Nothing better than a blog post on the weekend

      I believe that the textbook chose to lump together the Safavids, Ottomans and Mughals together in chapter 28 because they all of the civilizations have some things in common, and the textbook has to be economical. There is only so many chapters the book can include, and sometimes they have to lump things together in a seemingly illogical sense in order to save space. I think that it was a good decision, because if you took all of the info from each of the civilizations and made a chapter for each civilization, they would be really lacking. Although it doesn't flow perfectly, I believe that one larger chapter makes more sense than three chapters that lack in info.
      Overall, I think that global interaction is almost always a good thing, including this period of interactions. There are always cons that come with cross-cultural interactions, including disease. Also, the interactions between the Europeans and the Native Americans can be considered almost tragic. But one must look at the big picture. First of all, had Europeans never colonized the western Hemisphere, we would probably not be here today. Also, contact between Western and Eastern civilizations was bound to occur at some point, so the spread of disease is inevitable. In terms of pros, I believe that the spread of food, culture and ideas definitely counter acts the losses. It is hard to determine the value of a life, and it is definitely arguable whether or not the loss of lives in America was worth the ideas that spread from East to West, for example. But I think that, in the long term, it was worth it. (Although, if I was one of the Native Americans, I might have a different perspective) .