Mandate of Heaven

maintain the balance in politics has a vast change that the government leaders (the Emperor, the President, or the Chief Executive) of the state no longer enjoy the superior status. In ancient China, the powers of the emperors come from the ‘Heaven of Mandate’, as mentioned in the chapters. That is to say, they are with the support of the Chinese gods. When the quality of the emperor greatly falls, and loses the ability to maintain the balance of the state; people could rebel and establish a new…

1. Over the course of history, the view of a human’s role in society has been constantly changing. While some societies are very solitary, centered on the individual, other societies are focused on group identity and how the individual can do best to benefit the group. The view of the individual as being important or merely a pawn in the grand scheme of things greatly effects how the society is conducted and how successful the society is. The Buddhist society views humans as on the road to…

principle of divine creation has been debated for centuries and modern advances in science spurred many theories attempting to prove a different age and creation of the earth. Yet Genesis 1:1 makes it unmistakably clear that God alone created the heavens and the earth. God made earth from nothing and therefore it has a definite beginning. As Genesis 1-2 continue, God’s involvement with creation is apparent as he not only instantaneously speaks all things into existence but is also recorded…

effectiveness. Document four continues to boast Han technological advancements, as it praises Tu Shih, the governor of Nanyang. However this document is somewhat questionable, as it is government sponsored. At around the same time, the Hans lost their Mandate of Heaven, so it wouldn't be surprising that it glorifies the technology introduced under Han rule; they still needed the support of the people to stay in…

The Boxer Uprising of 1898-1900 , is a peasant movement which was doomed to fail from its conception primarily due to its divided and leaderless structure, was a reaction to a series of factors, most of the factors were caused by western imperialsm and Japanese imperialism and the weak and again also caused by divided Qing government. One of the most important factors for this rebellion was arguably the western religious influence in china. The rebells as the western called the rebels the…

Rome was a much more culturally tolerant empire than the Qin Dynasty, which was very culturally strict. In an edict of Augustus, written in 1 BCE, on the rights of the jewish people, he stated, “by the will of the people of the Romans, that the Jews shall use their own customs in accordance with their ancestral law, just as they used to use them in the time of Hyrcanus, the high priest of their highest god; and that their sacred offerings shall be inviolable and shall be sent to Jerusalem and…

Some inventions, however, saw continuity from the first to second-wave civilization. In the first-wave civilizations, in terms of weapons, swords, arrows, and axes were used. The Chinese made advancements in weaponry, namely, the invention of piston bellows, firearms, and gunpowder, changing the game of warfare. In addition, the invention of the draw-loom, silk-handling machinery, the magnetic compass, the iron-chain suspension bridge, paper, and porcelain was also of Chinese origin, and that’s…

C.E. (Duiker, 61). While the Zhou kings retained much of the power that was present in the Shang dynastic period, a new idea, called the “Madate of Heaven,” was introduced that altered the political landscape and ideas of power in general. Under this new way of thinking, kings were not divine beings themselves, but only representatives from heaven. On top of this, if a ruler was not governing effectively, he could theoretically be replaced by a more able or benevolent overlord. This shift was…

“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time” (Jefferson). This is surely a quote that reflects what Thomas Jefferson’s ideas were when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. The idea that freedom is not something you earn, but something you are entitled to the moment you take your first breath of life. That was the ground that Jefferson stood upon, that he references in his writing, reaching out to foreign nations with justifications for separation from King George III. Thomas…

Most Worthy Emperor and Most Distinguished First Grand Secretary, thank you for granting me the opportunity to speak again and allowing me to present a memorial on a topic of my choosing. I humbly come before you and the members of the Grand Secretariat today: to speak of matters not only dear to me, but to the entirety of the Ming Empire. Over the past few meetings, we have been talking about corruption, what it takes to be a good, effective leader, and the many issues endangering the empire…