Cultural Exchange in Afro-Eurasia
Driving Question: How did trade connections change cultures in Afro-Eurasia?
Networks of exchange across Afro-Eurasia moved science, technology, and culture to new places. Religions spread, as did advancements in fields such as astronomy, medicine, and mathematics. The circulation of all these innovations contributed to the development of a global body of knowledge.
Learning Objectives:
- Learn about how trade produced technological and scientific innovations.
- Assess the religious conflicts and transformations that took place in this period.
- Develop the historical thinking skill of causation and evaluate the impacts of long-distance trade on the European Renaissance.
Vocab Terms:
Reflect on what you’ve learned about the causes and consequences of increased connectivity in this period.
The materials in this activity work best when students see them as different perspectives on the same process. The article emphasizes that technologies and religions spread through merchants, pilgrims, and conquerors, while the Rumi biography and traveler materials show cultural exchange at the level of an individual life moving through these networks. The Traveler Postcards activity is a fun way for students to imagine themselves as one of these individuals.
Trade, war, and pilgrimages often lead to cultural exchange, and societies are forever changed as a result. Find out how with this article, graphic biography, and activity.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
This article is an opportunity to go past the “rebirth of Europe” story and ask who actually experienced the Renaissance and where did it come from. The article digs into how the Renaissance was shaped by trade, banking, and exchange with the Islamic world, not a “rediscovery” of Greece and Rome. It also notes that many peasants saw little immediate change, while wealthy urban elites benefited most. Check out some classroom tools that OER Project teachers have used to challenge the traditional Renaissance narratives.
In fourteenth-century Italy, a cultural movement of artists and scholars launched the European Renaissance. Use this article and activity to explore how this movement reshaped European culture and science.
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Guiding Questions
Martin Luther’s 95 Theses didn’t stop at the church door, and this video helps students trace how this single challenge to authority erupted into a continent-wide struggle over religion, state power, literacy, and social reform. Be sure your students note how many women were involved in these struggles.
For an example of the sorts of religious tensions that plagued Europe during the period after the Protestant Reformation, be sure to check out the video on the Great Fire of London in the extension materials at the end of this lesson.
The work of one person can change everything. This was the case when a local monk fighting corruption in the Catholic Church set in motion a religious conflict that continues to influence our world today.
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Guiding Questions
Religious conflicts engulfed Europe in the sixteenth century. Zoom in on the English Reformation and Henry VIII’s motivations for breaking with the Catholic pope.
In 1666, a fire tore through London. A young Frenchman who confessed to starting it was executed. But he almost certainly didn’t do it. So, what really happened, and why was everyone so ready to believe a lie?
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Guiding Questions
Imagine living among thousands of islands spread across vast expanses of ocean. The peoples of Oceania developed navigation technology that allowed them to stay connected to one another and maintain economic and cultural ties across thousands of miles of open ocean.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
