Why does the author juxtapose geographic isolation with nomadic empires of the same period? What kinds of possibilities for cultural contact existed, if any?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but correct responses should include: The author shows how different experiences, whether isolation or nomadic invasions, can lead to possiblities for cultural contacts. Despite turbulence in the steppes, contacts between China and Europe, albeit feeble and indirect, were never altogether interrupted. Though separated by turbulent seas, Japan was never quite out of touch with the other civilizations of east Asia. So the extremities of Eurasia were able to cope with—and, increasingly, emerge from—their relative isolation. Societies that fringed the Indian Ocean enriched and influenced each other. The relative stagnation of parts of Africa and the Americas showed, meanwhile, how isolation can inhibit change, whereas interactions between cultures exert mutual magnetism and make changes happen faster.