Chapter 21

Chapter 21 discussed major events such as World War I, World War II, The Great Depression, and the beginning of the Holocaust.


WWI or the Great War was from 1914- 1918. This war is said to be the start of the Great Depression by the rise of Nazi and the horror of the Holocaust. The Great War was "a European civil war with a global reach". Alliances we formed, Triple Alliance consisted of Germany, Austria, and Italy, and Triple Entente consisted of Russia, France, and Britain. By the creation of these alliances, it created WWI or the Great War. Some factors of what contributed to the outbreak of the war were popular nationalism, industrial millitarism, and Europe's colonial empires. It was expected to be a quick war and Germany was defeated in November 1918. The war left disillusionment among intellectuals leading to questionings of the Enlightenment values and the superiority of the West and its science. The Great Depression was hit in 1929. It caused the contracting of stock prices to wipe out paper fortunes, many lose their life savings, the world trade dropped 62% within just a few years, and unemployment soared reaching 30% in Germany and the US. The Great Depression in the US was caused from the factories and farms making more goods than can actually be sold, the impoverishment of Europe by WWI caused Europe not purchasing American products, and Europe was recovering and producing more of their own goods, thus not exporting items. The Depression also created challenges for the governments because capitalist governments had thought that the economy would regulate itself, the Soviet Union's economy had grown throughout the 1930s and some states turned to "democratic socialism" with greater regulation of the economy and more equal distribution of wealth. The Holocaust took shape in 1889-1945 under the rule of Hitler.

chapter 20

Although I have so much more blogs to catch up on, I just had to post chapter 20 :)

Colonial Encounters


Reading about the colonial takeovers that happened in Asia and Africa were interesting to read. Around the periods of 1750-1900 is the establishment of the second wave. The second wave European empire are based on military force or threats. The original European militaries advantage lay in organization, drill, and command structure. Over the 19th century the Europeans had developed an enormous firepower (rifles and machine guns) advantage. The Europeans were exceedingly reluctant to allow even the most highly educated Asians and Africans to enter the upper ranks of the colonial civil service. Colonizers were also amazed at the different cultures have a way of counting and classifying their subjects, for example, in India, they appropriated an idealized caste system. Also, in Africa, they identify or invent distinct tribes. The various working groups include the migrant workers, cash-crop farmers, plantation laborers, domestic servants, the urban elites, and day laborers.

Somaly Mam

Somaly Mam is about a young girl who explains her story of what happened throughout her life. She thought of herself as "ugly" because she was dark skinned, because you are considered beautiful when you have a light complexion. She was put in this situation because the man she was living with most likely sold her. She referred to this man as "grandfather"and because he "belonged" to her she was his "indentured servant". What he does is rent out her labor for living with him. He jobs were first to fetch water for people then her grandfather owed money to a merchant and sent her to his house where she had her first sexual encounter. She was still very young when this happened and thought that he had been stabbing her with a knife. Her grandfather also molested her, but because she didn't know exactly what was going on she thought they had been punishing her. As she got older, she was sold to a soldier and forced to marry him. She wanted to get a job so she worked at a clinic. He didn't really approve of her working and always beat her and felt like she wasn't married, but more of his servant.

Chapter 15

The spread of the slave trade had begun during this time. The slave trade was the only one part of the international spread of networks in the world. The Spanish and the Philippines is an example of just that. Spain and Portugal was competing with one another to spread through the world. The Spanish established a base in the Philippines, named after the King of Spain, King Philip II. The first who went to the Philippines was Ferdinand Magellan. It was easy to take over the Philippines because they didn't have one central government, they had individual governments that made it easy to take over. The Philippines remained under the Spaniards control until 1898, where the United States then gained control. Some of the major effects the Spaniards had on the Philippines was building missionary areas for the Filipino society to focus on the major religion of the Spaniards and the country, which was Christian. Spaniards introduced forced relocation, tribute, taxes, and unpaid labor. They also made large estates for Spanish settlers, religious orders, and for the elite Filipinos. Manila was the major center of diversification.

Part 4 & Chapter 14

The Early Modern Era began in the 1450s and ended in 1750. To many of the historians, the term "early modern era" were used to suggest that during these three centuries we can find signs of a new era being born by the change in globalization, societies, and the growth of what is now called continents, especially for Europe.  One of the major changes was in globalization because of the many voyages they went on traveling through the oceans. They were able to spread out and expand their empire. The Western European empires had taken over most of the Americas by maritime expansion. A maritime voyager had three main things in mind, Gold, God, and Glory. When discovering the Americas, one of the main voyagers had been Christopher Columbus. When they had met the first peoples of the Americas, they referred them to as savages. Christopher Columbus had very mixed thoughts about the savages. He thought they were friendly, gentle, they handsome structure, and they thought of the men were so strong that they had the strength of 40 or 45 men. They already had a plan of taking over the land, but found that they didn't have to force them to convert them to their lifestyle. They were able to convert them to their religion and their lifestyle. But because the aboriginals weren't use to some of the things they had brought from Europe, they had gotten sick causing the "Great Dying", which drastically changed the numbers of Native Americans. It cause 80-90% to die, and exposed them to new diseases. Which did help the take over of the Americas.

spring 2011

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