STUDY QUESTIONS:
1. When the Muslim Ottomans and Christian Venetians realized that their arch-enemies, the Spanish and Portuguese, had ‘outflanked’ them by reaching Asia and the Americas directly–rather than via the Mediterranean, they…
a. accepted the inevitable and re-oriented their economy towards agriculture and industry
b. formed a naval alliance with Ming China to seal off the ocean to direct trade from Europe
c. cooperated to build a fleet, but were decisively defeated in a naval battle near the coast of India
d. cooperated to grossly lower their own prices to put the Atlantic powers out of business
2. Venetian and Ottoman warships were usually defeated by the ships of the Atlantic powers because
a. The Atlantic sailships had much more firepower and much longer cruising range
b. the Muslim Ottomans categorically refused to embrace the use of guns and cannons
c. The Muslims had inferior geographical knowledge and had poor maritime charts or navigation skills
d. the Atlantic sailships had higher speed and superior acceleration compared to Ottoman and Venetian galleys
3. Why didn’t the Ottoman Turks or Venetians simply copy the Atlantic-style sailship design?
a. the Koran strictly forbade that any foreign inventions be adopted by Muslims
b. they lacked the artisans and craftsmen to build such complicated vessels
c. they lacked the timber for such heavy ships, or the fuel to cast so many cannon
d. they squandered their resources on Tabouleh
4. Which of these is NOT a reason why the Ottomans, the Indians, or the Chinese did not strongly resist the Western take-over of the oceans?
a. all three have dangerous, exposed land borders and are therefore more oriented to terrestrial warfare
b. all three had relgious or philosophical systems that strongly discouraged trade
c. all three were very wealthy and mostly self-sufficient, so trade did not seem crucial
d. all three were massive, ponderous, bureaucratic empires which did not favor entrepreneurship
5. How is the story of Henry VIII’s marital problems relevant to history?
a. it demonstrates the negative impact of obesity on fertility and traditional sexual politics
b. it helps explain the rivalry between Spain and England, and the breakdown of medieval religion
c. it provides an example of the economic changes caused by the discovery of the Americas
d. because it was he who decided to send the first settlers to colonize Virginia
6. Which of these is NOT a macro-level consequence of the discovery of the Americas?
a. it pumped a HUGE volume of gold and silver into the world economy, ‘turbo-charging’ development
b. it ultimately made the Middle East irrelevant, Europeans now bought Asian goods directly
c. it made almost the entire globe one economic, biological WHOLE, for the first time (since Pangea–200 million yrs earlier)
d. it allowed Europe to balance and sustain trade with India and China
e. new wealth brought stability and equality to Europe
7. Which of these is NOT a reason why Europe had an advantage in building powerful navies?
a. good location, long coastlines: islands and peninsulas: Spain, Italy, Holland, Britain
b. large forests of big, strong, water-resistant hardwoods such as oak
c. abundant wood fuel for melting metals to make artillery
d. abundant rivers and watermills powering trip hammers and bellows for weapons-making
e. Justin Bieber’s ancestors’ singing terrorized Chinese and Islamic rivals
8. Which of these conditions in late medieval Europe DID NOT favor the rise of ‘proto-capitalism’?
a. political fragmentation, and therefore a lack of huge empire to enforce monopolies
b. the breakdown of religion and church and ideas inhibiting or criticizing business or money
c. political alliance between kings and merchants against the peasants and knights
d. absorption/development of Middle Eastern/Asian business and math concepts (agebra, Indian numerals, etc)
e. the traditional practices of communal village life and mutual obligations and duties of Lords and Vassals
9. Which of these is NOT a reason why Spain–which for a moment, thanks to its enormous conquests and capture of gold and silver–seemed on the brink of taking over the world, soon when into an irreversible decline?
a. Spain got involved in an expensive endless war with the Turks
b. Spain got involved in an 80-year ‘Vietnam War’ in Holland
c. Spain got involved in war against England
d. Spain borrowed too much and stopped producing things
e. Spain broke down with a religious war
f. Spain kicked out Muslims and Jews, losing their talents
10. Even though the Spanish did not take over North America (apart from small outposts in New Mexico and Florida), they still made a deep impact on the lives of natives of what is today the USA because…
a. huge numbers of refugee Aztecs fleeing Cortez invaded the Southwest
b. horses, pigs, and diseases brought by the Spanish escaped into America and changed the natural balance
c. fear of Spanish attack caused North American tribes to begin organizing alliances
d. the knowledge of iron eventually ‘diffused’ into Native American areas, distorting traditional culture
11. Although tons of gold and silver, and enormous diamonds, pearls, and gems are probably the most spectacular examples of how the Europeans got rich in the Americas, which of these also made them huge profits?
a. the exotic, warm weather cotton that the Europeans used to have to buy at high prices from the Middle East and India, which they could now grow directly themselves
b. tobacco, an addictive stimulant, whose smoke the natives of the Carribean were seen ‘drinking’ and which soon became a huge success in Europe
c. Sugar (from the Arabic ‘Zakar’–as in sacharrin) cane, another exotic Asian warm-weather plant to which the Europeans had first been introduced to during the Crusades, could now be grown directly by them
d. Furs, warm, luxurious, and becoming rarer and rarer in cold Europe
e. all of these were very profitable
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