A Brief History of Humankind: Things that Shaped the Modern World Essay

Humankind has a history that shows a progressive growth since the origin of the human race to the modern world. In the beginning, humans, commonly referred to as Homo sapiens did not have much of a difference with the other animals in the way they conducted their activities and relationships. On the contrary, humankind today has distinguished himself significantly with the other animals and has made exploits that could not have been thought of many years ago. Man has visited the outside space, explored the construction and destruction of life, making him seem like a god. The technological advancement and the scientific exploits in the world today is true evidence of the intelligence man has acquired from the eras of hunting and gathering. The future man will projectively be more intelligent and close to a superhuman. These changes did not just happen. Rather, they were steered by various factors which continue to evolve and be in play in the advancement of man into the future. Some of these factors that have helped shape the modern world will be discussed in this essay. They include empires, gold, and the scientific revolution.

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Empires are a major factor that has had an impact on the shaping of the modern world. Empires were the way that people in the same region were grouped in a political as well as the social setting. Empires played a significant role in amalgamating several small cultures into fewer big cultures. People, goods, ideas, and technology moved better and with more ease in an empire than in a politically fragmented region. It is in empires that ideas, customs, norms, and institutions were spread deliberately leading to the aspect of standardization. It is these norms that the communities in these empires grew with and which shaped their progress. Since empires felt the need to maintain sovereignty, they would explore and experiment on better ways of doing things thus the many innovations and discoveries that were made resulting in the world we have today. For instance, the modernity of munitions today is a result of the innovations conducted by military groups in the different empires as they sought better ways to fight and overcome other empires they were at war with. Others include the cultures of the different inhabitants in the different empires which have come to be blended in the world today. Although people of different ethnic groups have unique cultural attires, there is a major commonality in the attires being worn in the modern world with some tracing their origins to the era of empires.

The benefits of these empires and that contributed to the shaping of the world today were as follows. One, the imperial elites in these empires were mandated to work for the welfare of the inhabitants of those areas. The mechanisms they employed, however, resulted in either salient or at times questionable benefits. For instance, some measures such as law enforcement, urban planning, and standardization of measures and weights resulted in salient benefits. On the other hand, measures such as taxes conscription and emperor worship were questionable. However, they form part of the history that has seen the progress witnessed in the world today. The emperor was bestowed upon the heavenly mandate of educating humanity. For example, the Mauryan Empire in the third century took upon themselves to spread the teachings of Buddha to a supposedly ignorant world. The Muslims took the mandate to disseminate the revelation of the Prophet peacefully if possible but by the sword, if deemed necessary. The Spanish and Portuguese empires vehemently sought to establish what they considered true faith, which is Christianity, particularly to their colonies. It is these religions that are exercised in the modern world by the different groups of the people depending on which religion was introduced in their regions. As such, empires have significantly contributed to the shaping of the modern world in all the ways discussed.

Gold was another factor that led to the unification of the whole world under the different monetary systems that existed. Even with the differences in the monetary systems, there was a commonality which was in the reliance of gold and silver and which resulted in close relations between different systems. The merchants from the Muslim and the European regions spread the gospel of gold to all the corners of the world. By the late modern era, the whole world was united under a single monetary zone, first relying on silver and gold and later on a few trusted currencies such as the British pound and the American dollar. This single monetary system was the foundation for the unification of the entire globe into a single economic and political sphere. The global trading networks continued under this organization despite people speaking their distinct languages and worshiping different gods. Even the Chinese, Indians, Muslims, and Spaniards who never agreed on anything shared a common belief in gold. They all had a common belief gold and silver. Even in the current world, gold is highly valued by all the races in the world.

The relevance of gold in unifying the people was further steered by trade between different regions. Trade, as economists say, through the forces of supply and demand connects areas that are involved in it and has the ability to influence one group the beliefs of the other. This is what happened with gold through the merchants who were trading between the Mediterranean and the Indian territories. The rise in the value of gold and the fact that the Mediterranean merchants believed in it caused the Indians to believe in it too. Since the two groups were trading, the Indians had no choice but to value gold to continue their trading ventures with the Mediterranean. It is through this concept that even those communities which did not recognize the value of gold ended up according it value as was given by the rest and this was propagated to the modern world of trade.

Scientific Revolution advanced greatly as a result of the discovery of America. It made Europeans consider the prevailing traditions other than was previously and thus their thirst for knowledge became increasingly huge in their quest to conquer America. Since America is a vast land, the Europeans saw the need to gather tremendous amounts of information about the country's topography, climate, languages, culture as well as the history. This necessitated the coming up of Europeans scholars in all fields of knowledge to come up with a solution to solve their challenges. They began by generating maps with spaces in it although they knew that their theory was not precise enough and more needed to be done to expand their knowledge.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, European expeditions when across Africa, explored America, the Pacific and Indian Oceans creating a network of Colonies and bases all over the world. Because of the relentless feeling that someone good lied beyond the horizon, scientific methods and techniques had to be developed to counter the challenges that were expected to be met. Scientists supported their initiative by providing practical knowledge and technological instruments. Without such contribution, it is not likely for the Europeans in their small number to succeed in governing and exploiting the world.

Conclusion

In summary, humankind has gone through a series of developments in history to get to where he is in the modern world. From the Neanderthal man, humans have evolved into an intelligent being which has made extraordinary exploits. These changes and the progress witnessed are a result of numerous factors coming together and shaping the modern system of order. Three of the factors include empires, gold, and the scientific revolution. Empires contributed a great deal to the political, social, education, and cultural settings of different communities. They also influenced religion such as Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, and the rest. Gold was a factor whose value and relevance brought unification of people in the monetary systems and trading grounds. The scientific revolution is responsible for the technological advancements witnessed today and the exploits being carried out inside and outside of space, including the ability to make and destroy life. The future man is expected to be more intelligent and is presumed to be close, if not a superman.

Works Cited

Harari, Yuval N., and Derek Perkins. Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. HarperCollins, 2017.