 Hello everyone! My name is Anu Mandi and I am your instructor for this World Civilization course. Welcome! Many times students come into a history class fearing that they will be required to memorize a long list of dates and names to put down on the test. That's not the way to study history. In high school your history class might have been about finding answers for test questions. In college it's really about asking good questions about the human experience. World history is not simply a study of different regions of the world. I want you to understand that there is a fundamental difference between western civilization's courses and world civilization's courses. A western civ course typically focuses on the classical civilizations of the Mediterranean world such as Greece and Rome followed by the history of Europe and other western nations. This means that other parts of the world get very little attention. This world civilization's course focuses on the non-western world. I want to emphasize that world history is a shared history. This means that we cannot study a particular region of the world in isolation. Instead of the compartmentalization of the experiences of historical actors, a world civilization's course examines events from a global perspective and highlights the links and interactions among cultures. In this course we will focus on some of the prominent civilizations and key events that influence the early stages of human history. We will look at some common patterns of human development but also study the remarkable diversity of human experiences around the world. In general human beings don't like uncertainty and instability. The need to create structures or belief systems that provide some degree of stability is a common pattern in human cultures. Some civilizations attempted to achieve stability by focusing on political solutions. Other civilizations establish rigid social structures or religious practices and some other civilizations promoted freedom and mobility instead of focusing on issues of stability. So the first few topics in this course will examine basic questions about social structures and political institutions. Cultural interaction and diffusion is a common theme in world civilization's courses. We cannot understand a society without examining its culture that is the common beliefs, ideas and behavior patterns that are passed from one generation to another. Even today religious beliefs play a very important role in our societies and understanding different religious systems and beliefs helps us appreciate and respect the diversity of human experiences and societies because we need to have empathy and develop our ability to view the world from different perspectives. Ignorance of other cultures only breeds fear and violence. So an understanding of other cultures in historical context gives us the tools to break down the barriers and communicate with people of other cultures. Economic motives lie at the heart of many human activities from the quest for food to the pursuit of wealth. Economic factors have played a very important role in our history, driving some groups to conquer and rule other groups, extract wealth from them and impose their ideas on them. So in this context we will examine empire building and also study the impact of conquest and war on human development. History is meaningful for all of us and I hope that this course will inspire you to learn more about other cultures and broaden your perspectives. Thank you.