Prologue and Part 1
Agricultural Revolution:
While there was so much interesting information in the first two chapters, and I'm sure there will continue to be even more, I guess the most fascinating thing to me was how impactful domestication of animals and farming had on the development of humans. I did have an understanding before reading this book that it was very important, but I did not realize that it could be arguable the most important and impactful thing humans have ever done. Before reading Ways of the World, when I thought of important historical evens, I automatically thought of wars or inventions, not something as simple, or not so simple, as agriculture. Agriculture and domestication of animals allowed our species to live in the same area for a prolonged amount of time, grow families and villages and to figure out how to grow better crops such as corn. But at the same time when agriculture brought so much success and advancement, they were brought in at a cost. The book stated that living so close to animals and in larger communities also had disadvantage. Communities were now susceptible to diseases that the animals carried that they had never faced before and for the first time epidemics began to happen. Another disadvantage was that because they were only living off a few crops and raising only a small number of animals if a drought occurred or crops failed, the whole community suffered. For me, however and something I'm sure we will continue to learn about, is how the Agricultural Revolution was the beginning of, as the book stated, "some power to dominate others" as well as nature. The Agricultural Revolution allowed for inequality as many of the resources from that era landed in the possession of only a select number of people. Furthermore, the distinction between, "rich and poor, chiefs and commoners, landowners and dependent peasants, rulers and subject, dominant men and subordinate women, slaves and free people" started to make an appearance at this time due to the Agricultural Revolution.
