Japanese and World History | Source-Based Politics and Culture Basics, Set 1
Problem 1
The Shosoin holds eighth-century treasures including glassware evocative of the Silk Road and pieces bearing elements not only from China but from India, Iran and the Greco-Roman world. What does this most appropriately tell us about the culture of the Nara period?
View explanation
That the Shosoin treasures show elements of materials, techniques and designs from a wide area indicates that cultural exchange by way of the continent reached Nara-period Japan. Not everything was imported directly from the west, however: some pieces were made in Japan while drawing on elements from abroad.
Problem 2
The text of the "Moko Shurai Ekotoba" includes scenes in which Suenaga Takezaki is urged to wait for his allies and to have "witnesses" before fighting, and in which warriors who took part serve as witnesses for one another. What does this most directly tell us?
View explanation
The repeated references to having witnesses and to serving as witnesses for one another suggest that corroboration by others was important in having military service certified. This says nothing about forbidding combat itself; it concerns the practical business of confirming who did what.
Problem 3
The Kan'ei Laws for the Military Houses of 1635 contained an article requiring daimyo to attend in Edo and, after a set period, return to their domains. What did this provision institutionalize?
View explanation
The system of daimyo travelling regularly between Edo and their domains is sankin-kotai, laid down in the Kan'ei Laws for the Military Houses. The abolition of the han system and the land tax reform were Meiji policies, and handen-shuju was the land system of the ancient ritsuryo state.
Problem 4
In 1925 Japan enacted a law extending the vote to men aged 25 and over by removing the tax-payment requirement, while also enacting a law against associations aimed at altering the national polity or denying the system of private property. Which best describes the two together?
View explanation
The universal male suffrage law widened political participation, while the Peace Preservation Law strengthened the machinery for policing particular political ideas and movements. So 1925 can be seen as widening participation and tightening control at once. The vote, however, was limited to men; this was not universal suffrage for both sexes.
Problem 5
The Meiji Constitution provided that the Emperor reigned over the state and held sovereign power in its entirety. The Constitution of Japan provides that sovereignty rests with the people and that the Emperor is the symbol of the unity of the people with no powers relating to government. What is the most important change this comparison establishes?
View explanation
The central change the two texts show is the shift from imperial sovereignty to popular sovereignty, and the Emperor becoming a symbol rather than a ruler. The Imperial Diet existed under the Meiji Constitution too, so it is not correct to say a legislature was first established after the war.
Problem 6
The Rosetta Stone bore the same decree in three scripts: hieroglyphs, demotic and ancient Greek. Why was the ancient Greek text, readable at the time, so useful in deciphering the hieroglyphs?
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Because the same decree appeared in three scripts, the readable ancient Greek could be compared against the unknown writing — the key to decipherment. The writing systems were not identical, nor was the Greek section a grammar.
Problem 7
Clauses 39 and 40 of Magna Carta provided that no free man be detained except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land, and that justice would not be sold, refused or delayed. Which principle carried down from this is most appropriate?
View explanation
Clauses forbidding detention other than by lawful judgment and the law of the land led toward the rule of law, under which the ruler too is bound by law and procedure. The 1215 document was not, however, drawn up to guarantee universal suffrage for all inhabitants.
Problem 8
The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen held that men are born free and equal in rights and that the principle of sovereignty rests with the nation. Which best describes the change this principle represented against the ancien régime?
View explanation
Freedom and equality in rights, and national sovereignty, were principles that called into question the old order of privilege by birth and of the king as an independent source of power. The ideals of the declaration did not, however, immediately translate into equal political rights for everyone at the time.
Problem 9
Early cotton mills had to sit beside rivers because they used water wheels, whereas coal-fired steam engines could supply power more reliably. What effect did this change have on where factories were sited in Britain?
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Because steam engines were not at the mercy of a water flow, there was less need to confine factories to riversides, which encouraged siting near towns where workers were easier to gather. Steam power did not reduce the number of mechanized factories; it went together with the expansion of production, cotton included, and with urbanization.
Problem 10
The German federal government's chronology explains that the actions of East German citizens changed the political system, brought down the Berlin Wall and opened the way to reunification. What is the correct order of this process?
View explanation
The opening and fall of the Berlin Wall came in 1989, which opened the way to reunification, and German reunification was achieved on October 3, 1990. The fall of the wall and the unification of the state are closely connected but were not a single event completed on the same day.