Deck 10: The Early Empires: Semiperipheral Conquerors and Capitalist City-States

Question 1

In semiperipheral capitalist city-states the type of capitalism operating is primarily:

A) agricultural capitalism
B) merchant capitalism
C) industrial capitalism
D) finance capitalism
E) none of the above

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Up until the modern era the empire with the largest territory was:

A) the Persian empire
B) the Roman empire
C) the Islamic empire
D) the Mongol empire
E) none of the above

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Legal systems are different than moral orders based on consensus because:

A) they are not kinship-based
B) they apply to a wider number of cultural groups
C) they are written rather than oral
D) they are backed by state coercion
E) all of the above

Answer 3

E

Question 4

According to Marvin Harris universalistic religions facilitate empire-building because:

A) once universalistic religions appear they seem self-evidently superior to those who are conquered
B) a single god who is everywhere goes with a core state that controls the periphery
C) universalistic religions include the conquered in the moral community rather than eating them
D) all of the above

Question 5

The New World empire that required labor service rather than tribute was:

A) the Toltecs
B) the Incas
C) the Aztecs
D) they all required tribute, not labor service

Question 6

The following were semiperipheral capitalist city-states:

A) Tyre
B) Carthage
C) Genoa
D) Assur
E) all of the above

Question 7

All known empires were produced by polities with a clear state-level of organization and class relations.

Question 8

The first core-wide conquest state was the Old Assyrian Empire.

Question 9

Semiperipheral polities generally had a better chance of conquering a core region than peripheral polities.

Question 10

The Silk Road was used by Chinese civilization to trade with the West at the same time that Egyptian and Mesopotamian states first emerged.

Question 11

The first urbanized empire in the Americas was Teotihuacán.

Question 12

New World indigenous people's lack of immunity to infectious diseases from Eurasia was an important reason why Cortez was able to conquer the Aztecs.

Question 13

The world religions were a natural extension of kin-based groupings.

Question 14

Unlike in the case of Mesopotamia, Karl Polanyi's theory of marketless exchange does apply to precontact Mexico.

Question 15

The precontact Incan economy is a good example of Karl Polyani's theory of a marketless centralized state.

Question 16

A precondition of all semiperipheral capitalist city-states is that they must be near a large body of water.

Question 17

Semiperipheral city-states were always just ports-of-trade that provided a neutral territory that was used for administered trade between different competing states or empires.

Question 18

Autonomous and active trading ports are more likely to exist when other states within the region are weak.

Question 19

In what ways are core-wide empires different from hegemonic core states?

Question 20

In what ways were the manner in which Mesopotamians treated the Gutians and the Amorites similar and different from your understanding of modern racism?

Question 21

Contrast the course-grained ecology of the Andes empires with the ecology of either the Mesopotamian or Egyptian empires.

Question 22

How might the course-grained ecology of the Andes empires work in favor or against empire building?

Question 23

Describe an ethnic or religious group that fits Phillip Curtin's definition of a "trade diaspora."