Defining Worldview
This is the lens through which individuals and groups interpret and understand the world around them
What is a worldview?
The Aztec civilization originally founded and expanded their spectacular capital city of Tenochtitlan on an island within this specific body of water.
What is Lake Texcoco?
Implemented in the early 1600s, this is the exact Japanese historical term for the "closed country" policy of near-total national isolation.
What is Sakoku?
Originating in Italy before sweeping across Europe, the historical name of this era literally translates to mean "rebirth".
What is the Renaissance?
This European nation's unique geographic position as a maritime state surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea fueled its rise as an exploration superpower.
What is Spain?
These are the three core interconnected elements that make up and influence a society's worldview.
What are values, beliefs, and perspectives?
These highly sophisticated, highly productive "floating gardens" were man-made islands constructed directly on lake beds using layers of mud and reeds.
What are chinampas?
This powerful military government ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868 and executed the decision to strictly close the country to foreigners.
What is the Tokugawa shogunate?
This is the exact century in which the cultural and intellectual renewal of the Renaissance officially began.
What is the 14th century? (or 1500s)
Beyond securing physical trade routes, exploration heavily reinforced Spain's state worldview centered on expanding and spreading this specific religion globally.
What is Christianity (or Catholicism)?
This specific historical European era featured a worldview dominated heavily by Christianity, placing its absolute focus on faith, the afterlife, and strict hierarchical roles.
What is Medieval Europe?
This baseline agricultural crop grown by the Aztecs was considered deeply sacred and viewed by society as a direct gift from the gods.
What is maize (or corn)?
Prompted by a deep fear of European colonization and the spread of foreign ideals, Japan's strict policy of isolation lasted for over this many years.
What is 200 years?
One of the main defining features of the Renaissance movement was the aggressive revival of preserved knowledge from these two ancient classical civilizations.
What are Ancient Greece and Rome?
These two famous maritime navigators are explicitly mentioned as being supported directly by the Spanish state to expand national borders and find new trade routes.
Who are Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan?
According to the notes, modern Western society's worldview is most frequently characterized by a collective focus on these three core concepts.
What are individualism, progress, and technological advancement?
Thanks to their innovative farming systems and regional trade networks, the Aztec capital city grew to sustain a massive population of over this many citizens.
What is 200,000 people?
These were the only two select foreign cultural groups permitted to conduct strictly limited, highly regulated trade with Japan during its long isolation.
Who are the Dutch and the Chinese?
Throughout the preceding Middle Ages, classical texts were hidden away and preserved in these locations, meaning they were completely closed off from wide public study.
What are monasteries?
Spain's rich coastal and inland geography provided a vast abundance of this specific natural resource, which was critically required for building their dominant naval fleets.
What is timber (or wood for shipbuilding)?
These two monumental global historical events are explicitly mentioned as being deeply driven and transformed by shifting societal worldviews.
What are the Age of Exploration and the Industrial Revolution?
Highlighting the absolute efficiency of their agricultural engineering, a single Aztec chinampa plot was capable of producing up to this many harvests per single year.
What is seven harvests?
To ensure Western influence remained minimal, the shogunate restricted the Dutch East India Company exclusively to this tiny artificial island in Nagasaki Bay.
What is Dejima?
These two prominent Renaissance humanists and scholars are explicitly named for translating, studying, and spreading the works of ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle.
Who are Petrarch and Erasmus?
According to the study notes, the historical era of global maritime exploration fundamentally structured a Spanish worldview that was centered on these two core concepts.
What are conquest and religious dominance?