STUDY GUIDE FOR HISTORY 20 FINAL EXAM

The final exam will take place on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 11:30-2:30 in Haines 39.
Please bring a blue book!
You will answer 4 short-answer questions (40 %) and an essay question (60%).
PART 1:
7 of these short-answer questions will appear on the exam (you will answer 4):
1. How did Persia maintain its empire? What role did Zoroastrianism play in the kingdoms
politics?
2. What was the Greek polis? Compare and contrast the political and social structures of
Athens and Sparta.
3. Describe the Athenian Empire. How did it come to be? What tension can we identify in
Athenian democratic and imperial goals? What is the significance of the Peloponnesian War?
4. How did Greek philosophers approach the understanding of nature? What position did the
Sophists take? What was Socrates response to it?
5. Who held political and economic power in Indias Ganges plain around 500 bce? How did
the caste system expand, and what drove this expansion? What were some of the
consequences of the expansion of the caste system?
6. What new beliefs arose in India around 500 bce? Describe these beliefs. How did the
Brahmans respond? How did Buddhism change over time?
7. Explain the dynastic system of the Zhou state in China. What is the Mandate of Heaven?
What was its significance for Chinese politics?
8. What were three (of the hundred) schools of thought that appeared during the Spring &
Autumn and Warring States periods in China? What was the significance of these ideas for
subsequent Chinese politics within the Qin and Han states?
9. According to Polybius, what were the main features of the Roman Republics constitution?
10. Describe the Roman military. What was the war ethos of Rome? What was the
significance of the Punic Wars? How did Rome organize the communities it conquered?
11. What were the Gracchi brothers reforms? Why did they fail?
12. How does Tacitus describe the Germans? What does this description imply about the
Roman Empire?
13. How did Christianity successfully spread and what was its relationship to the Roman
Empire?

PART 2:
2 of these essay questions will appear on the exam (you will answer 1):
1. Compare and contrast strategies of empire-building in Rome and Han China. How did the
imperial state expand and maintain its power? Consider the role of warfare, politics, governmental
administration, economics, and ideology in your answer.
For your discussion of Rome, use at least two of the following sources:
Polybius, Histories, Book VI
Plutarch, Life of Cato the Elder
Cicero, On the Laws
For your discussion of Han China, use at least two of the following sources:
Confucius, Analects
Sun-Tzu, The Art of War
Ssu-Ma Chien, The Records of the Grand Historian of China
Debate on Salt and Iron
2. What do the lives and teachings of Buddha and Jesus reveal about the human beings path to
salvation? How do followers of these prophets interpret their messages in changing historical
contexts?
For your discussion of Buddhism, refer to Ashvaghoshas The Life of Buddha. For your discussion of
Christianity, refer to our selections from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, and Augustines
Confessions.
3. Discuss the transformation of the ideal human being in the Mediterranean world from Homers
Odyssey through Platos The Apology to Plutarchs Life of Cato.