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HW1: Short Answer Questions on
When Worlds Collide

All assignments for this course are listed on the day assigned, not the day due. Unless otherwise noted, assignments are due by blackboard by classtime

 


WORTH:
4% of semester grade

CAN THIS BE TURNED IN LATE?: NO

BE SURE TO FOLLOW THE FILE-NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR THIS COURSE (5% penalty if you do not).

All files should be saved on your computer as: your last name, followed by an underscore ("_"), followed by the first two letters of your first name, followed by an underscore ("_"), followed by the assignment number. So if a student named Saddam Hussein were to submit assignment number 1, the file name would be:


hussein_sa_1.doc

THIS IS ASSIGNMENT 1

 

(all questions below refer to When Worlds Collide (PBS, 9/27/2010) (90 min.) available on-line here )

[SA:5] Means the question can be answered in 1 or 2 sentences and is worth 2.5 points

[MA:10] Means the question can be answered in 3 to 5 sentences and is worth 10 points

[LA:20 ] Means the question can be answered in 5 or 8 sentences and is worth 20 points

 

 

 

 

1) Is maize a plant that humans happened upon or is it the product of bioengineering? [SA:2.5]

2) The video lists a series of foods that Europe had no exposure to prior to the Columbian encounter (even if we think of those foods as traditionally and authentically European). The exception, however, is a food that Europe had long been familiar with but whose production was made cheaper by the consequences of the Columbian encounter. What is that food? [SA:2.5]

3) The Spanish in Latin America sought to create a society with different ranks and privileges depending on one's origins. The video argues that the model for such ranking in Latin America originated in Spain. That, the Spanish simply transplanted their system of social inequality in Spain and applied in the New World. Who, according to the video, were the original stigmatized groups in 15th and 16th century Spain (and whose social exclusion provided the precedent for the treatment of natives in the New World)? [SA:2.5]

4) Why isn't, according to the video, the notion of conquest displacing native culture the most accurate way to think of the collision of cultures in the New World? [MA:10]

5) What is distinctive about the foods eaten by the native people the Zapotec (don't list the foods--describe what characteristic all the foods share). [SA:2.5]

6) What aspect of pre-Columbian Mexico's ecological world led to this distinctive characteristic? [SA:2.5]

7) What demographic fact propelled many conquistadors to seek out native women as spouses? [SA:2.5]

8) In the absence of the military advantage that a standing army might have provided the Spanish in the New World, what different, non-military strategies did they pursue to rule their empire and what role did marriage play in these strategies? [MA:10]

9) Not all Africans who came to the New World were slaves--what was another African group and what was their role? [SA:2.5]

10) The arrival of people African descent in the New World changde the caste system that the Spanish had created. How and why, however, did the role to which the Spanish had relegated people of African descent fail to hold for very long?  In other words, how and why did the caste system in the New World begin to fall apart? [LA:20 ]

11) The video argues that although the Spanish may have conquered the New World, their plans to remake it in their image was actually doomed to failure.  Why and how?[MA:10]

12) How did the Columbian encounter lead to the invention of what became the predecessor to the Treasury Bill? [MA:10]

13) The video makes clear that the Spanish people did not benefit the silver and gold taken from the new world.  Explain how and why. [MA:10]

14) The Inquisition's "policing" of native peoples' beliefs had its origins in the policing of which group's beliefs in Spain? [SA:2.5]

15) The video makes clear that the Spanish people did not benefit the silver and gold taken from the New World.  Explain how and why. [MA:10]