6
NATIONAL HISTORY DAY 2016
the magnetic compass, printing press, and silk to the West. To China, it brought precious stones, furs, and horses. One of the
W
road’s best known travelers, Marco Polo, recorded his observations in his Travels of Marco Polo. But as we know, exchange is
not necessarily mutually beneficial.
hen Europeans were exploring the New World, they brought with them diseases such as smallpox and measles that
were contracted by many members of the native tribes they encountered. Having no previous exposure to these
illnesses, the natives’ immune systems could not naturally fight these diseases, nor did native healers have the knowledge to
treat them. As a result, many natives perished because of their encounter and exchange with the Europeans.
But exchanges do not happen only in the physical realm. The sharing of ideas, beliefs, and customs can have widespread
consequences for the people and cultures involved. Consider the spread of any of the world’s major religions. Sometimes the
exchange of new or controversial ideas within a society can have a significant effect on how that society thinks and acts. What
changes occur within the society because of that exchange? How did Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, for example, lead to
the cultural conflicts of the 1920s?
Politics also can be an area of