after a certain point with the continued addition of capital and/ or labor to a given resource base.
When population grows what happens to the level of productivity?
overall levels of productivity fell.
* For each additional person working the land, the
gain in production per worker was less.
Colonization
Solution the great empires found to decrease productivity because of more population.
- Enlarge resource base by colonizing nearby land
- Establishing dominant/ subordinate spatial relationship between world empires and colonies.
- Establishing hierarchies
Where does the word geography comes from ?
“Earth- writing, or earth describing”
Geography of the pre-modern world
Harsher environmental interiors, dry belt of steppes and desert margins, principal areas of sedementary agricultural production.
DOMINANT centers of global civilization.
China, northern India, and the Ottoman Empire of
the eastern Mediterranean. They were all linked by the Silk Road, a series of overland trade routes
between China and Mediterranean Europe
What is Capitalism
Form of economic and social organization
characterized by the profit motive and the control of the
means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods
by private ownership.
Port cities were particularly important to capitalism.
Among the leading centers were the
city-state of Venice; the Hanseatic League of independent city-states in northwestern
Europe; and Cairo, Calicut, Canton, and Malacca in North Africa and Asia.
What is A world-system
is an interdependent system of countries linked by
political and economic competition. The term world system
emphasizes the interdependence of places and regions around the
world.
From the 16th to the early 19th centuries, trade was dominated by two systems
A second commercial network,
conducted through coastal trading
stations. These were mostly in South and
East Asia.
Regions with populations resistant to
European diseases and with a good
resource base and strong governments,
keeping the Europeans at a distance.
Trade and merchant capitalism (FOR EUROPE)
This overseas expansion stimulated still
further improvements in technology.
These included new developments in
nautical mapmaking, naval artillery,
shipbuilding, and sailing. The whole
experience of overseas expansion also
provided a great practical school for
entrepreneurship and investment. In
this way, the self propelling growth of
merchant capitalism was intensified and
consolidated.
Trade and merchant capitalism (For the periphery)
European expansion overseas meant
dependence (as it has been ever since
for many of the world’s peripheral
regions):
* At worst, territory was occupied by
force and labor systematically
exploited;
* At best, local traders were displaced
by Europeans, who imposed their
own conditions of economic
exchange
The principal spheres of European
influence were
Mediterranean- North Africa.
* Portuguese and Spanish colonies
in Central and South America.
* Indian ports and trading colonies,
the East Indies, African and
Chinese ports.
* The Greater Caribbean, and
British and French territories in
North America.
In Europe, three distinctive waves
of industrialization occurred:
1) First wave (1790-1850)
2) The second wave of industralization (1850- 1870)
3) Third wave 1918 - industralization spread even further.Small businesses grew into powerful
enterprises serving national markets
Overall result is that a highly structured relationship
has emerged between places and regions. This relationship is
organized around three levels:
Core
semi-periphery
peripheral regions.
