Part 6

World War 1 was a perfect storm. A system designed to keep the peace did not work out as planned. "The out break of that war was something of an accident, and that none of the major state plan or predicted the Archduke assassination or deliberately sought a prolonged conflict, but the system of rigid made Europe vulnerable to that kind of accident."(Strayer p 984). Ive noticed a pattern during this journey of world history. That is, it only takes one action small or big that can create conflict with a few individuals or cause a World War. One thing I did learn was why Mother's Day was created. It was created to encourage women to go back to work and not compete with men in the work place. "Women were urged to leave factory work and return to their homes where they would not compete for “men’s jobs.” French authorities proclaimed Mother’s Day as a new holiday designed to encourage childbearing and thus replace the millions lost in the war." (Strayer p.988)

ch 23

Globalization:  It's funny to mecalling a 800 number for product customer service line and the person that answers is halfway across the world. I think to myself how can you help me halfway across the world? That's surely a sign of globalization.  Thanks to technology things happen quicker and can reach millions with a push of a button. "Technology also contributed to the acceleration of economic globalization. Containerized shipping, huge oil tankers, an air express services dramatically lowered transportation costs, while fiber optic cables and later the internet provided the communication infrastructure for global economic interaction." (Strayer 1139). This is our modern day silk & sea roads. Products are reaching an abundant amount of people fast. As technology grows its goal is to make life easier & run smoother but sometimes it doesn't work out. For example, since we as Americans have a lot of our manufacturers overseas if there's a glitch in the system it makes it harder to receive our products. Another argument is the outsourcing takes spikes the unemployment rates.  If a manufactor desides to move overseas, then the current employees are out of luck.

Ch 2

I've always had a fascination with Egypt.  The pyramids have always interest me & I have a strong desire to see them in the near future.  Its hard to talk about Egypt without mentioning Egypt and the Nile river.  To this current day, its a mystery how the pyramids were constructed.  One of the theory is that slaves endured the harsh labor of construction.  I remember when I was younger  my father took me to the Discovery Museum to see a documentary "The Mysteries of Egypt".  The film started with the Nile River rushing north and fanned out to beautiful scenery.  In the film they challenged the theory of  that slave labor was used to build the pyramids.  The archaeologist said that there were not any signs of physical abuse on slaves body that would indicate abuse. That opened my fascination with Egypt even further because that gave me another angle to view things.




Although Strayer touches the subject of slavery in early civilization, he doesn't touch pyramid labor (at least yet). Strayer does touch on how the early Egyptians made an efficient lifestyle for themselves.   The Nile River was an exceptional resource for the Egyptians.  For thousands of years Egypt depended on the Nile for their agriculture.  As illustrated in the book, "Egypt, by contrast, created a more sustainable agricultural system, which lasted for thousands of years and contributed to the remarkable continuity of its civilization." (Page 82). Its amazing how a little change (in this case a big change) can have an effect on livelihood.  The Egyptians depended on the Nile to flow properly because they depended on wheat and barley.  Once the Nile went back to back with out flowing properly,  it started a domino effect in changes.  The pharaoh promised proper flooding of the Nile but nature had other plans. Since the promise of the pharaoh was broken, the Egyptians lost faith.  That's similar to our modern day society.  When our leaders don't make due of their promises, society will loose faith and stop voting or seek different leadership.

Ch 16 Atlantic Revolution

Its a shame that Haiti is still feeling the effects of the French colonization.  Its such a beautiful country but its over shadowed by its poverty.  Its surrounded by the most beautiful turquoise water that  I have ever seen but its being over shadowed by poverty. France for many years extorted it will take a few more centuries to ever recover.  Having visited Haiti its hard to ignore the impoverishment of the country.  Although my family and I were in the tourist part,  there were plenty of citizens begging for money or  asking to purchase little trinkets.  I do admire the Haitian resiliency in kicking the French out of there and reclaiming their land.  Unfortunately it came at a cost.  The French imposed a tax that the Haitians could never pay off.  Once a rich country, now in deep poverty.  As the book illustrates, "Widely regarded as the richest colony in the world, Saint Domingue boasted 8,000 plantations which in the late eighteenth century produced some 40 percent of the worlds sugar and perhaps half of its coffee." The only coveat that I see is that the so-called "wealth" did not benefit the native people.  He land was rich but the native people were not. At present day Haiti is still trying to find there way.  The neigboring Dominican Republic whom they share the island even with distance themselves from Haiti. Now that a natural disater occurs, there has to have world wide aid to help with the devestation.  No thanks to France on assisting.

Part 4

Part 4 The Early Modern World

 As much as I learned about slavery, it still amazes me how it happen, how long it happen & how it still plays a part in current times.  At first goods were traded then human beings. The justification for this was that Africans were sub human. Therefore the slaves were brought over to do the labor work that no others wanted to do. They were taken to thee sugar plantation and endured hard labor. One thing that was interesting to me me was where the word "slave" came from. According to the book, "Initially, Slavic-speaking peoples from the Black Sea region furnished the bulk of the slaves for the Mediterranean plantation, so much so that "Slav" became the basis for the word"slave" in many European languages." I  never thought of where the name came from because its such a horrific tragedy, the name is insignificant.
  I have mixed feelings about how the slaves were treated. Although not all slaves had the hard labor some were in the house or helping in the store. Whether in the fields or in the house it doesn't matter, there was nothing good about slavery. Africans were taken from their home, stripped of their families and language and taken against their will to a foreign placed and was dehumanized. What was "good" about that?

Chapt 3

I learned fairly quickly in my first year in college, that my previous teachings vastly differed. I feel that in High School (well at least in my High School)we were only taught about Slavery, WWII, and the Civil Rights movement.

Now that I have a better understanding of the Roman Empire, I'm able to relate some of their practices to our modern society.  Similar to the Romans, U.S. has their share of conquering weaker states. So are we Rome? If we're not Rome we are pretty close. We invade and make our presence known.  Although there are similarities with the rise of the Roman Empire and the rise of the U.S.; some Historians refute the comparison. As  the author Strayer mentioned," Historians frequently cringe as politicians and students use (and perhaps misuse) historical analogies....."(pg144)  I view the Romans as fearless. They conquer fearlessly but they also take advantage of the weaker states. The U.S. started with only 13 colonies and eventually ended with 50 states. There was a lot of blood, sweat and tears in order for these empires to be as dominate as they were/are.

During the rise of the Roman Empire, the Romans were able to build an army to evade the smaller states.  The Romans invaded and destroyed smaller states to make an example to the rest.  Other than displaying the characteristics of a bully, the Romans offered citizenship to the citizens they conquered.

1st test blog

I created my first blog . I'm done!