KEY IDEA: POLITICAL POWERS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: New power arrangements emerged across Eurasia. Political states and empires employed a variety of techniques for expanding and maintaining control. Periods of relative stability allowed for significant cultural, technological, and scientific innovations.

CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING: Following the fall of the Roman Empire, divergent societies emerged in Europe.

CONTENT SPECIFICATION: Students will examine the political, economic, and social institutions of feudal Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire, including the role of Justinian and Theodora during the Middle Ages.

CONTENT SPECIFICATION: Students will compare and contrast the institutions in feudal Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire ca. 500 to ca. 1200.

CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING: Political states and empires employed a variety of techniques for expanding and maintaining control, and sometimes disrupted state-building in other regions.

CONTENT SPECIFICATION: Students will examine the locations and relative sizes of postclassical states and empires at the heights of their power, including the Abbasid Caliphate, Byzantine Empire, Mongol Empire, and Song and Tang dynasties, noting relative position, power within their regions and the areas they influenced.

CONTENT SPECIFICATION: Students will compare and contrast the empire-building processes of the Mongols and the Islamic caliphates, noting important disruptions in other regions.

CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING: Periods of stability and prosperity enabled cultural, technological, and scientific achievements and innovations that built on or blended with available knowledge, and often led to cultural diffusion.

CONTENT SPECIFICATION: Students will compare and contrast the achievements and innovations of the Tang and Song dynasties with the Abbasid Caliphate.

CONTENT SPECIFICATION: Students will explore the spread and evolution of technology and learning from East Asia to Western Europe via the Middle East (e.g., gunpowder, ship technology, navigation, printing, paper).

CONTENT SPECIFICATION: Students will examine feudal Japan, tracing the previous arrival of elements of Chinese culture (e.g., Buddhism, writing, poetry, art) and how those elements were adopted in and adapted to Japanese society.