Author: Jordan Becker

I had already known most of what we had talked about in class with the likes or urbanization and population growth. I even had somewhat of an understanding about future problems that would occur. One solution that I know of is that there is a growing movement of home made gardens. In cities there have been talks about having communal gardens at the tops of skyscrapers, or on balconies. This would help decrease air pollution, and give the people in the building a healthy natural source of food.

This is only a small solution and won’t be enough to stop the damage we do to our environment. I’ve heard that cities are starting to include more trees on sidewalks and make roads smaller. This would reduce sound pollution, which is a relatively new idea. The smaller roads would come with an incentive to use bikes or public transport to travel reducing pollution. There are a lot of examples of this in Europe. The amount of change that needs to be made is large and will face opposition, but it is not impossible.

Remember about two or three years ago when the trend of sending in some of your DNA to 23 and me, or ancestry.com was popular? Well my parents decided to participate and therefore sell their genetic information and, because they are my parents, mine as well to advertisers. Online personal privacy is a different subject, but my ancestors won’t know the word privacy after my mother digs up every last word of gossip about them. I know that over the years my mother has told me these seemingly crazy stories about my ancestors while I sat on the couch not paying much attention while on my DS. What I do know is where my ancestors came from thanks to those previously mentioned businesses. On my father’s side I have a lot of Scandinavian and German ancestry, and on my mother’s it’s French and English. My ancestors might have been vikings or colonists travelling to the new world. I travel a lot as well, I have to take a 7 hour drive from my home in PA to go here. So in a way we are very similar.

Both documents start out by saying how their people have lived in the land for centuries, and also been conquered/exiled. The two documents state these as reasons for their right to live in this land along with the fact that neither group has a country to call their own. Later on each declares their states founding as Jerusalem as its capital, along with a list of rights for citizens, which are very similar. The endings are wrapped up by claiming that their great struggle is over.

Religion is used as an example for why the two groups should be allowed to claim the land, and as a way of attracting immigration. The Israelis describe themselves as a people who have been driven from their homeland but still have held onto their values over this time. Palestinians have the same view but not as extreme, and they feel as if they have been betrayed by others for not being given a home. The Israeli document claims that Arabs in Israel will be seen as equals, and asks for their help in building the nation. It goes on to state that Israel wishes to uplift all of the Middle East. Palestine wishes for Israeli settlements to leave, and to live in the region peacefully alongside Israel. Both states seem to begrudgingly deal with each others presence, while both having claim over Jerusalem.

When European powers began colonizing parts of the world some of them, like Britain, saw it as a chance to build new nations loyal to the crown. It was a way to spread culture and a competition between European powers to see who’s society was greatest. In Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, it is explained that the British wanted to learn as much as they could from the subcontinent, “…establishing correspondence could make the unknown and the strange knowable”. The British wanted to use their newfound knowledge to improve their society as well as India’s, while still being under British control mind you. This all changed after the Sepoy Rebellion, and Britain would start to influence the people of the subcontinent to hate each other. Even though Indian politicians preach against the rule of the British they don’t try to fix the problems they created, in India at 70, and the Passing of Another Illusion, Mishra Pankaj states, “Nehru never let go of the British-created colonial state and its well-oiled machinery of repression”. The Cast system and a hatred towards Pakistan are two examples that still exist in India today.

Latin American has had a history of unstable democratic governments and stable authoritarian rulers. Both forms of government are inherently weak to outside influence. The difference is that almost all authoritarian rulers were backed by larger world powers. Mainly the Soviet Union and USA, in a set of proxy wars to gain influence among other countries in the Cold War.

The Soviet Union mainly funded communist revolutionaries in the Americas to have a foothold on the hemisphere. The USSR would then be able to threaten the US with nuclear strikes just like how the US was doing to the Soviets. The most famous example of this is when Fidel Castro overthrew the US backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. He was originally backed by the US until changing sides to the Soviets, which would lead the the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The fear of communist influence in the Western hemisphere would lead the US to overthrow any leader it could that showed the slightest hint of socialism, even if they held similar values. After overthrowing a possibly socialist leader the US would also take advantage of the region economically, and agree upon unequal deals to take advantage of the resources in the region.

1.  One of the themes of post WWII Europe was the crumbling empire. The war was a huge economic burden on the continent, and affected areas had to be entirely rebuilt. Following the war the powers of Europe would no longer be able to maintain their large overseas empires. Only Britain and the Soviet Union were able to somewhat maintain their holdings. but eventually Britain’s territories would cost too much of a toll to keep, and the Soviet union broke up before the end of the century.
2. The political topography of Europe changed in a way that made the continent more peaceful. Political parties on the opposite spectrum would have much in common, even in different countries. and with the movement away from old style political parties the continent came to a consensus on its beliefs and ideals. People also moved away from singular intellectuals who in previous generations tried to influence continental politics.
3. The posters from The World Transformed clearly show hatred towards Muslims particularly those who are immigrants. In today’s post 9/11 society people are terrified about the idea of their country having their own 9/11. Which leads to fear about terrorism, mostly Islamic terrorism. With the migrant crisis, and growing Muslim communities in Europe parts of the general public become worried. They turn to the state, and nationalism, which paints this idea of better times before the huge immigration crisis which makes immigrants out as an invading force. Some nationalism is good but like everything else too much of a good thing can turn out bad.