There are two parts to this exam.

Part 1 (worth 5% of your final course grade)

You will be asked to answer two multiple choice questions based on the list of items below. For each question you will be expected to select the best option and explain your selection. Your selection and explanation are graded together out of 2.5% on each question (A=2.5%, B=2.2, C=1.9, D=1.7, unsatisfactory=0). You must provide an explanation or the grade assigned for an option which is correct will automatically be D=1.7, and no higher.

ITEMS: Restall,  "Introduction" and “Apes and Men: The Myths of Superiority,” Crosby, The Columbian Exchange, Rémi Brague, Europe, Eccentric Culture, Phillips and Phillips, “Christopher Columbus: Two Films” (CR), and the film 1492: The Conquest of Paradise.



PART 2 (worth 10% of your final course grade)

You will be asked to write brief answers to two of the following questions, one from each group. Study all the questions carefully since the instructor will randomly select two of these questions for the midterm exam; that is to say, you will not have an option of selecting two questions on the exam itself.

Although the exam is conducted “closed-book,” your answers should be as specific as possible. Refer to authors or scholars by name in all cases; explain the interpretation of the authors of the secondary sources carefully and refer specifically to their key examples; in the primary sources, summarize key episodes and explain how they relate to the questions as posed.



Group 1 (worth 5% of your final course grade):

What do Pagden and Elliott tell us were the most important characteristics of early modern European empires? You should focus on what they have to say about the Spanish/Castilian and English/British Empires. Remember that “early modern” refers to the period between approximately 1500 and 1700.
According Brague, European civilization has undergone an almost constant process of “Renaissance,” quite unlike any other world culture. European thinkers between 1200 and 1600 argued that Europeans should imitate an ancient people, according to Brague. Who were these people and how were they to be imitated?


Group 2 (worth 5% of your final course grade):

How did medieval thinking critique the kind of power which the ancient and pre-Christian Roman empire exercised? What evidence of this critique is there in The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas, Saint Augustine’s City of God and Saint Benedict’s Rule?
What evidence is there that Columbus tried to establish an ethical relationship with the “Indians” on his first voyage? Why did he say he was interested in establishing this kind of relationship?
As Europeans became aware of the new “Indian” societies of the Americas, they began to question their own societies’ norms. How do More’s imagined “Utopia” and Montaigne’s discussion of cannibalism offer critiques of European society in the early 1500s?