Ch. 24

In the beggining of this chapter they talk about the relationship between the Barbie/Ken dolls and Sara/Dara dolls. They point out the specific relationship between Barbie and Ken and how they are a couple anf have been a couple for decades yet they are unmarried. In some cultures that is shamed upon. It is absolutely unheard of for a girl to be with a boy and kiss him for years and not have any legal attachment to him. By creating the Sara Dara dolls this clearly shows us other nations, such as Iran's, reaction to the values portrayed by Barbie/Ken. It is puzzling to think that they want to copy our ideas yet change the core values of them. I feel like those two things should come hand in hand. Although this is still a small step towards globalization. 

In this chapter we learn about the increase in globalization of money right after WWII. I have learned before that everyone had alot more money individually coming out of WWII but I did not know that increase was shown in world trade as well. 

It was a time where our entire world flourished. Large numbers of workers, both laborers and professionals, have moved all over the world from poor countries to richer ones. Millions more people have sought refuge in the West from oppression or civil war at home including hundreds of millions short-term international travelers and tourists. 

In my opinion this indirectly speaks to the world that as soon as people feel that they are at their most sucessfull financially their first goal is to migrate west. Which is very interesting to me. 

This may have had a great deal to do with the Feminist movement happeing in the 19th century in the west. It was an organized feminism movement that went against all historic understanding of women as “other” or deviant. This movement demanded the equal rights in employment of all women and equal rights in education and equal rights to control their own bodies. It is amazing to me to think that there was a time when women could not go out of their house without the permission of a man. It is absurd to think that women were not allowed to be as educated as men. This is sickening. Learning about the feminist movements really make me think about my grandmother and great grandmother and what they went through to get where they did. How far they must have come to bring my mother to a place where she was able to get a great education and how lucky I am that those women in history lived their life working their asses off to earn the rights that I  have today and dont think twice about.

Chapter 23

In chapter 23 we learn about the racism against the natives in Africa during the second wave of colonization. A focus that was interesting to me was the life of Nelson Mandel. It is admirable for a man to be able to put his life on the line everyday in order for the slightest possibility of giving the people he loves a better life. Even people he didn't love. He sought out to save his race. A lot of people were convinced that the Europeans harsh living situations were the only way. The majority of the towns were too scared to step up, speak their mind and aim for change. But Mandel wasn't. He strove for a democratic society and eventualy lead to the inspiration of independence in South Africa. The independence in India was also inspired by Ghandi. This chapter was very intersting to me. It is amazing to think that all of the history discussed was within a centry of today. I mean we were alive when all of this was happening and now its in our history books. It just makes you realize that history is in the making right now. What we do today will be written in books for years fallowing. Crazy.

Chapter 22

This chapter tells us about the rise and fall of communism. This mainly started in Germany. The berlin wall was a huge symbol for communism. It is crazy to me to think that one man started all of this in the 19th century. Karl Marx's ideas of a completely advanced nation. How can people give up there freedom so easily for the idea of equality. They might not have realized then that to be completely communist the rich needed to be willing to give up their belongings in order to make society more financially even not hoard wealth (which the christians had prohibited against). The communist party was able to put together highly organized meetings based on the ideas of Marxism. This honestly makes me sick to my stomach to think that millions of people were so easily brain washed by a charismatic man. For 25 years Stalin built the USSR into a socialist and then communist country but it was a struggle because they tried to expand and the US tried to expand our ways of governing as well. Eventually they won over China in 1921 when the Mao dynasty came into power.

Communist government had a close relationship with the industry. They saw industry as fundamental towards a poverty free life and the strongest possible military. They did this by giving property to the state and priority of property to big cooperations. They also had a centralized city plan that took 5 years to accomplish. Unfortunately their economies grew extremely after that. Education became better and technology advanced. This gave the USSR leaders a big head in a way to where they thought that they had accomplished so much and done so much for their people that they could now do anything they wanted. They began to lose hold of their revolutionary values and promises to their societies. They also became paranoid that other countries were out to shut down their system of government. Mao dynasty went as far as to kill millions of his own people who he thought was secretly supporting capitalism. That is when society should have noticed that there was something wrong with the mindset of their leaders. And soon they did, this caused the fall of communism in many places. Which then led to the Cold war. So many issues have been caused in this world all based on one thing, how to lead a nation. It is crazy to think that ultimately we all want the same things yet were gonna kill other human beings to achieve that! It makes so little sense when you lay it all out on the table like that. We want what is best for our society there for if our majority in America wants to live one way, just let us be! And if another country wants to live a different way good for them, that's their problem. I believe unless their is genacide being committed like there was in the Holocaust, then we should all accept the other nations decisions and back off. I know theres much more too it but when I am looking at it right now just the idea of war is frustrating me to the max. 

Intro & Ch. 21

Throughout this intro and chapter we discussed and read about the different types of crisis that came upon our nation in the 20th century. One type of crisis would be considered a political crisis. This was especially evident in the great war, WWI, as it brought the world different new types of warfare and weapons to add to the conflict of war. The motives behind this war mostly came from  things such as system of alliances, presence of empires and new industries. This political crisis carried on into WWII, Vietnam and even the Cold War. Another epic crisis faced in this century was the depression. This was an economical cris time where europe's economy basically failed. Many people lost their life's savings and unemployment reached 30% in Germany. More major conflicts our world faced was the Holocaust where countless people were killed in mass murders by the Nazis and there was also  the issues of nuclear threats by multiple nations.
A new political group was formed during this era that was called fascism. The beliefs in this group was extreme nationalism, charismatic leader, and the elimination of individualism and liberalism. This was apealing to those who were lower in the social ladder, it aimed for equality but came at a price that they did not see from the start. Mussolini's movement in Italy changed the entire country. He declared women as "baby factories". There are too many issues with making a country fascsist or communist I dont see how leaders can actually think that they are doing the right thing for their people by forcing that. It amazes me to think how many innocent lives are taken from the world because we have people like Hitler and Mussolini who want to kill hundreds of people in or to hold power. Hopefully our country will never be taken over by a dictator who has the influence to bring communism to the US. But who knows. 

Chapter 20 (pg. 589-614)

This chapter describes the second wave of European conquest. This was in Africa by the US Germany Italy Japan and Belgium. This establishment was built by military force. Unlike the colonies established in North America that were built by reform. In africa there was not a major demographic change because people who went there were only going as temporary settlers, not to set up a longterm living situation. But the fact that Europeans went into Africa and took over breaking up the peace in villages that have never seen western societies in their life. Many cooperated and joined the European army but there were also many who rebelled. The most well known rebellion group was the Indian rebellion. They took their troops and attempted to defend India yet the British soldiers were much stronger and had no mercy on the Indian people. This intensified the racial divide in India eventually leading to complete British control. 
When it came to living arrangements in these cities colonizers got the better end of the deal. Which makes complete sense when you recognize how they got there. If a group of people is able to come in out of no where and completely take over a town they will have no restrictions on how they run it. In the education department colonizers hogged everything. They believed that education should be for the primitive minds, leaving the natives out of that category. Even the most high up natives, in status, rarely made it to a school. 
How the colonizers treated the natives contradicted all of the morals that were imposed in the home of Europeans based on their core values. 
The economy was greatly effected by this wave of colonization as well. Raw materials were in high demand out of africa. This is when the Europeans began to take advantage of the natives. They felt the desire to produce more goods with less loss so they pushed natives to physical exhaustion everyday without pay. This led to starvation for a lot of people because they were not able to care for their own crops on top of the unpaid labor they were forced to do. Artisans that had made a living in the market their whole lives were now squeezed out by european trade.
As the agriculture industry became unbearable the colonial cities began to attract a lot of natives as they saw this as an oppertunity to move up in life. Here they were also closer to a western education. This education meant power of literacy to escape obligations forced on laborers and gain access to better jobs. Not to mention status within the colonizers views. It is amazing to me to see how these natives lived and how much they had to put up with from the Europeans. And yet they did and the ones that were able to survive did it was so much strength, I admire it. They would have done anything for a job sitting behind a desk all day as a receptionist and yet all of us today would hate to have that job because it is boring. Just thinking of the difference in the mindset of us today and them back then amazes me. 

Invisible Hand Theory & Communist Manifesto

The invisable hand theory sounds to me like the idea behind the way people live their lives today. A free market where anyone can be a buyer or a producer. Such as America today, any citizen can be whatever they want to be in society. It is all within the hands of the individual. The invisable hand is the governments watching but not handling the prices, resources of labor of any of the products being sold. That is about it about this idea. It is simple. If a man wants to succeed this policy is the best. It encourages growth within a special field of production and the need to produce more using as little material as possible. The chance to  earn a bigger profit flourished in this time. 
This idea was the nightmare that Marx pictured. He was communisms biggest cheerleader. In his writings of the communist manifesto he basically went through the guidelines and the perks of the communist system, in his eyes. He talks of equality between all no matter what rank. On the surface this may sound like a peaceful idea but deep down it is probably the sickest, saddest way of life on a society. Where is the chance to be unique, stand out and find who you are as an individual. Where is the chance to laugh at jokes told by others when everyone is too scared to say the wrong thing stepping out of line in society. A world of clones is what Marx wanted. How can you have happiness when you are repressed to being what the government tells you to be. I can't imagine the mindset of any one who would propose this and I am sad that there are people in societies that believe this is okay to be forced upon them. Karl Marx was, in my opinion, a psyco.

Chapter 18

 This chapter focuses on the industrial revolution in Europe. This was a time of change that many people were skeptical about. The IR was filled with new energy sources. For instance steam and petroleum engines made a huge impact on society. I'd imagine in the automobile/machinery industry. These inventions in Europe spread globally. Although not all nations are quit as successful or advanced in the industry world, every nation has conformed to its inventions in some way. There were some people who fought this cause though. They were fallowers of a man named Mahatma Ghandi who believed that the industrial revolution was a curse on economics. That it would eventually ruin our society. We have yet to know if that is true or not. Honestly technology has become so advanced throughout the industries that people are becoming dependent on their electronic devises. Is there going to be a day when someone will not be able to function without their SmartPhone in their hand?
I also found it interesting that Europe did not experience any technological revolutions until the late 1700's when many, many other countries began scientific discoveries in the 700-1400's. But a special fact about the European revolution and its workers was that the government had a special alliance with its workers. They would often receive special privileges. This was the governments was of encouraging commerce and innovation. They even imposed tariffs and patent laws to protect the businessmen. Britain was the host place for the revolution as it was the most commercialized and well known of all European countries. It also had a willing aristocratic population interested in commerce and a great supply of workers. The geography was convieniant with the road and canal system that greatly helped transportation run smoothly.

Chapter 17 Parts 1,2,&3 (499-524)

This chapter revolves around revolutions. The North American, Hatian, and French. The North American revolution in (1775-1787), aided by the French, eventually influenced the French enough that they start their own revolution (1789-1815), which I find very interesting. It is awesome to see a country work together as a whole to strive for a better life. In this case the French took over their land by dethroning the King and Queen when their government was going through bankruptcy. France broke up into many territorial departments that joined together to build one massive army. The army of 800,000 men was the biggest in the history of the world at that time. Napoleon took control through conquest, taking away liberty but giving the people social equality. Even though this lead to chaos and murder it was an eventful step for the French that would not have been possible without our inspiration. In fact, many americans believed they were creating a new world order. This by a powerful rule on the declaration of independence we created, "the right to revolt." 
Meanwhile was the Hatian revolution (1791-1804). This was a revolt driven by the slave population that made up over 90% of the entire population. This was unique because the power did shift to the slaves. Making this the only successful slave revolution in history. It was a very violent revolt. Way worse then the political revolution in NA and still worse then the French revolution. This revolution inspired hope to many slaves else where leading to more slave rebellions. But in the views of the whites in the country of Hatia, this revolution scared them so much that they all became conservatives. 
The Spanish American Revoltion (1810-1825) was easily motivated by the previous revolutions and their success. Yet they were not as organized as the others had been at first. This was because the government was more strict and there were little to no small organizations in towns that had a say in what their people wanted. Although they were able to gain independence it was impossible to unite the states like North America. Mostly because the distance was so greater between territories which lead to bigger differences in culture and experience. 
I enjoyed this section because I believe in human rights and hate to see people being exploited. It is crazy to think at one point humans thought murdering people by the hundreds in towns was okay to get a point across. Now a days that would never be allowed! How is it that our mindsets have changed so much? What was it that made our human race change their opinions of this act? or could it possibly happen again?....

The Prob. of Erocentricism

This section introduces the new kind of society called modernism and the power struggle between nations in 1750-1914, (aka) the long nineteenth century. This reading basically informs you of why this time period was nicknamed the long nineteenth century and why new types of rulers and their tactics. It also explains to us the reason and ideas behind Europe being the center of the world for so long and why this was flawed and fallowed. This section was full of information leading up to the next reading so theres not too much more to write about. Just the fact that we are seeing history evolve to a time period that is growing freakishly close to our generation today. 

Political Philosophy of the Enlightenment

The reading of the enlightenment was very hard to understand. Honestly I picked out bits and pieces of it but i have no idea if what I took from the reading was what his true and original purpose was. I thought that overall his idea was to emphasize the value of man. To advocate the meaning of freedom for the individual man. Despite those who fought against his ideas he was willing to think beyond the box others did make a public point to the world. But I am not certain if this is what the basic meaning was. 

Chapter 16 (477-488)

The European birth of modern science was a way of thinking that no one had ever imagined before. They relied on cosmos, experiments, observations, general laws expressed in mathematical terms instead of on external authority of divine scriptures. This would have been an amazing things to witness. Seeing people go where no one has ever gone before is harder to come across in our generation and era. The idea that science, evolution and understanding the domains of life in general, had not been discovered yet blows my mind. Eventually the ideas and discoveries that had been born by the European birth of modern science matched up with the industrial revolution. This was a time that many marvels of modern production and mechanisms for means of destruction evolved today. By the 20th century science was a marker of modernity throughout the world. The break through that awakened the world all started from a writer and his book. The author was Nicolaus Copernicus and his book was On the Revolutions of he Heavenly Spheres. This book gave light to the idea that the earth actually revolves around the sun rather then visa versa. This broke the idea that God created our planet and made it the center of the universe. The most well known contributors to the science progression of the 19th century were Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, and Sigmund Freud.

Chapter 16 (461-477)

In this chapter it talks of the different religious battles and conflicts. How Christianity was mostly refined to Europe in the early 1300's but then eventually stretched to England and to the west in Russia. Although within Europe there was a major division between Roman Catholicism and Christianity. This picture represented this idea strongly as it shows the hardships the churches faced. If you look to the right of the picture the smoke emerging from above the crowd symbolizes the way the churches began to crumble. The fight between religions and sanctions is shown as the two monistaries push away the two separate groups of people towards the left and the center of the picture. The people are obviously of two different groups if you look at their clothing and hair styles. The ones towards the center of the scene more then likely represent Catholic church as they resemble a monk type of man. The crusifiction of the lord is symbolic for the tragedy of the situation at hand. The lord also plays part the idea that is represented in the faces of all of the people in the room despite the different factions they are it, they all are clearly upset that the lord is being sacrificed. Which shows the irony in the picture and even the chapter in general, that these religions were all fighting against each other yet they stemmed from basically the exact same beliefs. 

Chapter 15 pt 2. (449-458)

Trade was a huge factor in the progress of the world from the 15th century to the 19th century. It came with many problem aswell as profits. Millions of people died.Not only death but also kidnapping from homes, forced labor, beatings, and even brandings occured. This event brought the strong african pressence to America that we have today. This was due to the size of the slave trafficking. Mediterranean plantations contained slave laborers known as "Slavs" but as the sugar and cotton plantations began to florish in the Americas portugues explorers soon went to Africa in search of gold but they found instead a sorce of slaves available. Through this Africans soon became the main sorce of slaves in the Americas. They were the most successful because they were permanent, expected cheaper wages and skilled laborers.Africans then became very capable of defending themselves against Europeans because Europeans were so succeptable to tropical diseases and did not know the terrain. There for the way Europeans to come by slaves then had to be through political agreements or through african merchants. The way the slave trade developed and changed throughout history is shameful to look back on. Although it helped us become the country we are today it was still inhuman and and showed a lack of moral fiber.

Chapter 15 (433-459)

        This chapter tells of how the Europeans traveled down the coast of west africa ending up in Southern India. In making this effort the goal of the Europeans was to attain valuable spices. For instance, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and pepper. These were used as preservatives in a lot of foods. The interest in Asia started after the Black Death in Europe. When Portuguese learned that many of the other ships on the ocean were not heavily armed they took advantage of this aspect. They went out on the sea with armed cannons. They officially had the power of the sea. I feel like this was a very smart plan by the portuguese. For a country to see this and seize the opportunity is impressive for being in the 15th century and not having knowledge of past wars to learn tactics. Spain was the first country to finally challenge the Portuguese. Philippines soon were forced to move out of their lands for Spanish settlers. This led to Filipino imagrants began to merge in with the Spanish in Manila. Chinese and Japanese moved to Manila aswell. But the Chinese were resistant to converge to Spanish ways and began many massacres. Ultimitaly Spanish killed about 20,000 people. This was definitely a tragedy seeing as how it was almost the entire Chinese population of the island. 

Handout: "Sweet Nexus: Sugar and the Origins.."

      This section of the handout informs us of sugar planting, harvesting, and processing is tiring, hot, dangerous work and requires a large number of workers. A problem from the very beginning of sugar processing in the new world was that there were not enough European settlers to work in the plantations and still make a profit when selling it. The solution they came up with was to force native americans to work on the earliest sugar plantations, especially in Brazil. This was completely unfair. The Europeans just came took over their land then forced them to work very long hours, while being underpaid and still give a profit to the land owners. For the next three and a half centuries, slaves of African origin provided most of the labor for the sugar industry in the Americas.

Men and women were expected to plow plant and harvest the fields. This was such excruciating labor it is hard to even imagine the idea of doing this as your daily routine. It says in this chapter that between 5,000 and 8,000 pieces had to be planted to produce one acre of sugar cane. Workdays in the fields typically lasted from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a noon-time break of perhaps two hours.

The slavery in this period makes me sick to think about. Mostly because when you think about where they were technologically wise and medicine wise it is no where. They had little to no vaccines. They had knowledge of probably 1 out of ever 100 illnesses we know of today. They put their body through hell in the process of harvesting this product. They had to stoop to cut the cane at ground level because the most sugary section of the cane is the lower stem. Harvesting cane was as backbreaking work as planting cane, and cuts from the sharp tools were common. Once the cane stalk was cut, slaves stripped any remaining leaves and stacked the cane. It then would be tied into bundles and loaded onto donkeys, wagons, or two-wheeled carts to be carried to the sugar mill. On top of that while they worked their owners walk through and whip the field slaves. Sugar cane brought on an extremely eventful era of new world. 

Chapter 14 (417-430)

 It makes me angry that the Russians went into America and used brute force to gain allegiance from the native people of the land. They had their lives all set up and were doing fine with the systems they had created on their own. Not only did the Russians come in and stir up the natives' customs. They also demanded tribute from them. This could be payed in cash, kind by native americans. This was completely unfair to the native people, first they are invaded and then they are forced to give their hard earned money to the tyrants. Thats like someone coming in your house taking over and then making you continue to live there and pay them what you earn for the rest of your life. There is no way that make sense. They were only able to do this because they were so technologically advanced. From siberians, they demanded furs. Especially the rare sable fur. Siberians have had these furs their entire existance and all they have know is how to use them sparingly so when they were forced to produce mass quantities of this product it was not only dangerous for the animal species but it was saddening in their culture. So many Russians came into Siberia that actually only 30% of the total population by 1720 was native Siberian.