The first World History assignment is to get the books.  And to love them. The reading assignment in Reilly (page numbers on the syllabus) begins with secondary-source materials (Riley's Intro to ch.2 and his selection -- "Cities and Civilization" -- from his textbook, followed by primary sources dealing with early cities and civilization: Gilgamesh, Hammurabi and the Egyptian Scribe.

        These readings present some obvious questions, e.g., how does the Epic of Gilgamesh fit into modern definitional divisions of 'paleolithic' and 'neolithic'? Also, the nature and value of ancient urban life appear (focusing on life as it was then, e.g., in Hammurabi's Laws) along with applications to our own urban setting (bridging the gap between then and now, as the Egyptian Scribe recommends the Life of the Mind over manual labor). All these are excellent inquiries  Let's do that, but also, let's go the next step(s):

       Reilly inserts two pages of introduction to chapter 2. On page 29, he is doing....  ______? What?  Is this propaganda of some sort? Is this imbedded traditional thinking being transferred to you and me? Is he feeding us Soylent Green? Are these messages from the mother ship? In contrast, on page 31, Reilly does the expected and the mundane. But what about  page 29? When you are finished with your reading of pages 29-58, please go back to p.29 and read it again. Try to formulate an answer and have some reasons for your answer: What do the words on p. 29 really convey, or attempt, or accomplish? Is something rotten in Gotham City? Is Lord Farquad trying to straight-jacket Shrek to keep him a compliant denizen of 'The Coo-Coo's Nest'? Or not..... ??

       Prepare to discuss this in our next class. Time is short. Think about the thinking that you have put into each step of this assignment, since those aspects will also be on the discussion table. E.g., how do you know this, or suspect that?