World History I

Chapter 2: Agrarian-Urban Centers of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean
11,500-600 BCE

12: Mon, Oct 13, 2025

This assignment is under revision for 2023-2024.

Please post in the forum for the day a short essay in response to this question:

What kinds of power and authority exist in hunter-gatherer tribes, farm households, and city states? Who has the power and authority to make decisions in each culture?

Consider:

• What types of power (based on our vocabulary of power) are missing from tribes? from farm households? from cities?
• How does community size contribute to the development of new power structures?
• If confederations form between communities, who gains or loses different forms of power?
• How is power transferred from individuals or groups to others (such as at the death of an individual) within tribes, farm households, or cities?
• How do shifting patterns of power obstruct the changes from one kind of society to another?

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