During the second and third wave of civilizations, you see the rise, expansion, and the collapse of empires. These empires included Persia, Greece, Rome, China, and India and patriarchy, some form of slavery, a sharp divide of social classes existed almost everywhere and much blood was shed during their conquest of other states. Although, there was some fluctuation in the way women were treated compared to men. Buddhist and Christian women for example found some degree of opportunities for leadership and learning. But during the initial phases of civilizations One thing that I found interesting about the second wave of civilizations is that during this era, there was no technological or economic breakthrough like previously in the Agricultural Revolution. Researchers believe that it's because people had little incentive to innovate something new because of social hierarchy. Landowning elites benefited from expropriating the surplus that peasant farmers produced, while lower class citizens new there wasn't any point to create anything because any gains that they made would be seized by the upper class. But there were important inventions that played a big role in like gunpowder, magnetic compass, firearms, printing, wheelbarrow, crossbow, and paper. Also with the new waves of civilizations, philosophical/ religious systems of Confucianism and Daoism in China, Hinduism and Buddhism in India amongst others that answered questions contemplating life and death.
Out of all the empires that were talked about in this chapter, the Persian empire intrigued me the most because I have never learned much about in my previous history classes and I liked how it was a blend of European and Indo culture and additionally, the Prince of Persia is one of my favorite movies. In 500 BCE, Perisa was the largest empire in the world, located on the Iranian plateau north of the Persian Gulf. Persia's' most famous monarchs were Cyrus and Darius and under their leadership, the empire expanded from Egypt to India. They encompassed 30 to 35 million people and had much diversity between people, languages, and cultures which is impressive. Persia was also centered around an elaborate cult of kingship were people would cut their hair and set fires across the land when the king died, and when he was alive could only be approached in a certain type of ritual. One thing that always comes to my mind when I see these massive civilizations is how are they able to control it for long periods of time? Well for Persia, they had a highly effective administrative system that placed satraps (Persian governors) in each of 23 provinces, along with officials were that plucked locally, and even spies known as the "eyes and ears of the King". Persia made a canal to connect the Nile to the Red Sea and had expanded its commerce by having caravans of merchants for 1700 miles. Persia also had some intricate imperial centers which included: palaces, monuments, audience halls, that showed the wealth and power of the Persian empire like Persepolis which was the biggest center.