?Q: “Food shortages, death, and famine were an all-too-real part of life (and death) for most of the people living in 1400 in that time period 80-90 percent of the world was composed of one vast peasantry, rural people who produced the food and industrial raw materials for the society and who where obligated to give up a certain amount of their harvest each and every year throughout much of the most densely populated part of Eurasia, peasant families gave up as much as half of their harvest to the state and landlords” (30-31). This quote highlights the theme of famine and shortage of food for individuals during the 1400’s. The landlords and state took away as much as half of their harvest. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how famine in peasant societies played a significant role for the rural people who produced the food. Q: “not only did trade allow different parts of the world to sell what they could best produce or gather, but merchants also served as conduits for cultural and technological exchange as well, with ideas, books, and ways of doing things carried in the minds of the merchants while their camels or ships carried their goods. Additionally, epidemic disease and death, soldiers and war also followed trade routes(36). This quote emphasizes the importance of trade and cultural diffusion, which provides the spread of cultural beliefs, social activities and the mixing of world cultures through different ethnicities, religions and nationalities. A: In this chapter, the author mentions how “the world we confront is composed of social, economic, political, and cultural structures” (21). Throughout the chapter, the author repeatedly suggests how these structures are vital to understanding the world from 1400 to 1800, which is in fact what is being discussed in this chapter. An imperative aspect about the fifteenth century, as the author states, is that most of the individuals, no matter where they lived, thei