Discuss the different methods of social and political control used by early Mesopotamian kings and Chinese emperors. Consider the central role of water, religion, and law in both societies
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Answers will vary but correct responses should include: All four river valley societies shared, in one respect, a type of environment suited to tyranny, or, at least, to strong states exercising minute control over their subjects' lives. The needs of agriculture therefore help to explain why the political systems that arose in all these regions had common features. All practiced divine or sacred kingship; all had rigid social hierarchies; all placed the lives and labor of the inhabitants at the disposal of the state. Mesopotamia was divided into many small rival kingdoms, called city-states because each was based on a single city; while China was a unitary state but had the same connection between royal status and the management of water resources and the distribution of food. Neither considered kings to be gods, but mediators between the gods who used oracles, diviners, and scribes to determine the future of the civilization.
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Examine Map 1.2, "Origins and early spread of agriculture." What can the type and spread of agricultural products tell us about the movements of human beings and the nature of their relationship to each other?
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