The Democracy And Non Democracy Politics Essay

The Democracy And Non Democracy Politics Essay This paper gives brief ideas about democratic and non-democratic systems in modern world. The definitions of democracies and non-democracies vary from person to person. Furthermore, there are variety of explanations and democratic models, such as direct democracy and representative democracy (Heywood, 2007). Just the term of democracy can change into diverse ideas. For the term of non-democracy, it may be easier for people to understand, but in fact it has indistinct divisions between some non-democratic regimes. Besides the definitions of these two terms, this paper will explores the dissimilitude between democracies and non-democracies. And it includes necessary examples for the comparison. Introduction Nowadays, democratic system is popular around the world. No matter Western or Asian countries, people praise democratic systems highly and believe this is nearly the perfect political system in the world. But there still have non-democratic systems in the world. What is non-democracy? And what are differences between democracies and non-democracies? Different political scientists have different explanations for the meanings of democracies and non-democracies. Moreover, non-democracies are different from democracies in theories and practices. This paper aims at introducing the ideas about the definition of non-democratic systems and focuses on three dissimilarities between democracies and non-democracies. Definition of democracies and non-democracies Before comparing democratic and non-democratic systems, we first need to define the terms democracy and non-democracy. Democracy has a wide range of meanings and applications. Heywood (2007) defined democracy as rule by people; democracy implies both popular participation and government in the public interest, and can take a wide variety of forms (p.448). According to McLean and McMillan (2012), democracy as a descriptive term is synonymous with majority rule (democracy). In the democratic systems, election or voting is the way to apply the principle of majority. Simply speaking, democracy is a political system that enables ordinary citizens to participate and influence in the politics. In this paper, democracy is referred to the liberal democracy which is the broadest accepted form of democracy (Heywood, 2007). Liberal democracy is a form of indirect, representative democracy and is based on competitive election. It also divides the state and social community clearly (Heywood, 2007) . The term of non-democracy is rarely seen in political dictionaries, but it can be easily understood by just reversing its meaning with democracy. Non-democracy is a system of rule by individual or a small group of people, not all people. Contrary to democracy, people are ruled by minority in non-democracies. Totalitarianism, dictatorship, authoritarianism, Fascism and other political systems are all included in non-democratic systems. Modern people view non-democracies as autocracy, savageness and cruelty (Ezrow and Frantz, 2011). Some non-democratic countries, like Singapore and Malaysia, seem like democracy (Ezrow and Frantz, 2011). So, a well-defined definition is important. In this paper, non-democracy is defined as the system of rule by a person, a party or a small group of people which means non-democracies imply that little mass mobilization and limited pluralism (Ezrow and Frantz, 2011). And Sliwinski (2012a) suggested that there are three types of non-democratic regimes: dic tatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. In order to simplify the situation, this paper mainly focuses on these three kinds of non-democratic systems. Robertson (2004) gave a clear definition to dictatorship is a form of government in which one person has sole and complete political power (p.145). McLean and McMillan pointed out totalitarianism (2012) regulates every aspect of state and private behavior (totalitarianism) and Robertson said that how to decide totalitarianism is the way to use the powers. Robertson shared the same idea with McLean and McMillan in the concept of authoritarianism, he pointed out that authoritarian ignores public opinion and uses forceful ways to rule over the country. McLean and McMillan even pointed out that the existence of dictators is one of the main elements for totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century (dictatorship), like Stalins Russia and Hitlers Germany. However, Robertsons view (2004) is differed from that of McLean and McMillan. He stated that dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism do not have required relationship, Authoritarianism needs not, strictly speaking, be a dictatorship and well not be totalitarian (p.33). Although Robertson disagreed with the idea that dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism have some kind of connections, we cannot deny that these three political systems are, in some extent, similar to each other. Authoritarianism and totalitarianism also limit peoples political rights, but the latter one even control the private lives of its people. Moreover, as these three kinds of political regimes restrict peoples political rights, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them. But anyhow the comparison in this paper is: the comparison between liberal democracy and dictatorship, authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Comparison between democracies and non-democracies Separation of powers V.S. Domination of powers One of the main differences between democracy and non-democracy is the control of power. The democratic regimes separate the government powers; divide it into legislation, execution and adjudication. However, for the non-democratic regimes, the powers are only held by the ruler which means the ruler is the legislator, the executive and the judge of the state. The democratic system needs checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power, so it makes use of the separation of powers. The legislature controls the legislative power, the administrative holds the executive power and the judiciary controls the jurisdiction. These three powers are to make and change laws, to put laws into action and to make judgments on laws respectively (Sliwinski, 2012b, slide 22). These three political institutions can then mutually supervise and contain each other which can efficiently limit the power of the government. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, if one holds all the powers in his own hands, he will use the power to maximize his interests and ignore others interests and rights. The modern political thinkers John Locke and Montesquieu then believed that the power of the government should be restricted in order to avoid the appearance of tyranny and the corruption of powers. Locke suggested in order to protect peoples rights, there should be checks and balances. And Montesquieu was the first political thinker suggesting the idea of separation of powers. He believed that every government should divide its powers into three and this is largely influenced the American constitution and the Western political systems (Gingell, Little Winch, 2000). For the non-democratic regimes, they centralize the powers in their own hands. Non-democracies dominate the powers and through the monopolistic power, they fully exercise their authorities without limitations. Even though some of the regimes establish some resembling institutions to create an illusion of the separation of powers, the powers are actually combined in the regimes hands. The most efficient way to fulfill their aim -stabilizing the regimes status and power is to monopolize the powers. In The Prince, Machiavelli suggested the rulers should hold the absolute power with any way to preserve his power and regime (Gingell, Little Winch; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2009). Thus, non-democracies can be seen as the embodiment of Machiavellis idea the use of absolute power. However, we should be aware that the maximization of powers is for the safe of the state, not for the ruler. And the non-democratic systems are contorting this point: they abuse the power just for the ir own interests, but not for their states and people. Here are some examples. The best model for the separation of powers in modern democracies is the system in United States. The separation of powers is clearly stated in the United States Constitution. The Congress only has the legislative power; the President of the United States holds the executive power and the Supreme Court enforces the judicial power. They are divisible and their powers do not overlap the power of one another. This practices the idea of mutual restraint on power. Therefore, the American political system embodies the idea of the checks and balances (Heywood, 2007). For the non-democracies, Soviet Union is a good instance. It was established in 1922 and ended in 1991. Soviet Union did not separate the powers, so that there were no limitations of powers for the party and the state. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union centralized three powers together and controlled the society and state tightly. Political equality V.S. Political inequality In the democratic countries, people have the chance to participate in the politics, this mainly presents by votes and elections. But for the non-democracies, they have lots of limitations in political participation which their people cannot actually involve in the political activities. The elections represent the political equality between people. From the view of liberal democracy, this means that the value of everyones vote is equal; no one will have a higher value of vote then the others (Heywood, 2007). Through the elections, it embodies the idea of political equality because the citizens do have the chance to express their views to the government by their own votes. It has no doubt that elections are important. According to Heywood, elections give the public the opportunity to affect the political process and decisions. In liberal democratic system, there is regular election within several years. People can take this chance to show their satisfaction towards the governments administration in past few years and also influence the political scene in the next several years. The most significant thing is that all the citizens do have the vote in their hands; no matter they are males or females, wealth or poverty or they are blacks or whites. From this perspective, people are equal politically and even socially (Heywood, 2007). Democratic countries, like the United States, the United Kingdom and France, have regular election system for their citizens to involve in politics and to express their political aspects. Therefore, the political equality also implies the widespread political participation. However, in the non-democratic regimes, it is usual to apply political inequalities. Not all the people in the regime can get the right to vote and only a small group of people control the political powers. This means some people are more influential in politics than the others. Even the non-democracies introduce elections to their citizens, the regimes secretly manipulate the elections in order to repress the opposition parties. For example, in Egypt, the economic elites are more political influential after 1984. Egypt is a single-party regime which is ruled under the National Democratic Party (NDP). In 1984, the businessmen supported the NDP and the ruler Mubarak; since then, they gain more political power by joining the party (King, 2009). The poverty, who is mainly the Egyptian workers and peasants, lost the opportunity to participate in the political activities (King, 2009). Even though Egypt has the electoral system, it still regards as non-democracy because the electoral syste m is dominated by the NDP (King, 2009; Ezrow Frantz, 2011). According to King, the NDP do not let the opposition parties to grow in strength and most important is that the party is able to allot the votes of labors and peasants. Not only in Egypt, other non-democracies, like China, Burma and Iran, do not have political equality and wide political participation. Freedom V.S. Constraint Another main difference between the democracies and non-democracies is the freedom of the citizens. In a democratic society, people enjoy the freedoms under the laws which mean their freedoms are protected by laws. Nevertheless, the non-democratic regimes usually restrict the freedoms of the people. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) regulates all people in the world have the rights to enjoy their freedoms. Freedom House, which is non-governmental organization, conducts researches on the countries degree of freedom and its annual report can be deemed as democratic report. Many political scientists use the report as the ratings of democracy. This implies that freedom is one of the fundamental elements in modern democracy. Most of the democratic countries have high rates of freedom, according to the Freedom in the World in 2012, like the countries in the Western Europe, which adopt the electoral democracies, all enjoy the rating of Free in the report. People in democratic countries enjoy their freedoms and rights because democracy is to protect all peoples interests both majority and minority. However, it is wrong to say that there is freedom, then there is democracy. Undoubtedly, it needs a certain degree of freedoms to form democracy. As the participation in polit ics do implies the freedoms of opinion and expression, speech and assembly, it is impossible for a democratic country works without the enjoyment of freedoms (Hovde, 1949). On the contrary, people under the non-democratic regimes normally do not enjoy most of the freedoms because the regimes disregard peoples rights and freedoms. Most of the regimes repress the freedom of speech, assembly and freedom of the press. Why do non-democracies constrain these freedoms? It is because they need to unite their peoples thought and ideology together with the regimes in order to prevent rebellion. North Korea, the totalitarian regime nowadays, is the best-suited example. The mass media in North Korea is fully controlled by the government and the media compliment blindly on the regime and the Kim family. The thought and daily lives of North Koreans are strictly controlled by the government. The North Koreans cannot leave the country; otherwise they will be regarded as traitors. Therefore, they do not enjoy any freedoms at all. Another Asian country Singapore also restrains citizens freedoms (Burton, 2010). The Singaporean government repressed the freedom of the pres s in the country by enforcing the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act (the Press Act) in 1974 (Rajah, 2012). And in the recent Press Freedom Index, Singapore was ranked a very low score 135 out of 179 countries. According to Rajah, the Singaporean government also carried out the Religious Harmony Act and the Public Order Act in order to restrict the freedom of religion and freedom of assembly of its citizens. Conclusion The definitions of democracies and non-democracies are wide and diversified, by narrowing their definitions, we can explore some main differences with them. There are three main differences between democratic and non-democratic regimes include: the control of power, the degree of participation in politics and the rate of freedom. The democracies separate its power into three (legislation, execution and adjudication), achieve political equality and carry out broad political participation, and let their citizens enjoy freedoms. On the contrary, the non-democracies monopolize the powers, limit the political participation within their supporters and imply political inequality, and repress the freedoms of their people. The studies about democratic and non-democratic regimes need to continue from time to time, in order to explore more possibility and rationality about them.

Did the Popular Culture of the 1960 Do More Harm Than Good? Essay

The 1960’s reflects a huge change in people’s lives, where young people started to rebel against the traditional norm, therefore starting the counterculture and social revolution. Not all of these were good and sensible; however in my opinion, these changes were essential to the development of technology, fashion and lifestyle, and they more than just made up for the harm caused. Arguably one of the most significant changes was the fact that those from the younger generation started to gain money, and status. Source A states, â€Å"Today’s youth has money, and teenagers have become a power. In their struggle to impose their wills upon an adult world, young men and women have always been blessed with energy, but never, until now, with wealth. After handing mum a pound or two, they are left with more spending money than most of their elders, crushed by adult obligations.† Never before had the youth been blessed with wealth; in US this may have been the result of its longest uninterrupted economical expansion in history. The youth were â€Å"a social group whose tastes are studied with respect – particularly by the entertainment industry† because they learnt in no time that young people were willing to spend their money as long as they were sold what they wanted. All television programmes and films were previously aimed at young children and middle-aged people. The film industry faced a turn in their original style as they realised the significance of the younger generation to the expansion of their success. This decade is said to be ‘the end of the Hollywood Studio system, and the era of independent, Underground Cinema’. Genres such as musicals, historical drama, psychological horror, comedy and science fiction became the new trend. There were other major sub-genres which were at its peak during this decade too, for example spy films were especially popular, and it is said that this was because of the combination of the audience’s fear of the Vietnam War, and their desire to see exciting and suspenseful films. The 1960’s had brought another huge change in music as well. Although the specific ‘date’ of the break between the 50’s music and the 60’s music is unclear, it is generally said to be ‘before the British invasion’ and ‘after the British invasion’ of American music. By the ‘British invasion’ we are referring to the numerous British artists and groups of admirers and emulators of American rock n’ roll, whose fame and popularity abruptly increased in the US during the early 1960’s. The most well-known and influential would probably be ‘The Beatles’, who had a huge impact not only on the ‘1960’s music’ but also on the ‘1960’s fashion’. They were hugely appreciated by the nation, and we can prove this through source B, part of a description of a certain day in 1964, written by actress Joanna Lumley in her autobiography; on â€Å"a hot summer’s evening†, â€Å"instead of the rush hour an extraordinary silence and emptiness had descended upon London, on England, on Britain†¦ No one was to be seen by the flower-stall, the newspaper stand†¦The nation held its br eath because that evening the four Beatles, all the Fab Four, were appearing live on ‘Juke Box Jury’†. From the way the actress depicts her trip to her â€Å"aunt’s flat† from the â€Å"tube station†, we can confirm how intrigued everyone was by the Beatles – enough to abandon their work and hold their breath just because they were appearing ‘live’ on a television show. This source is supported figuratively by fact that on its release in August 1963, â€Å"the band’s fourth single, ‘She Loves You’, achieved the fastest sales of any record in the UK up to that time, selling three-quarters of a million copies in under four weeks† (according to Wikipedia). They were typically regarded as â€Å"being cool, hip, smart, lippy, charming and funny†, and many people thought â€Å"It was very heaven to be alive† to be able to watch them. Source C informs us of how the attitude of the Beatlesâ €™ fans in the 1960’s were different to today’s who are â€Å"a little more reserved†, although he explains that the supporters were â€Å"never as crazy as they used to say it was† anyway. Paul McCartney, stated that â€Å"If you’d see a bunch of kids coming towards you, you could stop them. They’d only want your autograph; and you could chat†, and he was so sure of this because â€Å"the thing about fans was I used to do the same thing myself. I felt like I understood what they were on about†. The sources B and C support each other because the â€Å"bunch of kids† mentioned in source C could easily include Joanna Lumley, who is recalling her youth in source B, describing that â€Å"it was very heaven to be alive†. She is recollecting the memory of seeing the usual rush hour London deserted, and Paul McCartney says that â€Å"There’d be a lot of screaming†, which both portrays that of the excitement of the audience. Not only did their songs influence the rest of the singers that followed, it even reached into the ‘fashion’ world. People imitated their Beatle haircut (also known as the mop-top because of its resemblance to a mop), causing some toy manufacturers to begin producing Beatle wigs. It is said that in the Brezhnev-dominated Soviet Union, mimicking The Beatles’ hairstyle was seen as an extremely rebellious act. Young people were called â€Å"hairies† by their elders, and were arrested and forced to have their hair cut in police stations. The Beatles would wear Edwardian collarless suits, occasionally in black but later in grey, adopted from the Mod youth cult which was at its peak in the UK at that time. Some very famous artists and groups include Elvis Presley, The Supremes, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, James Brown, The Temptations, Janis Joplin and The Who. T wo very popular fashion items introduced to the ‘Swinging London’ in the 1960s include Mary Quant’s mini-skirt and Jackie Kennedy’s pillbox hat. Women’s false eyelashes and their varied arrangement of their hair were a prominent trend throughout the decade. The two most famous super models then were Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton, both very thin. 91-pound Twiggy was the iconic figure of the fashion industry, her name originating from her waif and twig-like appearance. Although it was the fashion industry, pop culture and magazines that actually promoted the ‘drive’ for thin figure, people sometimes blame her for causing making women self-conscious about their bodies, striving to achieve bodies as thin and stream-lined as hers, sometimes going over the top to do so. The biggest problem concerning models at that time, however, was that of sexual exploitation. It may be thought of as rare for models to have sex with their clients, but according to fashion models who had spoken out about the problem, it actually was a daily occurrence. The ‘Hippie Movement’ began as a youth movement in the early 1960’s, escalating later on to a larger-scale, more formal sub-culture as it spread to other countries across the world. ‘Hippie’ is said to be originally derived from the word ‘hip’, which comes the Black culture and denotes ‘awareness’. Being a hippy meant questioning authority and its power, desire for peace and the rejecting of middle-class materialism and the whole military-industrial complex in favour of a more spiritual, more environmentally conscious approach. They played a very important role in the Vietnam War, for they voiced their anti-war sentiments, protesting both violently and non-violently in order to change the world’s view on certain things, including war civil rights. The increase of rather ‘accepting’ people also meant that racism was getting less severe. Despite all these wonderful changes, some people weren’t too happy about the popular culture in the 1960’s. Mary Whitehouse, a British campaigner against the ‘permissive society’ and the â€Å"founder of the Women of Britain Clean Up TV Campaign†, was one whose motivation was strongly derived from her traditional Christian beliefs. Source D shows part of an article in the Daily Mail, 1964, where she states that â€Å"Authors who speak out strongly for the established Christian faith and write plays which inspire a sense of purpose and hope find it extraordinarily difficult to get their work accepted†, explaining further that this â€Å"became necessary because of the built-in censorship which the BBC exerts against much which is good and clean in our national culture†. In reality, she is implying how the BBC is barricading the majority of what is â€Å"good and clean† in the Britain culture, discretely pointing out the changes th at has started to occur in the decade which revolves around the theme ‘popular culture’. Her opposition to the popular culture in the 1960’s is also supported by other issues that started to emerge typically at this time concerning fashion, music and culture – these range from minor ones such as the spread of Beatlemania, known as the â€Å"social disease with no cure†, to extreme diet and anorexia and sexual exploitation. With this knowledge however, I personally think that there have been enough positive changes to make up for all the negative outcomes. Bearing in mind the fact that the youth had rapidly started losing their respect towards the elderly, and how the youth-dominated culture had resulted in many bad catastrophes, I believe that this decade of popular culture had given youth opportunities that would never have been available to them before, had effectively taught us to ‘learn from our mistakes’ and ‘improve our lives’ thereafter, and have consequently done more good than harm.

Things You Should Know About Best Persuasive Essay Samples

Things You Should Know About Best Persuasive Essay Samples The Best Persuasive Essay Samples Cover Up Persuasive essays share a whole lot of resemblance with argumentative essays. All persuasive essays are like argumentative essays. The most effective persuasive short essays often concentrate on controversial. They often focus on controversial issues. It's important to understand that essay topics are just basic ideas that leave you pondering an idea that might be a huge deal to another person. Argumentative research papers desire a bit of structure unlike the normal essays. Persuasive essays are an excellent approach to encourage the reader to check at a particular topic in a different light. Application essays about challenges reveal how you respond to difficulty to folks who are quite interested in how you are going to handle the subsequent four years all on your own. Persuasive writing is extremely typical in advertising where marketing professionals attempt to convince you to purchase something. All you have to do is consult with an expert customized essay writing service like ours that is guaranteed to submit all of your assigned work punctually. Our customer support will gladly tell you whether there are any special offers at the present time, along with make sure you are getting the very best service our business can deliver. Thus, it's the best choice to purchase from the stores immediately. Argumentative essays are also referred to as position papers due to their justification of the side of the issue they are written in support of. If you're already searching for persuasive essay examples online, you most likely have a somewhat vague idea about how to get started writing. If you decide on something which you like, you are going to be much more inclined to put forth a great effort, and that will make your persuasive essay much better in the end. The purpose of this kind of essay is to encourage readers to accept a specific viewpoint or act in a given way. There's, naturally, a limit on the variety of pages even our finest writers can produce with a pressing deadline, but generally, we figure out how to satisfy all the clients seeking urgent assistance. It is necessary for a writer to study each side of the issue to be able to determine how to beat counterarguments. As a consequence the matter is a really controversial one and has attracted a good deal of debate. A debatable topic indicates either side of the issue to notify the reader about the size of the issue. The cost of an essay depends upon the total amount of effort the writer has to exert. The evidence presented need to be specific, for instance, the author can use information from 1 state rather than working with the entire population. In an effort to persuade the audience, the author should take a position at the start of the essay. He will easily select relevant information or fact based on the outline. Make an essay will not have any difficulty. A persuasive essay has to be based on sound logic and has to contain factual proof to back up the argument. A fantastic persuasive essay presents either side of an argument. It needs to have two sides, meaning that it should be a topic that can be debated. Educated people ought to be asked to volunteer as literacy tutors. Students ought to be permitted to pray in school. Prospective parents ought to be asked to take parenting classes. The secret to a very good essay is having the ability to discover the ideal info and communica te that information effectively and logically. To begin with, you may use reasons backed by facts to talk in your favor. Such information presents connected ideas as a piece of the evidence utilizing good reasoning abilities. All your evidence needs to be reasonable and dependable. All About Best Persuasive Essay Samples Year round school isn't a good idea. You're able to get essays written for you now and don't need to be concerned about lifting a finger. Unlike topics for middle school or higher school, superior college topics are somewhat more challenging to discover. The school day ought to be shorter. An argumentative paper is part of the persuasion. If you can select the matter by yourself, it's possible to think of the issue of interest! For that reason, it's vital to learn how to approach any issue with a strong focus on solving it.

The Domestication of Sesame Seed - Ancient Gift from Harappa

Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) is the source of edible oil, indeed, one of the oldest oils in the world, and an important ingredient in bakery foods and animal feed. A member of the family Pedaliaceae, sesame oil is also used in many health cure products; sesame seed contains 50-60% oil and 25% protein with antioxidant lignans. Today, sesame seeds are widely cultivated in Asia and Africa, with major production regions in Sudan, India, Myanmar and China. Sesame was first used in flour and oil production during the Bronze Age, and incense lamps containing sesame pollen have been found at Iron Age Salut in the Sultanate of Oman. Wild and Domesticated Forms Identifying wild from domesticated sesame is somewhat difficult, in part because sesame isnt completely domesticated: people have not been able to specifically time the maturing of the seed. The capsules split open during the maturing process, leading to varying degrees of seed loss and unripe harvesting. This also makes it likely that spontaneous populations will establish themselves around cultivated fields. The best candidate for sesames wild progenitor is S. mulayaum Nair, which is found in populations in western South India and elsewhere in south Asia. The earliest reported sesame discovery is in the Indus Valley civilization site of Harappa, within the mature Harappan phase levels of mound F, dated between 2700 and 1900 BC. A similarly dated seed was discovered at the Harappan site of Miri Qalat in Baluchistan. Many more instances are dated to the second millennium BC, such as Sangbol, occupied during the late Harappan phase in Punjab, 1900-1400 BC). By the second half of the second millennium BC, sesame cultivation was widespread in the Indian subcontinent. Outside the Indian Subcontinent Sesame was disbursed to Mesopotamia before the end of the third millennium BC, presumably through trade networks with Harappa. Charred seeds were discovered at Abu Salabikh in Iraq, dated to 2300 BC, and linguists have argued that the Assyrian word shamas-shamme and the earlier Sumerian word she-gish-i may refer to sesame. These words are found in texts dated to as early as 2400 BC. By about 1400 BC, sesame was cultivated in middle Dilmun sites in Bahrain. Although earlier reports exist in Egypt, perhaps as early as the second millennium BC, the most credible reports are finds from the New Kingdom including Tutankhamens tomb, and a storage jar at Deir el Medineh (14th-century BC). Apparently, the spread of sesame into Africa outside of Egypt occurred no earlier than about AD 500. Sesame was brought to the United States by enslaved people from Africa. In China, the earliest evidence comes from textual references that date to the Han Dynasty, about 2200 BP. According to the classic Chinese herbal and medical treatise called the Standard Inventory of Pharmacology, compiled about 1000 years ago, sesame was brought from the West by Qian Zhang during the early Han dynasty. Sesame seeds were also discovered at the Thousand Buddha Grottoes in the Turpan region, about AD 1300. Sources This article is a part of the About.com guide to the Plant Domestication, and the Dictionary of Archaeology. Abdellatef E, Sirelkhatem R, Mohamed Ahmed MM, Radwan KH, and Khalafalla MM. 2008. Study of genetic diversity in Sudanese sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) germplasm using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. African Journal of Biotechnology 7(24):4423-4427. Ali GM, Yasumoto S, and Seki-Katsuta M. 2007. Assessment of genetic diversity in sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) detected by Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism markers. Electronic Journal of Biotechnology 10:12-23. Bedigan D. 2012. African origins of sesame cultivation in the Americas. In: Voeks R, and Rashford J, editors. African Ethnobotany in the Americas. New York: Springer. p 67-120. Bellini C, Condoluci C, Giachi G, Gonnelli T, and Mariotti Lippi M. 2011. Interpretative scenarios emerging from plant micro- and macroremains in the Iron Age site of Salut, Sultanate of Oman. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(10):2775-2789. Fuller DQ. 2003. Further evidence on the prehistory of sesame. Asian Agri-History 7(2):127-137. Ke T, Dong C-h, Mao H, Zhao Y-z, Liu H-y, and Liu S-y. 2011. Construction of a Normalized Full-Length cDNA Library of Sesame Developing Seed by DSN and SMARTâ„ ¢. Agricultural Sciences in China 10(7):1004-1009. Qiu Z, Zhang Y, Bedigian D, Li X, Wang C, and Jiang H. 2012. Sesame Utilization in China: New Archaeobotanical Evidence from Xinjiang. Economic Botany 66(3):255-263.