Author: Antuoine Hunt-Strong

1. One of these thematic shapes were globalisation, where countries in Europe wanted to become more interconnected and have greater influence with the rest of Europe and the world. This thematic shape emerged because of competition with other countries and their desire to get ahead of them. Competition created their need to expand their power, economically and politically so they conquered countries, specially in Africa where they profited greatly from. They formed alliances with other powerful nations, which helped eliminate conflict with them and helped each other gain new knowledge that benefitted their economies, through products and services.

2. The political topography of Europe altered dramatically, where there was a decline in membership and falling turnouts at the polls. There was a slight increase in the amount of political intellectuals, where more people became engaged in the science and ideas behind politics. However, more of the younger generation became less interested and worried about politics like Marxism and human rights, where they cared more about material products. Communism, war, censorship and the death penalty were also less an area of concern for the younger generation, where they had more freedom- with abortion and contraception being very accessible, and homosexuality was freely permitted and openly practiced.

3. Judt pointed out the European Dream as a life without complications, basically a life of leisure. A life of leisure meant that most Europeans didn’t want to be apart of another war and wouldn’t have to be because they only had one possible enemy, the US, that was on a whole other continent. One statement from The World Transformed was that part of Europe’s rightful role in the world was to be able to guarantee its own security. Judt wrote that Europe took considerable responsibility for its citizens’ welfare, security and well-being, so in this sense their rightful role in the world was fulfilled. Most Europeans felt safe with the presence of their military and government and as long as the nation insured the unemployed and educated children then the nations’ political state would not be questioned.

From this weeks readings and lectures, there were main themes of the racist nature of representations of Africa and the different experiences of decolonization. The racist nature of representations of Africa, brought growth and advantages to European countries and African countries being controlled, but also disadvantages  in some instances to these African countries. The racist representations of Africa brought growth and advantages to Europe through money from ivory and slaves and new places to inhabit and rule after conquest. This lead to a better economy for European countries and more global power. The racist nature of representations of Africa also brought a few advantages to some African countries, like growing populations due to new world crops and new medicines that essentially cured the plague. These advantages lead to muslim revitalization movements around Africa, that brought a sense of traditional culture back to Africa. Disadvantages included all of the negative repercussions of slavery, inequalities, unnecessary ethnic divisions and artificially drawn boundaries just to name a few.

The different experiences of decolonization were caused by Europe’s past unfair control of African countries. This unfair control led to competition between Britain and France; that caused divisions in power over African countries which later led to easier rebellion for some African countries, because most European powers were unwilling to spend massive sums used to suppress the movements. Other countries like Algeria, Kenya, Congo, Southern Africa and Nigeria were not as fortunate in rebellion efforts due to, ethnic divisions, lack of preparation for independence, Cold War policies and large European settler communities. These setbacks caused these countries along with others to decolonize slower which had negative effects in the long run.

East Asia in the early 20th century had a main theme of nationalism. The most powerful nations in East Asia in the early 1990s were China, Japan and Korea. All three shared similar political ideals that were drawn from Confucianism; these shared principles created a zone of sustained political engagement and occasional warfare. Occasional warfare with each other bound China, Japan and Korea together. Along with invasions of other nations and territorial expansion, this showed that these three were each equally powerful so the best solution was in a way, to co-rule East Asia with peace between one another. These characteristics gave all three nations their sense of nationalism. All shared a common written language of Chinese. Not to mention they all had geographical and cultural familiarity; via mainly trade routes and economic interdependence. They were economically interdependence, through metals, medicines and manufactured goods which increased global integration. This commonality and shared strengths also gave them their pride and nationalism. Along with turning their silver imports to commodities; like opium and ginseng,

The nations of China, Japan and Korea also shared a zone of cultural interaction and adaption. In post WWI Eastern Asia, this interaction and adaptation lead Japan to gain many Germany territories and several Chinese territories. This represented an extension of Japan’s rise to prominence after the Meiji restoration. With all of this Japanese expansion, the Japanese honestly had no other choice but to have a strong pride in their nation. The Japanese had no reason not to be satisfied and proud of their country, proud because of their expansion, their dominance and their economic success.

 

 

From the first half of the lecture on Wednesday, the guest professor talked mainly about Germany in the 1900s. He specifically referred to the Rhinelands and Ruhr Valley region of Germany. These parts of Germany were the farmland region but became the steel region in the early 1900s. This area now becoming the steel region, began shaping the rest of Europe because some of the most industrialized companies were located in this region.  Germany was not a main force in the world or in Europe prior to the beginning of the 18th century, then became a powerful force shortly after. Germany became a powerful country from 1871-1918 and pretty much stayed powerful for most of their history. I think this is interesting, because Germany went from being a mainly agricultural country to an industrial one when they realized they had the resources and potential to become a force in the world.  If they did not realize this when they did, they may not have ever became as powerful as they were and are today. In Germany iron ore and coal was plentiful, which was very beneficial for them to start a steel industry there. Without these two natural resources it would have been extremely difficult for Germany to become as successful as they did. However, since these two resources were plentiful, it allowed Germany to emerge as a foremost industrial power of Europe. This growth of power produced enormous wealth, created social dislocation, new political conflicts and a new German role in the world. This new role in the world lead Germany to believe they needed more arms in their military, especially the navy in order to compete with Great Britain; and more colonies/territories in order to expand German rule. All of these factors turned Germany into a powerful force in Europe which lead to them being one of the main countries on the Central Powers side in WWI.

From the Beijing lecture from Wednesday, I didn’t know that the 1800s famine was as overwhelming as it was and affected most of China. I find it interesting that it caused out migration from Southeast Asia to the United States, and I wonder if that migration brought in a lot of the Asian population that makes up the United States today. I know it doesn’t make up the majority of the population today but I am curious of how many migrated over at that time. I also find it interesting that the Taiping rebellion was the largest civil war in world history. That is crazy to think about because three million people were killed and I’m sure thousands more were injured and had near death injuries. The Taiping civil war sounds horrific and I think they should have battled the British instead of each other because the British were the ones who took over their ports and some of their land. However, I guess the invasion of the British and other European countries benefitted China and other Asian countries, in becoming as powerful and technology driven as they are today.

The creation of the Suez Canal connected Africa to Asia. This was very beneficial to European countries importing, exporting and traveling to places in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. This made their travel time to those parts of the world  quicker and more efficient. I wonder if the creation of the Suez Canal was beneficial to Egypt and other African nations. It definitely could have been, if those countries were free to sell their products to other nations without interference and control of European powers over there economy. It also would have been beneficial if the African countries had the means of making or buying ships in order to sell to other nations, if not then the Suez Canal had no benefit to Egypt and surrounding nations.

Elites of Japan responded the to shifts in the global economy and global balance of power, sort of late. It wasn’t until the 1860s when Japan modernized but they did so at a rapid  pace for years.

 

I agree with Bright and Geyer, that the strategies adopted to cope with the conditions of globality have changed over the last 150 years, rather than the idea of globality itself. This is true because every country has always wanted to expand and globalize to have more control, power and just better economic status and continue to do so. So that hasn’t changed but the ways to globalize and the ideas about globalization has changed.

I also agree with their idea that the parts of the world that aren’t as stable as the countries that are, are no longer trying to catch up with them-rather they are just trying to survive. Some countries that aren’t as stable may be trying to ‘catch up’ in a way so that they can be more peaceful and/or economically stable; but they are  really trying to survive. They might be too far behind financially, economically or politically to catch up with more successful and powerful countries, so all they can do is try to survive in the today’s society.