Week 4 Blog Post

This week we talked about the industrialization of the Rhineland and Ruhr Valley in Germany, as well as the growth in Bombay and Jaffa. On top of that, we read about the race war of the Philippine-American War.  In the lectures on Jaffa, Germany, and Bombay, we learned about the various reasons as to why these areas grew in population. Whether it be due to industrialization or the increase in mills, these areas had a population boom that made them into what we might see them as today.

In the reading about the Philippine-American war, one part reminded me about a topic in another class I had with Professor Shaya, Europe from 1890-1945. In that class, we discuss a lot about the rise of the Nazi’s and their propaganda tactics. Kramer, early in the reading, talks about guerrilla warfare and how American soldiers were led to believe that Filipino’s waged guerrilla wars, as in not conventional warfare. They were led to believe Filipinos as savages. This reminded me a bit of the propaganda surrounding the Jewish population in Germany and Poland between the two world wars and during World War Two. The comparison I draw is the dehumanizing of a population of people in an attempt to kill them. In the reading, dehumanizing Filipinos so American soldiers willfully commit such brutalities seen in the Philippine-American War. In Germany, to attempt to exterminate an entire group of people. The degree of the dehumanizing is drastically different and not on the same level, but the dehumanizing of the Filipino soldiers, as well as having Professor Shaya discuss 1900’s Germany reminded me of that course as well as help me make that comparison.

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