Exercises on the evolution of cities

(ENEM, 2011). If the mania to close, true habitus of the medieval mentality, born perhaps from a deep feeling of insecurity, it was widespread in the rural world, it was also in the urban environment, since one of the characteristics of the city was to be limited by doors and a wall. (DUBY, G. Et al. “14th-15th Centuries”. In:ARIÈS, P.; DUBY, G. History of private life from Feudal Europe to the Renaissance . São Paulo:Cia das Letras, 1990 [adaptation]).

The practices and uses of the walls underwent important changes at the end of the Middle Ages, when they assumed the function of crossing points or porticoes. This process is directly related to:

a) the growth of commercial and urban activities.

b) the migration of peasants and artisans.

c) the expansion of industrial parks and factories.

d) increasing the number of castles and manors.

e) containment of epidemics.

At the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century, when the Spaniards came into contact with the Aztec, Mayan and Inca civilizations, there was an encounter and a consequent confrontation between two modalities of urban life. It can be said that, among the aspects of the Aztec cities that caused strangeness to Europeans, were:

a) the use of automobiles and steam powered boats.

b) the rituals of human sacrifice practiced in the great pyramids and the great technological sophistication of the irrigation systems.

c) the absence of wars and conflicts with other peoples.

d) the inability to manipulate metals such as iron and gold.

e) the inability to speak articulate

The names Istanbul, Constantinople and Byzantium were used at different times to designate the same city located in the region of Anatolia (now Turkey). Regarding this city, it is INCORRECT to say that:

a) was named Constantinople when the Roman Emperor Constantine transferred the seat of his Empire to it.

b) was taken by the Huns in 1350 and from then on was called Byzantium.

c) had as its great architectural construction a hippodrome, whose functionality resembled the Roman Coliseum.

d) was taken over by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and from then on became known as Istanbul.

e) has, facing each other, an Orthodox Christian church and a mosque, “Hagia Sophia” and “Blue Mosque”, respectively.

In the city of Berlin, capital of Germany, a good part of the wall that was built by the eastern and Soviet side from the 1960s can still be seen. Berlin has become a landmark of memory in German and world history. Its “fall” in 1989 marked the beginning of the German reunification process. It can be said that from then on, Berlin became a symbol:

a) of socialist victory on the European continent.

b) of a humiliated city that never recovered.

c) of a socialist city that managed to resist the advance of capitalism.

d) from the end of the Cold War, which had divided the entire world.

e) of Soviet architecture.

Letter A

Medieval cities, with the phenomenon of commercial and urban renaissance, began to give new functionality to the type of construction that, previously, had the role of maintaining security. Thus, from the 14th century onwards, fortress systems began to serve more as commercial control systems (and the flow of goods) and less as defense systems.

Letter B

For the Spaniards, the technology used in systems such as water irrigation for the great Aztec urban centers and the bloody human sacrifices carried out in the monumental pyramids were absolutely impressive and strange.

Letter B

Throughout the Middle Ages, the city of Constantinople was the center of the Western Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire. During this phase, on several occasions, its borders were under threat from other peoples, who wanted to plunder and dominate it. The Huns, for example, tried to break through its defenses more than once in the 5th century. But Constantinople was not really dominated and subjugated by the Ottoman Turks until 1453. That date, according to some historians, marked the beginning of the Modern Age.

Letter D

The city of Berlin became a symbol of the end of the Cold War, given that this phase of the history of the 20th century divided, in two political systems, not only this city, but also Germany, the European continent and the world as a whole.