During the mid-sixteenth centuries to the early eighteenth century, silver traveled much of the globe. The silver trade had multiple significant positive effects on the economic systems between the mid-sixteenth centuries to the early eighteenth century, as opposed to a few significant negative impacts on the social systems.
Silver had a few, but significant effects on the socials systems of the world. Antonio Vazquez de Espinosa [Document 6], a Spanish priest, talked much about how inhumanly the Spanish were treating the enslaved Indians; “…more than 3000 Indians worked away hard with picks and hammers…” and, “…the poor fellows, loaded down with ore, climb up these ladders or rigging, some like masts and others like cables, and so trying and distressing that even an empty- handed man can hardly get up them.” This shows that the Spanish didn’t care about the social equality of the Natives, even in their own home. The greed for silver was so overwhelming that the Spaniards took all the silver from the enslaved peasants and used it to dominate the elite end of the social class [their class]. Tomas de Mercado [Document 2], a Spanish scholar, seems to agree that the greed for silver was very bad for Spain, “High prices ruined Spain as the prices attracted Asian commodities and the silver currency flowed out to pay for them.” Both of these sources support that hunger for so much silver was unhealthy and ended up being bad for Spain.
The social effects of the Americas indirectly affected the economic growth the countries on the Eastern Hemisphere. The efforts of the enslaved laborers help get all the silver into the Eastern Hemisphere, which started the whole global trading system. The Indian slaves of South America and the African slaves, who were brought over by the Spaniards and Portuguese [the African slaves], provided the backbone of the labor force. They labored day in and day out in horrible conditions to get the world trade rolling. From there the silver was then taken to Europe, to be distributed. From there it traveled to the main, vast markets of Asia. There it was used as currency [China], and collected as taxes. This can be seen in all of the documents written by Ming [Chinese] officials. In Document 1, Ye Chunji explains how the amount of wealth that silver is causing in the main reason for the silver inflation. In Document 3, Wang Xijue reports to the emperor that wheat was cheap because of the scarcity of silver. Though one contradicts the other, in that one calls to spend less, whereas the other calls to spend more, to get more silver into circulation; both support the fact that Ming China is mainly dependent on silver. The other documents written by Ming officials also support the prior statement. But they differ in that Xu Dunqui Ming [Document 5] is indirectly saying that the new silver system was not as preferred as the old system in which the customer could pay in what the seller wanted. This meant that with this system [the silver system], neither the buyer nor seller really benefited, rather than before when the seller got something he wanted in return for a service or a product. In Document 7, He Qiaoyuan also explained that China’s main goal was getting as much silver as they possibly could. They would trade some of their things in southeastern Asia, and Africa for about 100 silver coins, as opposed to going to the Philippines, ripping them off for 200-300 silver coins. The three sources [Documents 1,3,5,7] stated in this analysis of Ming China, are placed into a group of sources that explains that Ming China’s depended on Silver for all of their financial needs, and that they would try to get as much of it as they could from anywhere in the world.
Documents 4 and 8 are from western [European (British)] perspectives. Ralph Fitch [Document 4] wrote about the Portuguese, and how they took advantage of cheap Chinese luxuries. But by the time that Charles D’Avenant came to write “An Essay on the East-India Trade” [Document 8], Portugal was not as big a player in international trade anymore. So he decided to write about how Europe was now more important than Asia. Chinese, and Asian markets had “nothing of solid use; only materials to supply luxury”. Though this may have been true, D’Avenant says, “But since Europe has tasted of this luxury, since the custom of a hundred years has made Asian spices necessary…Asian silks are pleasing everywhere…their dyed cotton is useful wear at home…it can never be advisable for England to quit this trade, and leave it to any other nation.” Europe was still in much need of the Asian commodities. The English used to pay for all of these goods still with silver and gold, “which is there buried and never returns.” This showed that China was still much in need of silver.
Though the social effect greatly impacted the economic system, there would have been no need for a change or effect on the social system if the people were not power hungry and money mongers. In theory, the Spanish did accomplish their goal in that they were looking to get rich quick. They grabbed a bunch of Indians, and Africans, got them to do the hard labor, and got rich quick. The social system may have been sacrificed [by exploiting the naivety of the Natives], but they got money; the world had become materialistic. Though the positive impact on the economy only lasted a short while, and the negative impact on the social system lasted for centuries afterward [Africans remained slaves in the United States until 1865 when the end of the Civil War abolished slavery]; the silver trade had changed the face of global trade.
Other sources that may have been useful to the analysis of the Silver Trade would be first hand documents from other points of view than just the Spanish, Chinese, and British. If we could hear from the perspective of a native of the Americas, that could really help analyze a lot of the social impacts it had in the Americas. Since the African were also enslaved and imported to the Americas o help mine, a document from an enslaved African would be useful as well.

The movie, “War Made Easy” presented many techniques used by the United States Government, and the President, to get the American people hyped and ready to go to war, many of which were used by President George W. Bush, in the recent State of the Union Address earlier this year. 
          One technique Bush uses is euphemisms.  That is, he phrases things that would generally not appeal to the people, in such a way so it will appeal to the people.  For example, “…captured, arrested and rid the world of thousands of terrorists…”  That last section was the euphemism.  This was a nicer way of saying that they have killed thousands of the world’s people.  By the definition of terrorist, [from Webster online] A systematic user of terror (intense fear) especially as a means of coercion (dominate by force), the amount of actual “terrorists” that were killed is in the hundreds.  The majority of the people killed were Afghan and Iraqi civilians, as well as other civilians around the world.  These innocent people were merely living there life as usual when U.S soldiers were to told to ruthlessly kill them all.  I am not saying that all of the people killed were innocent, but that whenever a missile went missed, hundreds, and thousands of women and children were killed.  Another example is “The men and women of our armed forces have delivered a message now clear to every enemy of the United States: Even 7,000 miles away, across oceans and continents, on mountaintops and in caves, you will not escape the justice of this nation.”  In this statement, the word justice is being used as a synonym for revenge.  Observe, “”The men and women of our armed forces have delivered a message now clear to every enemy of the United States: Even 7,000 miles away, across oceans and continents, on mountaintops and in caves, you will not escape the revenge of this nation.”  We did not go to war with the “terrorists” because they attacked someone/ anyone else.  We went to war for the same reason we got ourselves involved in WWII, they attacked us.  On September 11^th, 2001, a group of “Afghani terrorists” attacked Americans on American soil.  This obviously means that we have to attack Afghans on Afghani soil.  This is also clear because he specifically said “on mountaintops and in caves” which is specifically mentioning the “terrorists” in Afghanistan, because our intelligence tells us that they are in caves in the mountains.  So we have to bomb all around the caves, since they are so deep in the mountains, and kill a whole bunch of innocent people that live in those areas, so we can kill the few “terrorists” in the caves.
George Bush used many other techniques in his address as well.  Another one is talking about the good, and failing to mention the bad (I don’t remember the specific term).  The same example used above can also be used here.  “…captured, arrested and rid the world of thousands of terrorists…”  They may have done this, but in the process also “rid” the world of many of its innocent inhabitants.  Not only have they killed innocent people, like that isn’t bad enough, they have captured them, taken to prisons—torture centers in other countries, not even official United States territories. 
There are many more techniques that the government uses to ready the country to kill others that I have failed to mention.  These are but a mere few.  I think that Americans need to learn these methods, and find out what is actually going on, so we can do something about it.  After all, this is a democracy, right?

Knowledge is a complex concept.  It is more than just “knowing” something.  Certainty distinguishes knowledge from belief.  Beliefs are not always certain, because they don’t always have enough evidence to support them.  These beliefs are often what form each individual’s mental map, which is their perception of the world.

            There are 4 general ways of knowing certainty is broken down into.  These ways can be used as coherence, to decide whether a belief is reasonable.  The first way is language; which is to acquire knowledge through people, by way of speech.  The second way is perception, knowledge based on personal experience.  Although this can be as firm evidence, the best way of knowing is the third way; reason.  Reason provides logic, and rationalism to prove a point.  The last way is emotion.  Emotion is relative to individual people.  Judgment could be considered to be part of emotion, since all people view things in different ways.  Having an open- mind is a good aspect of good judgment.  When one is open to and willing to adapt to new ideas, conventions and emotions begin to change.  One begins to start thinking differently, feeling differently about things, and so on.  Skepticism on the other hand keeps things the same, and does not allow new knowledge to come about.  With that said, one should not be gullible either, by just believing what is seen or heard.

            Another widely accepted form of knowledge is common sense.  Common sense is pieces of information that have been proven to be true multiple times, or that should be “common sense…”, what you should do a certain situation.  For example, if the television remote was not working, the sensible thing to do would be to change the batteries.   

Hopefully this letter gave some insight on human forms of knowledge, good luck with your invasion.

The Mongol Empire had much influence on the two regions of China and the Middle East, yet when compared, it is shown that there were obvious differences in the structures of their political and economic systems.
The political systems of China differed from the structure in the Middle East in multiple aspects.  In the Middle East, the Mongols ran the government by Islamic law.  In China, although Genghis brought many Muslims over from the Middle East, to help run the government, the control was in the hands of the Mongols themselves and in the legal code of Genghis Khan, called the Jasagh.  In contrast to the Middle East, in China the Mongols were higher in rank than the scholars, whereas in the Middle East the Mongols were advised by the Muslim leaders, as well as leaders of other religions.
While the regions of China and the Middle East were run in different administrative styles, the legal codes of each region shared several similarities.  For example the concept of punishment to transgressors of the law was established in both codes.  In the Jasagh people were put to death for crimes such as murder, theft, adultery, perjury, and others.  In Islamic Shari’a the same was true, people got stoned for many of the same things above.  Though the punishments were not always carried out in the same way, the end result was the same, the peoples responsible were punished severely, and in most cases, ended up dead, [as they were supposed to be (it was a death penalty)].
The Mongols influenced both Chinese and Middle Eastern economies.  They tried to implement many of the same strategies in both regions, often receiving the  same result.  For example, the Mongols introduced paper money in the two regions.  Despite the fact that it failed, it shows that the Mongols tried to employ a number of the same things in both regions.  Another example is that they divided the countries/ regions onto multiple provinces, to make it easier to collect taxes.  Though the matter in which the tax was collected differed, the taxing in itself can be considered a similarity in the basics of the economies.
The economy of China mainly flourished on international trade, along the Eurasian trade routes, whereas the Middle Eastern economy thrived more upon local trade, as well as international trade.  In China, much of their trade depended upon the Silk Road.  Caravans were constantly trading with people from Europe, and the eastern part of the Mongolian Empire.  Trade along these routes increased, because the Mongols posted security personnel along this long stretched road, to protect its people from the barbarians.  Though trade was more around the Middle Eastern region, luxury items did extend out, far beyond the Mediterranean.  The people in the Middle East owned their own corporations that paid individual taxes to the Mongols.  These self owned business had obvious differences to that of farms in China, which was how people paid their taxes.
The political and economic systems of Mongol China, and the Mongol influenced Middle East shared much in common with each other, but in the midst of these similarities, also differed in the specifics of these similarities.

The Old Man and the Sea is written by Ernest Hemingway.  The story is about an old man, who has lately been on an unlucky streak with his job as a fisherman.  A little boy used to fish with the man, but his [the boy’s] parents wanted him to go on another boat, instead of with the old man, because he had not caught anything in 84 days.  One day he decides go out really far, and wait for a fish.  There he “caught” a fish.  The fish stayed on the bait for 3 days.  For 3 days the old man waited for the fish.  He talked to it, he became tired, and his hand began to cramp, his back hurt, and he wished that the boy was there with him.  Once the fish came close enough, the old man stabbed it with his harpoon, which made the fish bleed fresh blood in to the sea.  Obviously this attracted many, many sharks.  The old man bravely fought off about 10 sharks, and in the process lost his knife, an oar, and his harpoon.  Even though the man was okay, the sharks had eaten the entire body of the Marlin, and the only thing left was the skeleton.  Sad and defeated, the old man sails back to his shack in Cuba.  He leaves the skeleton of the Marlin in his boat, and goes home.  The next morning everyone is in aw of his great catch, and he is asleep in his bed.  Once the boy’s parents find out about this wonderful miracle, they let the boy fish with the man once more.  From this a theme that can be taken is the overcoming of defeat, by the old man.  In the novella The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway uses a series of trials and tribulations, to describe the setting to show how the old man overcame defeat.  

            Santiago’s shack is an example of how he overcomes defeat because the shack is old, and does not have a very “homey” feeling.  His shack was very empty, and lonely like him.  He lived by himself after his wife died.  “The mast was nearly as long as the one room of the shack…. and in it there was a bed, a table, one chair, and a place on the dirt floor to cook with charcoal.”  His shack was an icon of his defeat.  It was small, nearly empty and he lived in it all alone, and by himself.  When he talks to the boy he makes it seem like everything is great.  “But they went through this fiction every day.” (pg. 16)  This shows that he has overcome the defeat that is magnified by the condition in which he lives, but he makes it seem like there is nothing wrong.

After having not caught a fish in 84 days, the sea had clearly defeated Santiago.  The sea had defeated him, and so did the fish, they had escaped him for a long 84 days.  But this day was to be different.  He went out, and hooked a Marlin.  He had definitely overcome the defeat of the fish, because it had been hooked, this time he had not escaped.  But not to the old man’s pleasure, the sea was still winning.  “Then he fell into the water with a crash that sent spray over the old man and over all of the skiff.” (pg. 94)  The fish knew he had lost, so was using the sea to regain a victory.    But the old man had finally seen his competition, and he knew what he had to do.  He waited for 3 days on that boat in the middle of the sea for that fish.  He knew the fish would tire eventually of constant fighting, swimming around.  The old man was using the sea against the fish.  He had overcome the defeat of the sea.  “The harpoon was projecting at an angle from the fish’s shoulder and the sea was discoloured with the red of the blood from his heart.” (pg. 94)  The old man had caught the fish, and defeated the sea.  Although the fish was caught and the sea defeated, there was still more to come.  The sea sent sharks to strike one last blow, but the old man had won, and was not going to lose again.  In the day, the old man killed nearly 10 or more sharks, he had won.  Although the fish had no meat left, he had caught it and made it home.  Santiago had won.

In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago overcomes many hardships and defeats.  He beats the sea and the fish, as well as shows that his shack does not dampen his spirit.  As stated above, the theme of this story was how Santiago, even in his old age overcame so much defeat in a matter of a week.  Santiago overcomes his defeat from the sea, the fish, and the appearance of his shack, through a Hemingway’s series of trials for him [Santiago] to face.  The hardest trial for the old man to overcome was not having the boy by his side.  But 4 days he spent on the sea, and caught a big fish, killed many sharks, and safely made it home.  In the end the old man had finally won.