Chapter 6

In this chapter we are able to see how societies are being shaped during the time of the Classical Era for the ancient civilizations. The Chinese society was one that was shaped by the state actions than other societies. The Chinese society had an immense social influence and most importantly political power of state officials. The Chinese society was based on four different social classes the head of the society would be the elite, they would favor the wealthy and those who could educate their own sons and they had their own privileges and prestiges, the second one's were the landlord class, they seem to have some privileges such as evading taxes and kept independent military forces, nationalized private estates and distributed them to the landless. As we can the Chinese culture seemed to have their societies shaped up and settled during the time. India on the other hand, had a caste system that referred to race or purity of blood. In the Indian civilization there was Jati which tied with the varna system, leading to a caste that was based society. The Jati's were the main focus of Indian society. This system was different from that of China.
By the end of the chapter we are able to see how slavery was brought to these civilizations and the reasons as to why slavery began during the classical era in China, India, and Rome. Slavery definitely existed in these societies very differently from each other and most of them involved the lack of rights for people or just independent social identity. In china poor peasants would sell their children into slavery, in India criminals, debtors, war captives were known as slaves, lastly in rome the Greco-roman world was a slave society and wealthy romans owned hundred or thousands of slavery. Slavery was common in these civilizations but were treated differently in some way, slavery created a hierarchy and class level for people who lived in these societies. 

Chapter 5

In this chapter we are able to see how the Chinese culture influenced religious traditions during the time. Confucianism and Daoism were two religions that were influenced by the Chinese culture, although Confucianism was a non-religious character, didn’t deny the reality of the spirits and gods. On the other hand, Daoism was in many ways opposite of Confucianism. Education was very useless for the Chinese and also striving for improvement. Daoism encouraged people to live in a simple way and the separation of public life This chapter it not only talks about the Chinese culture but also about the cultural traditions of India, South Asia, Greese and their religious traditions. 

The Indian culture were different from the Chinese culture. The Indian culture developed along with the Indian civilization. The Indian culture looked up to the divine. Their religion, Hinduism, was never a single tradition, because it was brought by the outsiders. South Asian religious traditions would practice human sacrifices. Lastly Buddhism was a religious tradition the Asians would mostly worship during the time in the end these different religious traditions led to something different because they ended up spreading around the world and brought new religions. 

The Classical Era

Once the first civilizations started emerging we can see that most of them were very similar to one another. These civilizations had their differences too such as the values they believed in, how their economy was based on, their resources, how men and women were treated, as well as their writing and lifestyle. Every one of these civilizations were in the need of agriculture especially for irrigation, in order to grow crops and for their own land. As time went by, civilizations started changing because agriculture improved as well as technology which was a huge impact when it started.

Agriculture no only changed during the time but every civilization had its growth in population which meant that more resources needed to given to them. In some civilizations population was a problem because it not only increased but also decreased like it did in the Mayan civilization by eighty five percent in less than a century. Lastly, in the previous chapters we are able to see how each civilization developed as time went by, some improved and some had their difficulties. The growth of population changed the way each civilization had to expand because if the population increased they were in need of more resources and economy to support the larger numbers.