Mongol Empire and Silk Road Essay Example for Free

Mongol Empire and Silk Road Essay The Silk Road is a touchstone for world history. It was a rich trans-regional vehicle for the transmission of art, religion, science and disease that also affords a glimpse into the politics and economic systems of the pre-modern world. . The Silk Road in World History (Suggested writing time – 40 minutes) You should spend at least 10 minutes reading, analyzing, and grouping the sources. Directions: The following question is based on the accompanying Sources 1 6. (The sources have been edited for the purpose of this exercise). The question is designed to test your ability to work with and understand historical sources. Write an essay that: Â · Has a relevant thesis and supports that thesis with evidence from the sources. Â · Uses all of the sources. Â · Analyzes the sources by grouping them in as many appropriate ways as possible and does not simply summarize the sources individually. Â · Takes into account both the sources of the documents and the authors points of view. You may refer to relevant historical information not mentioned in the sources. Prompt: To what extent did the Silk Road create an interconnected network? What kinds of additional documentation would help assess the role of the Silk Road in creating interconnected network from the 2nd century C.E. to the 13th century? Source 1 Source: Roman historian, Cassius Dio, 164 224 C.E., commented on a celebration the Roman emperor, Julius Caesar, staged in his own honor around 50 B.C.E. If I mention one feature of his [Caesars] extravagance at that time, I shall thereby give an idea of all the rest. In order that the sun might not annoy any of the spectators, he had curtains stretched over them made of silk, according to some accounts. Now this fabric is a device of barbarian luxury, and has come down from them even to us to gratify the fastidious taste of fine ladies. Source 2 Source: Sima Qian, The Records of the Grand Historian, about Zhang Qian, a diplomat who traveled to the court of the Yuezhi for the Han Emperor Wudi, 1st century B.C.E. Zhang Qian was the first person to bring back a clear account of the Dayuan [present day Krygystan and Uzbekistan]. Anzi [Parthian Persia] is situated several thousand li [a little more than a third of a mile] west of the region of the Great Yuezhi. The people are settled on the land, cultivating the fields and growing rice and wheat. They also make wine out of grapes. . Source 3 Source: Faxian, A Chinese Buddhist Monks Travels in India and Ceylon, 399 411 C.E. From this place [Central Asia], we traveled southeast, passing by a succession of very many monasteries, with a multitude of monks . When stranger monks arrive at any monastery, the old residents meet and receive them . Source 4 Source: Anonymous assistant to a Chinese merchant, A Record of Musings On the Eastern Capital, about Hangzhou, capital of the Southern Sung Dynasty, 1235. During the morning hours, markets extend from Tranquility Gate of the palace all the way to the north and south sides of the New Boulevard. Here we find pearl, jade, talismans, exotic plants and fruits, seasonal catches from the sea, wild game all the rarities of the world seem to be gathered here. Some of the hustlers are students who failed to achieve any literary distinction. Though able to read and write, and play musical instruments and chess, they are not highly skilled in any art. They end up being a kind of guide for young men from wealthy families, accompanying them in their pleasure-seeking activities. Source 5 Source: Friar John of Monte Corvino, Letter to the West, one of two letters written to his fellow Franciscans around 1295. John was sent by Pope Nicolas IV to try to make an alliance with the Mongols against the Mamluk rulers of Egypt. I, Friar John of Monte Corvino, of the Order of Friars Minor, departed from Tauris, a city of the Persians, in the year of the Lord 1291, and proceeded to India. And I remained in the country of India, wherein stands the church of St. Thomas the Apostle, for thirteen months, . I proceeded on my further journey and made my way to Cathay, the realm of the emperor of the Mongols who is called the Great Khan. To him I presented the letter of our lord the pope, and invited him to adopt the Catholic faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, but he had grown too old in idolatry. However he bestows kindnesses upon the Christians, and these two years past I am abiding with him. Source 6 Source: Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant who may have worked for the Yuan dynasty, the Mongol rulers of China, late 13th century. This excerpt is a description of Hangzhou, a southern city that was part of the Yuan empire. There are within the city ten principal squares or market places, besides innumerable shops along the streets. . On the nearer bank stand large stone warehouses provided for merchants who arrive from India and other parts with their goods and effects. They are thus situated conveniently close to the market squares. In each of these, three days in every week, from forty to fifty thousand persons come to these markets and supply them with every article that could be desired.

Essay --

While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election; the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida--the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice President by those who no longer respect our power--the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms--an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space. These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues--for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers. But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured--perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again--not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me--but what kind of America I believe in. I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him. I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish--where no public offici... ...h favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test--even by indirection--for it. If they disagree with that safeguard they should be out openly working to repeal it. I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none--who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him--and whose fulfillment of his Presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation. This is the kind of America I believe in--and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a "divided loyalty," that we did "not believe in liberty," or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened the "freedoms for which our forefathers died." Essay -- While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election; the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida--the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice President by those who no longer respect our power--the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms--an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space. These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues--for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers. But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured--perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again--not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me--but what kind of America I believe in. I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him. I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish--where no public offici... ...h favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test--even by indirection--for it. If they disagree with that safeguard they should be out openly working to repeal it. I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none--who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him--and whose fulfillment of his Presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation. This is the kind of America I believe in--and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a "divided loyalty," that we did "not believe in liberty," or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened the "freedoms for which our forefathers died."

Ihrm, Describe the Main Challenges of International Staffing

IHRM Describe the mains challenges of international staffing. These years, international staffing has become a common setting for MNEs. Over the last decade, globalization and internationalization of marketplaces had brought companies to expatriate their resources on target countries and sectors. It naturally means that they will face lot of new challenges to succeed in their process. Expanding business operations beyond national boundaries while trying to stay effective on the domestic market requires complex and balanced strategies. The most critical determinants stay to keep an effective international esource management. So we will try to summarize the different challenges of international staffing. In a first part I will focus on the different international staffing issues to understand well the challenge dimension. In a second part I will highlight the different challenges raised by the central notion of expatriation. International staffing is the way that companies manage inter national resources, facing different limits like geographic distance or day- ­? to- ­? day relations with headquarters for example. The first challenge could be express through the possibilities for MNEs to choose a certain source f employees. First, the company can send employees and manager from its home country, more known as Parent Country Nationals (PCNs) or expatriates. Second, they can recruit directly Host Country National (HCNs) native from there. Third choice, they can hire Third Country National (TCNs) who is native from another country than the host or the home country. Companies use also different stages of internationalization and staffing strategies. We can observe that companies generally recruit the three types of employees and make them work together. We commonly call that a cross cultural management, illustrated y the idea to take good skills of each culture to bring them to global mind set with added value, in a aim to create efficiency. The success of cross cultural management seems to be a big challenge in international staffing in the way that it comes from the real difficulty to recruit top talents able to be efficient abroad, added to multiple legal issues. It seems also important to describe the four principal international staffing issues that seem to be a numerous challenge in the sense that it will condition your whole international management strategy. The MNEs can choose to use an ethnocentric staffing olicy that refers to the strategy of employ key positions managers from the parent headquarters instead of employing local staff. They will be use to transfer corporate culture to the foreign entity and insure an effective communication with headquarters. Limits are the adaptation of expatriates and relations with HCNs. Second option is the polycentric policy that describes an approach of recruiting HCNs to manage subsidiaries in their own country. So there are no language and cultural barriers and it’s far less expansiv e. But it results a less effective communication with headquarters and then difficulties o coordinate activities. In the geocentric issue the best people are sought for key jobs throughout the organization, regardless of nationality. It enables a multinational firm to develop a pool of senior international managers but it is the most expansive option. To finish, in the regiocentric staffing policy, employees are transferred to positions in subsidiaries in other countries, but stay within the same region (Mayrhofer and Brewster â€Å"In Praise of Ethnocentricity†). It permit to install a regional competition to success but it can also lead to identification and put global objectives on a second cene. Today, most of the international companies choose to expatriate top managers in foreign subsidiaries to control them. But expatriation seems to be the biggest challenge that they have to deal with for the simple reason that it the first reason of failure. The principal value of ex patriation is the quality of communication between PCNs and headquarters. PCNs don’t have any problem of language barrier with home country and actually know the home country top management. They understand their ideas, strategies and goals and by consequences can implement them faster. They also play a rule of knowledge ransfer and actually maintain a knowledge base (laws, politics, cultures, languages†¦) about the complexities of international operations (Downes and Thomas: â€Å"Knowledge Transfer†). Close to this knowledge transfer they serve a mission of corporate culture transmission. So they will implement the company’s culture, its values, believes, mission and follow a certain management style. One big challenge of international staffing is also to overcome the lack of qualified host country nationals because knowledge in special areas is needed and not directly available in some host countries. Erten- ­? Buch and Mattl ave studied the issue in 1 999 and they highlighted the idea of emphasis of expatriation as a means to overcome the lack of qualified host country nationals lies in compensating a long- ­? term lack of a skilled workforce. Expatriation has to deal with lot of difficulties that turn it out in a big challenge for international staffing. It is a big point to insure the well understanding of local business environment. It is also a big challenge to anchor the company in the local country by developing contacts and adjustment to local places, a kind of local emphasis. International staffing needs to face big ultural shocks. Expatriate managers arrive in a complete unknown environment; it creates confusion, disorientation and a certain emotional upheaval. It is a big challenge to cross it fast and with success. Staffing abroad means also deal with costs issues. The most obvious problem for a company when sending an expat abroad to be considered is the extremely high costs involved. The challenge is to measure the interest between insure this cost or insure the less effectiveness you will get by reducing your cost and employ a HCN. Employing an expat in a developed country for a certain period of time can cost p to four times as much as recruiting local staff and eight times as much in developing regions such as Asia Pacific. Failure rates are also a big challenge and a very important issue. Manager’s inability to adept, family related matters, lack of motivation are examples of failures. The rate of those being recalled to the headquarters is between 20 and 50% (Brewster 1991’s report). The major challenge of multinational and often missed by International Human Resources Management is the repatriation (Harvey, 1989). The professional transition into the home office cause a lot of difficulties that are most f the time neglected. It seems to be an unmeasured stage of internationalization. In conclusion we could say that the biggest challenge is to choose an adapted strategy of internationalisation and find out the correspondent staffing issue. Expatriates seem to represent an extremely expansive but not always necessary investment. Telecommunications and travel have made the human resources function of matching up employers and employees much easier over the years. The hiring of top talents will it be enough to cover good headquarters relations and eliminate geographic distance challenges in the future? 2

Developing A Global Partnership For Development Goals

In the start of the millennium, United Nation’s General Assembly started a campaign called Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). In this campaign all the 189 countries and 23 international organizations committed to help achieve these Goals. The goals are designed to be achieved by the year 2015 and 8 important goals were developed. These 8 different goals are 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, 2. Achieve Universal primary education, 3. Promote gender equality and women empowerment, 4. Reduce child mortality, 5. Improve maternal health, 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other deadly diseases, 7. Ensure environmental sustainability, 8. Develop a global partnership for development. In the 2015 Millennium Development Goals report, the progress that has been made in the last 15 years has been given. People who were living in extreme poverty, has been declined significantly. Almost 1.9 billion people in the developing countries were living in extreme poverty, due to MDGà ¢â‚¬â„¢s that number is dropped down to 836 million in last 15 years. There has been almost 33% decline in the poverty. In the year 2000 almost 100 million children did not get basic primary education, but it also has been dropped to 57 million. The Sub – Saharan Africa region has seen the most development, it has seen a rise of 20% from 2000 – 2015 and the world literacy rate is increased from 83% to 91%. In southern Asia there has been tremendous increase in girls going to school. In the year 1990, only 74 girlsShow MoreRelatedGlobal Economic Development As A Trade Policy Essay848 Words   |  4 PagesGlobal economic development as a trade policy However, would the idea of mercantilists who emphasize the only national benefits, productivity, or competitiveness fit to the current globalised world? 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