ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the global history into ten roughly chronological calendar areas of study. It suggests that important themes based on the National Council for the Social Studies thematic strands, essential questions to address, unit topics, and some ideas for lessons. Mediterranean Greece, Rome, and Byzantium would be logical places to begin, especially as they come into conflict with Persia, the Phoenicians, Egypt, and Germanic, Slavic, and Islamic invaders. It is also a logical place to introduce war as a transformative force in human history. The major focus is on networks of exchange, principally trade, cultural, literacy, and technological exchange, but also on war as a means of exchange and the spread of epidemic disease as a by-product. Students examine how Arab and Islamic forces fan out of the Arabian Peninsula, the reasons for their conquest of much of the Mediterranean world, the growth of cities, and the flowering of philosophy and legal systems in areas under their control.
