World History: Ancient and Medieval Civilisations
Comparative approach
Treat Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus valley, China, Greece, and Rome as cases to compare on a few axes: irrigation and surplus, writing and bureaucracy, law, and citizenship. Medieval Europe, the Islamic world, and Tang-Song China then offer comparison on feudalism, trade, and knowledge transmission.
Concepts to understand
Know the code of Hammurabi as a legal monument, Athenian democracy's exclusionary citizenship, Roman law and its later reception, the manorial system, the role of the Church, the Islamic golden age's translation movement, and the Silk Road as a vector of goods, faiths, and technologies. Understand debates over whether 'feudalism' is a useful comparative category.
Traps
Do not equate Athenian democracy with universal suffrage; women, slaves, and metics were excluded. Avoid treating the Middle Ages as uniformly stagnant. Questions often test whether a technology or institution diffused eastward or westward.
Rule of thumb
For comparative questions, choose one axis and compare like with like. If asked to compare Mesopotamian and Egyptian administration, focus on the role of writing and record-keeping in both, rather than listing unrelated achievements.