History of World Peace: Movements Matter and So Do You

History of World Peace PowerPoint Presentation C. Thoorsell 16-2013 With Sound FINAL

Please confirm I can use this SIX minute History of World Peace: Movements Matter and So Do You

Dear Ms. Andrews:

Please confirm I can use this SIX minutes to cover the presentations:
History of World Peace: Movements Matter and So Do You.

I was a bit nervous but grateful it is done.  The sound quality improves.  I hope this works and you will be able to run it on Tuesday night with sound.  I will be there early to make sure it works.  Thanks.

Cathi Thoorsell.
emaiL: thoorsell@aol.com

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Chapters 22, 23 and 24 - Thanks for the history lessons.

Chapter 22       The Rise and Fall of World Communism 1917 Present

The cold war was a threat to both United States and the Soviet Union bringing social impacts for both nations.  After World War II, the world saw what 25 million casualties in Russia could do to a social structure, World War II had above 60 million total casualties and the US and Soviet Union needed to recover, rebuild and redefine this relationship as world leaders.  Communist and capitalist ideals were at the heart of the conflict.  Global arms development was a real threat and the US and Soviet.  In 1991, Christmas, the gift to the world was the end of the cold war by the Communist Party banned in Russian and their own leaders involved in a coup.    

Chapter 23       Independence and Development in the Global South 1914-Present

I am most touched by Nelson Mandela and the grace he has taught me.  I appreciate his spirit and work in civil rights for Africa.  As this chapter looks at “Independence and Development in the Global South” it is the work of Nelson Mandela that lifts up the spirit from human to humanity.  To see a government like South Africa come from out from under apartheid and raise up to 1994, when blacks and white could vote and voted for Mr. Mandela to be the first black African president in South Africa.  This movement in South Africa is an interesting study in independence.  As liberation and equal rights entered South Africa, colonial empires ended and with every step towards independence, South Africa needed to recreate its identity. This country struggles with leadership, poverty and economic development.  Mr. Mandela was a great civil rights leader and a humanitarian.  News reports state he is near death and he will be gone soon.  The world looks back in shame as this great leader was incarcerated for so many years when South Africa could have used his greatness.

Chapter 24       Accelerating Global Interaction Since 1945

As we look to world history we see the veins of humanity in the heart of hope look out from the eyes of despair.  There is so much pain and injustice in our world, that in every civilization’s history, we find hope.  We step back with the sensation that man has the unique ability to live through war, create economic development through a recession, turn murdering war sites into memorial of reminders for a need for peace.  What a gift God gave us, to have a world of recourses, life with emotional intelligence and kindness of heart.  Yet like the spoiled child, we tear at the seams of humanity, break open the seal of trust and mask the laughter under the screams of the horror of wars.  Globalization is what is occurring today and it is the hammer that will level the playing field on the table we call humankind,  It is the best way for everyone to have a bit more of the hope life offers even this has a backlash.  As lower levels of development makes greater jumps into the economic role of life, the biggest movements still come from the top and we all hope there is a trickle-down theory.  What I see is a kick-down society emerging.  More millionaires turn to billionaires and the average worker is caught in a spinning wheel of no money, no education and very little advancement.  Maybe there will be a kick-down in the form of economic trade, loans or special programs.  The cost to these type of gifts or subsidies are often not fully understood until we look back at history and way justice measured against a Company’s quarterly results in our global companies portfolios. 

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HST 2020 World History, Summer 2013
Instructor: Patti Andrews, Notre Dame de Namur University
Student: Cathi Thoorsell
Ways of the World, A Brief Global History, Robert W. Strayer

Part One:                    First Things First: Beginnings in History

Robert Strayer’s teaches history in his text, “Ways of the World” by first defining some facts.  The years of creation of the world are set out like a picture from beginning to end, defining scientific principal, which seem beyond human comprehension, and developing a mutual understanding of the past. The author paints a landscape, which describes geographic and cultural details establishing a framework to understanding early civilization.  Providing an essence of a common culture, Stryer’s writing style paves the way for my mind to grasp that unimaginable: a flash of heat, or a big bang, where matter manifest into to highly creative and prosperous societies, developed over time, which formed our history.  Understanding context creates excitement. The use of common terms, in describing unbelievable accounts of the manifestation of humankind, provides a sense of human development and world history. Human creation and social achievement is formed by a step-by-step understanding of where we come from and where we are now.  Comparison, connection and change – the three C’s which define this study of our humankind’s origins  A look into humankinds’ first taste of ideologies, the birth of social class, common cross-cultural encounters, and the legacy of these changes and their impact create the story of our ancestors.  It is the understanding of these embodiments which form the picture of world history.

13.7 Billion years ago - The Big Bang: An amazing discussion of the discovery of an event discussed as if scientific study painted a landscape of the development of the universe and everything we know as real. 

12.0 Billion years ago to 1.3 Billion years ago - The stars formed: galaxies and creation of the solar systems, formation of the earth. Life on the planet came from the interaction of gasses and matter uniquely charged with influences which gave way to oxygen on earth. 

658 million years ago to 164 million years ago - From here it is a step forward from worms, fish, reptiles, trees, and dinosaurs. The large dinosaurs’ skeletons were exciting in museums. Dinosaurs looked huge, kind, humble and not fragile.  It was always a stretch of my mind to think of what caused their extinction.  The question of the same fate: could the extinction of the Dinosaur also cause the demise of humankind?  Humans are inquisitive enough to consider that Dinosaurs were real.  Science states around 164 million years ago Dinosaurs were in several varieties and cohabitated on the earth.  Today, they are no longer exist on earth. We better look at the science of what happened to them.  Humankind has an opportunity to look at all the species on this earth, inquire into the benefit of each, and controlling the influence of each.  History of the world teaches the story of humankind.  It is up to each human to learn the story of the world and use opportunity to benefit the world.

2.7 million years ago – humans – or human like creatures.  How many species of humans are there, were there and what defines this?  DNA can now be analyzed and I wonder what mine will tell of my ancestors.  Are they so different from yours?  DNA is unwrapping history like a present of our past.  Science can only benefit humankind if we learn from our past, and prioritize our social and environmental needs over individual greed.

250,000 years ago Homo sapiens first emerged.  The first 150,000 years of human experience was in Africa.  Paleolithic era or “old stone age” people were on earth and lived until the Ice Age. 

100,000 years ago, settlements planned around seasonal game.  Paleolithic art suggest migration, hunting and family cultures where were cultural universal themes during the Paleolithic era. After the ice age formed land bridges the opportunity to travel was defined and global nomadic resettlement.

12,000 years ago – Agriculture gave us the roots of civilization during the Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution era.  Humankind refined technology to travel and farm. The domestication of animals and tools provided dominance over the environment and social leaders formed small cities and infrastructure. The migration of people allowed the growth of a wide variety to harvest, to store and increase trade. Development based on the evolution of power over plants and animals.  We have over 200,000 plant species and only several hundred of those are domesticated, and five of those supply half of the calories for humankind consumption these days.  Much like the Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution, current global food production companies still genetically modify ears of corn, still try to meet the demands of growing populations, still try to survive an unknown future.  Looking at the era of the Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution, social similarities are too obvious to overlook: the need for clean water, controlled irrigation, clean farming, high performance fertilizers, food production, security of the boarders, control of the religion and political forces, domestication of plants and animals, all utilized to provide people prosperity without illness.  Society still strives for deliberate dominance over environment to enhance food production.  Prosperity in society is still judged the same as during the Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution era.  The literate are honored, the rich given power, and the inequities among same-clan members remain in our culture today.  Often the details of cultures are vastly different but if you look at what evolved out of the Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution it is apparent that there was global expansion of wealth, dominance over people, plants and animals, establishing a set a pattern of domestication by dominance under the guise of prosperity.  The Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution brought humankind into a place of deliberate domestication. The progress of this era was extensive and spread globally.  Genetic engineering is over 6000 years old.  Corn was first domesticated during 4000-3000 B.C.E.   When corn was less than inch, Neolithic / Agriculture revolution, it was manipulated from harvest to more than six inches by the year of 1500 A.D.  Corn is now over twelve inches long and used as a staple in feeding the world globally.   

2,500 years ago – Birth of Buddha and Greek Civilization.  2000 years ago – Birth of Jesus.  500 years ago – Artec and Inca Empires.  October 22, 1734 - (1734-11-02)November 2, 1734 the life of Daniel Boone, explorer, most famous of my ancestors.  1950’s – present, the life of author of this blog and student of World History.

Chapter 1.  First Peoples: Populating the Planet, to 10,000 B.C.E.
Paleolithic, trance dreams, dream time, Venus figurines (25,000 years ago, female sexual statures with curves were sexy and ornate, indicating women as cherished art forms and sexual refinement), social cultures of hunters and gathers, social and political resolution styles, sharing common goods and power: the leveling of wealth.  This was an exciting and long part of human history, not the cave man, but real family humans with lucid dreams.  

Chapter 2. First Farmers: The Revolutions of Agriculture, 10, 000 B.C.E-3,000 B.C.E. 
Neolithic / The Agricultural Revolution, a time of great migration and innovation.  Sophisticated social changes occurring globally defining food production, economic growth and social dominance. Herders and famers, grown from the ancestors of hunters and gathers, gave raise to animal husbandry, genetic engineering, textile development, metal work, technological and urban advance of waterworks and ultimate  power.  Advance farming techniques, control over the environment by gaining control over the resources, allowed for successful migration of crops and humans.  This transformation was global and provided settlements to become prosperous.

Chapter 3. First Civilizations: Cities, States, and Unequal Societies, 3500 B.C.E. – 500 B.C.E.
Civilized people are refined, organized, develop infrastructure, create pyramids, build temples, support palaces, write literature and read poetry, create complex calendars, define social class, revere the privilege, while creating slavery and the birth of large-scale warfare.  During the First Civilizations, social ethics are entering humankind and the social norms are determined by cultural conditioning from leaders who control economic and spiritual mindsets.  There is state oppression and inequalities formed in cities, controlled by statesmen, who systematically minimize the equality of woman and others.  Power goes to the leaders of the state, or the Kings, who teach they are acting from teaching of a God, that will offer eternal life – if you allow yourself to be dominated and allow the domination of others.  Early civilization tax, support wars, and have epidemic disease control concerns. Members of these societies want to lead, others destine to follow.  Many believe in a future, some plan an escape.  Early civilizations reflect many of the same human traits of the global societies of today: from family to farms, birth to death, marriage and ceremonies, sexual conquest and the laws of betrayal, choices evident throughout our history.

Part Two:       The Classical Era in World History 500 B.C.E. – 500 C.E.

Chapter 4         Eurasian Empires, 500 B.C.E. – 500 C.E.
The distance of time and place left a void of understanding of how people lived in our first urban societies 2500 years ago. Persian Empires and the Greek Empires are societies felt foreign to me. Where civilizations were strong and growing having in place kings that controlled and citizens that were dominated, depicted humankind was successful at urban development and lacking basic understanding of morality and humanistic kindness.  Civilizations formed as large societies with economic development. Most leaders were killing and conquering neighboring lands to fuel their empires. Social integration was by force. The imperial states displayed brutality on others to gain land, slaves and cultural exchange. Great Greek rational thinkers discussed democracy and freedom as an ideal to social change, they challenged humans to think logically.  Socrates, a philosopher in Athens, Greece, questioned what citizens thought about the state of democracy in Athens, classical era. Socrates wanted the citizens to think about the government’s agenda of the accumulation of wealth over wisdom, and to discuss the world with logic and rational thinking, and to question authority.  His outspoken teaching style, which was critical of the Greek government, made him feared by the authority.  Discussions of what constitutes a good life threatened these rulers. Socrates was sentenced to death by the same Athens’ government which he taught others to question.  The death of this well known Greek thinker, communicator to the commoner, had to be known to many as inhuman.  Socrates death drew attention to the inequity of the leaders. His death left commoners thinking about justice, and what part they each played in civilized humanity.   

Chapter 5         Eurasian Cultural Traditions, 500 B.C.E. - 500 C.E.
The culture of the Classical Era is still an influence on modern man today.  The classic thinkers and philosophers are studied for their wisdom of social order and mystical beliefs.  The religions founded during this time are still followed today with societies still studying Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism.  The Old Testament recorded social traditions and this legacy is still a global ideology which causes conflicts to this day.  War was the way to power but war also brought social chaos.  Leaders looked for ways to provide social order, as chaos proved to be expensive and inhuman.  China codified rules and laws outlined to control social disorder through a system of Legalism, a state mandated way of rule of right and wrong, in an effort for equity and justice. The actions and consequences were outlined to make individuals accountable for social actions.  China was harsh in its punishment which was state mandated but inequitable.  Brutality made the practice of Legalism impossible to enforce since inequality was built into China’s social structure.  

Chapter 6         Eurasian Social Hierarchies, 500 B.C.E. – 500 B.C.
The Caste system in India distributes humans in a social structure that indicates they should be shelved for production and punitive placement.  The citizens are controlled in an economic and social system that is derogatory, discriminatory and limiting.  Herding of humans gives the government power to protect its own class elitism, establishes authority over migrating groups into India, and provides placement of social status of all citizens.  This system is still in place today, proof that humans are happy adjusting to their place as it and find it difficult to challenge to authority of what may be their natural destiny.  India is populated with citizens who find harmony in inequality. With a history of cultural beliefs defined in Hindu philosophies, the act of disobedience would not be good for spiritual progress.  India’s social system has supported this Castes system and it manifest into social mainstream today.  Slaves are in these early societies but Indian tried to provide a human treatment of slaves through the Caste system where they lowest class was disbursed among the Varna and slaves could inherit and earn money.  China had a society with one percent of the population as slaves, Greeks had one third of their total population as slaves, while Roman Empires had forty percent of the population as slaves and the treatment of human as animals was barbaric.    

Chapter 7         Classical Era Variations: Africa and the Americans 500 B.C.E-1200 C.E.
The expansion of humankind into the Americans with math in Peru, and an agricultural revolution in the Mississippi River Valley, portrayed expanding humanity and cultural diversity into civilizations.  Large and expansive social movements developed farming and industrial development from Africa to the Americans. A complex urban economy was evident as artifacts showed music, art, rituals, and cultural events to be global. 

Part Three:     An Age of Accelerating Connections 500-1500

Chapter 8         Commerce and Culture:           500-1500
At the time of postclassical era, trade routes emerged which linked societies and cultural providing progressive and economic diversity. Three major economic zones developed, the most famous was known as the Silk Road, and has existed for over two-thousand years.

The Silk Road was a trade route across Eurasia linking several routes across the land between Arabia, Persia, India, Turkestan and China.  People crossed in camel driven caravans, and later horses, carrying products to trade with citizens of other cities and other countries.  Consumer items of raw materials, artifacts, medicine, spices, food items, and weapons, were traded with others providing economic develop and a prosperous commerce to the region.  Cultural exchange was most successful when the large and powerful states secured the terrain for the merchants and travelers of the Silk Road.  The Sea Road and the Sand Roads were progressive and dangerous routes of trade.  The Indian Ocean was the route to exchange between China and East Africa tied together by merchants who visited urban centers along the Indian Ocean bringing trade and economic development. The Sahara linked North Africa and the Mediterranean and is referred to as the Sand Road.  The Sahara had valuable resources of copper, salt and gold.

Resources and the diversity of exchange brought development into urban and rural regions. Trade offered an opportunity of civilizations to thieve socially, culturally and economically. Commodities were traded along with religious ideas and artifacts.  Diseases that traveled these routes were also exchange. Diseases caused an estimated 10,000 deaths per day die in 534 C.E. in Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire.  Between 1346 to 1350 one third of the population of Europe died from the Black Death, a plague carried from China to Europe. This exchange of diseases also carried immunities and common medical remedies, marrying the separate cultural believes into a thriving and expanding diverse prosperous civilization.

Chapter 9         China and the World: East Asian Connections 500-1300
The Tang dynasty (618-907) hard work was the foundation for the prosperous Song dynasty.  It was the Tang dynasty which had a civil engineering system sophisticated enough to build canals, with 1,200 miles of length, providing water to the northern and southern parts of China. The canals provided infrastructure to China.  The canals were combined with waterways, a route to trade China’s vast resources.  Providing economic trade and prosperity to over 30,000 miles waterways, combined with China’s population growth, a successful economic civilization developed in advanced agricultural developments and sophisticated enterprise. It was this foundation which provided for the “Golden Age” of the Tang and Song dynasty (960-1270) extending power via trade with central China.  Their system of government, states with ministries, is similar to the cabinet and state structure of the United States.  These two dynasties were prosperous and growing in population, with about 120 million people by the year 1200.   The most urban country in a postclassical era was China and the city of Hangzhou was the capital of the Song dynasty.  Hangzhou had an estimated population of more than a million people.  Other civilizations took pride in trying to reproduce the Golden Era in their own countries by learning from China.  Korea had influence from China and was able to maintain independence but used the tribute system of China to gain a gentle political subordination.  Not everyone wants to be controlled by China. The Trung Sisters of Vietnam in 39 C.E. set the tone for revolution by rebelling against the Chinese stronghold into Vietnam.  The Trung Sisters committed suicide when they rebel forces were taken over, but Vietnam remains an independent and separate state from China.  China continues to have cultural and economic influence on global civilizations.  This dynamic relationship between China and the rest of the world continues to exist today.

 

Chapter 10       The Worlds of European Christendom: Connected and Divided 500-1300
The study of European civilization during the High Middle Ages show that the population in Europe was about 35 million people in the year 1000 and about 80 million by 1340.  There was a sense of stability and peace and climate changes brought agricultural development which was needed since the populations increased in Europe.  The expansion of people caused forest and outer lands to turn into towns and the forest of Europe were on decline.  Major cities were experience economic and cultural developments with London have about 40,000 people, Paris about 80,000 people and Venice had about 150,000 people by around 1400.  By comparison, in 1000 C.E., Constantinople had about 400,000 people, Cordoba in Spain about 500,000, and China’s city of Hangzhour had more than 1 million people, and the Tenoctitlan, the Aztec capitol, had about 200,000 people, during the same period.  The focus on agricultural and economic development was largely impacting the landscape of civilization.  Education and skilled professions thieved with people have great opportunity to self identify and self motivate.  Woman, men, poor and elderly were all provided opportunity to claim prestige by being a person with a skill rather it be that of a merchant, farmer, physician, or prostitute, there was an amazing wave of urban development which raised the standards of lifestyle for the Europeans.  With technologies proving progress civilization grew and some individual rights were left diminished.  Expansion brought conquest and cross-cultural contact with India, China and Mongolia.  The great prosperous population boom of the High Middle Ages had imminent changes in the culture and solvency of Europe. Kingdoms grew weak with expansion and it just took time before that feeling of peach and stability gave rise to war and chaos.

Chapter 11       The Worlds of Islam: Afro-Eurasian Connections 600-1500
With the birth of Muhammad Ibu Abdullah  (570-632 CE) in Mecca came the birth of a new religion: Islam.  The experience that Muhammad of a powerful religious experience had him believe he was a messenger of Allah to the Arabs and it was his task to bring scripture to the people.  The Quran was written and was, and still is, considered the sacred scriptures of Islam which Muslims see as the words of God.  The Quran is the message of the law of God and sets out the belief that a person should submit to Allah.  There are five requirements the faithful must practice, called the Pillars of Islam, and the devout show their devotion by following these five rites.  Islamic religion was a new faith which grew popular and was said to consolidate Islamic control throughout Arabia.  The growth of the Arab Empire, and Islam, was immediate and powerful.  Between 622-900 C.E. Islam spread through Europe to China, Spain to Indian and the Arab empire controlled these lands.  Islamic civilization was had both internal and external conflicts in their religious views and there was division of Muslim identity among regional groups.  These conflicts and divisions exist with Islam today.  People still fear the spread of Islam and consider the religion far from the peaceful goodness that Muhammad had envisioned.  There is a real separation of women and men in the Islam faith.  Isolation, separation and the control over woman in Islam societies is considered frightening.  The “honor killing” of woman by men is the most dishonorable thing in Islam.  The control over woman’s sexuality found in misinformation taught as religion, provides cultural misguided influence of Islamic religion, which also offered prayer, and devotional love of God.  Modern man and woman find this conflict to be deep within the interpretation of the Quran and the conflicts stay global to this day.

 

Chapter 12       Pastoral Peoples on the Global Stage: The Mongol Moment 1200-1500
When a civilization grows from a nomadic tribe into a network of exchange and communication that has a population of about 700,000 people, it makes modern made have a bit of respect and interest  The Mongol Empire grew from tribal alliances, led by a leader that left a history of being a barbarian.  The approach which Chinggis Khan took was to facilitate a sense of worth with alliances between others that was not dependant on the tribe or kinship relationship being the only allies.  You could have power and respect by supporting the central cause of the Mongol Empire, expansion and power, and have a position in this empire of the pastoral nomads.  The Mongol Empire brought together villages, animals, trade and technologies spreading economic and cultural exchange across Mongolia and into the Pacific coast of Asia to Eastern Europe conquering the land and people in between.  The Mongol’s destructive behavior, lack of tradition and sophistication of culture, and limited leadership provided a weak stability in their reign.  They had a brutal army known for terrorizing and exploiting others causing destruction across the vast regions they ruled.  It was during the Mongol siege of Caffa, in 1347, where the Mongol warriors saw justice was served as their army was exposed to the plague.  The Mongols threw corpses that had the plague into the city using their catapult technology to cause fear to the city of Caffa.  This was biological warfare and justice, like disease, is blind.  The Mongol army was exposed to the plague, as was the Islamic world, China and Europe and about half the population died within a few years.

Chapter 13       The Worlds of the Fifteenth Century
The poet Nezahualcoyotl (1402-1472) and King of Texcoco, Aztec Empire, writes:

“Truly do we live on Earth?  Not forever on earth, only a little while here, Be it jade, it shatters.  Be it gold, it breaks. Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart. Not forever on earth, only a little while here.  Like a painting, we will be earased.  Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth.  Like a plumbed vestments of the precious bird. That precious bird with an agile neck, We will come to an end.”

This poem, which was written by a king, shows wisdom, humanity, and awareness.  It was the king’s personal reflection that life is fragile.  A king whose is known for leading a civilization that practiced warfare, human sacrificial rituals displays his awareness of humanity in a cruel civilization.  A civilization whose population was about 5 million people, with a tribute system much like that in China, where riches and merchants prospered, and which was also unstable and unkind.  Nezahualcoyotl expressed in eloquent words, worthy of a king, that he shared the Aztec belief that destiny was in sacrifice and eventually, the end.

 

Chapter 14       Empire and Encounters 1450-1750

The 15^th century is the history that I remember learning as a child.  Early Americans, the colonial society which entered from Europe into the east coast of New England and New York.  Places I knew existed as a child: Plymouth Rock and Governor’s Island.  I remember learning that British setters came to America and settled here and as a child this caused confusion.  What was the big deal?  My childhood confusion was centered about the awareness that people already lived in American.  Learning of Columbus’s expeditions of 1492 brought with it an awareness of foreign cruelty to indigenous Americans.  People already lived in American.  It appeared to me to be common of Europeans invading the land of others.  Their show of arrogance and brutality became a historic even. Was it ignorance that school children were taught that Columbus was the person worthy of a place in history?  It was the Native Americans who were the real jewels of humanity and worthy of a place of honor in our history.  Columbus sailed into American and set off an unplanned genocide.  Columbus’ expedition carried diseases to  indigenous Indians who lacked immunity to fight.  Ultimately, millions of native American’s died caused from unknown diseases exported in from the trade routes of Europe and Africa.  The population in the Western Hemisphere went from around 80 million people, before Columbus’ expedition to the Americas, to a loss of about 90 percent of the indigenous population.  Such a substantial loss of people was not the goal of the European expeditions.  This form of warfare was biological.  The impact was of such a magnitude that survivors are still looking for answers and from what we know - it was a unplanned genocide.  The world in North American would look very different today if European explorers had kept their distance.  Early modern era European expeditions caused a devastating impact around the world.  The quest for resources for global expansion, led the Europeans into expeditions which ultimately responsible for the deaths of around 72 million people in the Americas.  A modern day comparison would be the number of Jewish people who died in the holocaust, which was around 6 million.  Total deaths caused by the Holocaust represent a total loss of people in numbers which estimate at 21 million humans.  The loss of these people will never be fully appreciated.  Society should do what it can to preserve the rights of humans to live in culturally diverse societies. 

 

Chapter 15       Global Commerce 1450-1750

During the early modern era, the trade of humans is a fascinating study of humanity and the character of man.  Studying sociologic behaviors is an interest in the quest to understand World History.  When we look back in history, scholars depict an environment which has humans trading humans and acting savagely with brutality. The slave trade led to deaths and disruption in millions of human’s lives. Yet, slavery is still alive today.  The annihilation of human rights of slaves, the debasing humanity, and exporting cruelty are all byproduct of the slave trade.  A global epidemic of inhumanity was exemplified in the sale of children, men and women whose commodity was their sex, strength, and skills.  Slaves moved globally from Africa to the Americas.  A slave’s outcome was uncertain and often their capture led to their early demise. People planned their expeditions to travel into other lands.  The expeditions of the Europeans were not just for political and cultural exchange, they for other countries resources.  Often these expeditions were the cause of many battles.  This early modern era exchange was really the first economic and social enterprise that was global.  The early inhalation of the American Indian populations, caused by the exposure to European explores, led to an enterprising exchange between foreign countries who demanded exchange of critical resources like guns, coffee, tea and textiles.  It was the need for European cultural expansion which led to the genocide of the American Indians.  This population loss was vast and rapid, leading to the European’s victory over the land and the people of the Americas. The desire to inhabit the Americans, and acquire resources, pushed the European nation notion that they could build empires out of other’s land and use the survivors (of their own biologic warfare and genocide) as their new source of slaves.

Chapter 16       Religion and Science 1450-1750

It is hard to look at human behavior during the early modern era without studying the impact of the dissemination of Africans into the world of the Euro-Americans.  What would the world look like today if Africans’ saw another tribe member as their kin and had a history of kindness?  The African people sold each other.  It is hard to understand how a neighbor would sale a neighbor but they did.  In their own country, African men, women and children were sold through a brutal chain of animalistic barter which had about 60,000 people a year leaving Africa during the 1750’s.  A person could be from the countryside of West Africa and end up the Americans, or in Brazil or the Caribbean, in North American or in Europe.  Only 85 percent of slaves made it to a destination and the other slaves died died in transit.  The slave contribution to the Western Hemisphere’s was significant with the expansion of agriculture.  Trade routes were full of slaves who moved out of Africa and into the commercial expanse of the world along with global commodities.  The technological and sociological exchange which was inherit in the African-source slave trade, has yet to be fully understood.  What is understood about slavery is an inhuman socialization of immigrants.  The justification of human expansion based on slave trade to fulfill a need for cultural commercial products depicts a humanity that is arrogant and unjust.  Migration is still a cause of struggle for civilization.  When we try to balance the distribution of limited and vital resources, the demand of labor to facilitate trade of commodities, is balanced with the equality of human rights.  

Chapter 17       Atlantic Revolutions and Their Echoes 1750-1914

The Atlantic Revolutions are broken down into three “acts” with Act One beginning with the North American Revolution (1775-1787), Act two was the French Revolution (1789-1815) and Act three, the Feminist Revolution (1791) with New Zealand the first country to give the vote to adult women, Finland gave the vote to women in 1906 and in France 1945, after World War I.  In the United States of American we passed the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Guarantees All American Women the Right to Vote.  What character it took for people to fight for human rights, many died in these fights, and the outcome of revolutions often has a surprising cultural adjustment which was never the basis of the original conflict.  Although these revolutions served a different purpose, each on was a milestone in the mark towards individual freedoms.  Today, have a revolutionary process occurring in American and that is the right of gay marriage, a term that does not bring justice to the marriage equality act, but a revolution taking place today which the Supreme Court may rule on this week.  People have died in this revolution also.  The outcome of the Supreme Court ruling will indeed have a surprising cultural adjustment, like same sex marital taxation and alimony, which were never the original intent of the revolution.  Like many revolutions, we take this action state by state, with California trying in 2008, small attempts to change the larger act of justice our cultural would like see as law.  Will we amend the Constitution with another statement of declaration of rights for men and woman, equal under the law to marry.  If so, what will be the Amendment of the Constitution after that one?  We look to history to see how the countries, states and humanity evolves into one or divides into territories, and see that we are still individuals who seek our own enlightened states.  

  Chapter 18     Revolutions of Industrialization 1750-1914

“At the heart of the Industrial Revolution lay a great acceleration in the rate of technologic innovation, leading to an enormously increased output of goods and services.” (Strayer, page 528). In Britain this revolution span between 1750-1900 with the industrial output increasing an estimated fifty times. This time was considered the “Culture of Innovation” where humankind was transformed by the machinery and engines, the textile machinery (cotton gin, power loom, and spinning jenny). As revolutions go, there was movement forward for humankind and movement backward, changing the landscape of economic development on a global level and changing social structures and humans dependence on technology.  Every industry changed with innovation.  The goal was of providing more productive technologies.  From the invention of lightening rods of Benjamin Franklin in 1752, the English dictionary by Samuel Johnson in 1755, and even water was transformed by Joseph Priestley in 1767 with the invention of soda water, and by 1776 we had the submarine invented by David Bushness, and 1873 brought inventions of the first parachute by Louis Sebastien, and the hot-air balloon invented by the Montgolfier brothers, innovative technological advances were on the raise.  The irony is the at 1789 the guillotine was invented, which was used so much in the French Revolution, and causing the death of many humans and their leaders, King Louis XVI and his wife both dying by guillotines.   Thomas Edison alone received over 1300 patents in his life.  Today, in the U.S. current patent rates surpass that of the Industrial Revolution, when the patent rates were their highest.  Many of these inventors were blue collar workers and their efforts provide the industrial revolution the technologic advance which changed the lives of average people, and many of these technologies are used still today.

Chapter 20       Colonial Encounters 1750-1914

The colonial influence was global and colonial rule reminds me of racism, elitism and something better left in the past.  There are a few ways to look at the advantages of a colonial era and many other ways to see the disadvantages but the most influential, in my opinion, is the people can be defined by their oppression and raise up to resist oppression defining something better, bigger and resistance to exploitation.  As we compare the past colonial era, we can also look to the further as the “colonization of the moon” has always been in science fiction literature.  Modern era suggest it would be a great experience for mankind but thing of the oppression this would bring to you as an individual or to your social circle.  Karl Marx said “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please nor under conditions of their own choosing.”  (Strayer, Pg. 614) The true test of freedom and liberation is that humans make their own conditions, write their own story, self-creative in their definition of their own legacy, without the influence of oppression and exploitation to others.  Maybe the only way this would become another colonial era is if we did start civilizations on the moon.  

Chapter 21       The Collapse and Recovery of Europe 1914-1970s

The great depression was the time when economic development and fiscal innovation was really necessary to change the pace of a great failure of the current system.  World War I had ended and the social-economic situation was poor, depressed, with the burden of hunger, joblessness and stagnation into Europe and America.  When the stock market crash happened in 1929 most money makers lost their ambition and there was a profound sense of hopeless.  It took great leadership for Franklin D. Roosevelt to put a team together and present the New Deal which provided jobs, economic development into the nation and hope among the people.  This role of government spending to influence the market and progress of development in our nation continues today with loans to farmers, social welfare programs and most important, economic stimulation.    

Chapter 22       The Rise and Fall of World Communism 1917 Present

The cold war was a threat to both United States and the Soviet Union bringing social impacts for both nations.  After World War II, the world saw what 25 million casualties in Russia could do to a social structure, World War II had above 60 million total casualties and the US and Soviet Union needed to recover, rebuild and redefine this relationship as world leaders.  Communist and capitalist ideals were at the heart of the conflict.  Global arms development was a real threat and the US and Soviet.  In 1991, Christmas, the gift to the world was the end of the cold war by the Communist Party banned in Russian and their own leaders involved in a coup.    

Chapter 23       Independence and Development in the Global South 1914-Present

 

My 99 year grandmother and I had a visit today - talk about world history - June, 2013

HST 2020 World History, Summer 2013
Instructor: Patti Andrews, Notre Dame de Namur University
Student: Cathi Thoorsell
Ways of the World, A Brief Global History, Robert W. Strayer

Part One:                    First Things First: Beginnings in History

Robert Strayer’s teaches history in his text, “Ways of the World” by first defining some facts.  The years of creation of the world are set out like a picture from beginning to end, defining scientific principal, which seem beyond human comprehension, and developing a mutual understanding of the past. The author paints a landscape, which describes geographic and cultural details establishing a framework to understanding early civilization.  Providing an essence of a common culture, Stryer’s writing style paves the way for my mind to grasp that unimaginable: a flash of heat, or a big bang, where matter manifest into to highly creative and prosperous societies, developed over time, which formed our history.  Understanding context creates excitement. The use of common terms, in describing unbelievable accounts of the manifestation of humankind, provides a sense of human development and world history. Human creation and social achievement is formed by a step-by-step understanding of where we come from and where we are now.  Comparison, connection and change – the three C’s which define this study of our humankind’s origins  A look into humankinds’ first taste of ideologies, the birth of social class, common cross-cultural encounters, and the legacy of these changes and their impact create the story of our ancestors.  It is the understanding of these embodiments which form the picture of world history.

13.7 Billion years ago - The Big Bang: An amazing discussion of the discovery of an event discussed as if scientific study painted a landscape of the development of the universe and everything we know as real. 

12.0 Billion years ago to 1.3 Billion years ago - The stars formed: galaxies and creation of the solar systems, formation of the earth. Life on the planet came from the interaction of gasses and matter uniquely charged with influences which gave way to oxygen on earth. 

658 million years ago to 164 million years ago - From here it is a step forward from worms, fish, reptiles, trees, and dinosaurs. The large dinosaurs’ skeletons were exciting in museums. Dinosaurs looked huge, kind, humble and not fragile.  It was always a stretch of my mind to think of what caused their extinction.  The question of the same fate: could the extinction of the Dinosaur also cause the demise of humankind?  Humans are inquisitive enough to consider that Dinosaurs were real.  Science states around 164 million years ago Dinosaurs were in several varieties and cohabitated on the earth.  Today, they are no longer exist on earth. We better look at the science of what happened to them.  Humankind has an opportunity to look at all the species on this earth, inquire into the benefit of each, and controlling the influence of each.  History of the world teaches the story of humankind.  It is up to each human to learn the story of the world and use opportunity to benefit the world.

2.7 million years ago – humans – or human like creatures.  How many species of humans are there, were there and what defines this?  DNA can now be analyzed and I wonder what mine will tell of my ancestors.  Are they so different from yours?  DNA is unwrapping history like a present of our past.  Science can only benefit humankind if we learn from our past, and prioritize our social and environmental needs over individual greed.

250,000 years ago Homo sapiens first emerged.  The first 150,000 years of human experience was in Africa.  Paleolithic era or “old stone age” people were on earth and lived until the Ice Age. 

100,000 years ago, settlements planned around seasonal game.  Paleolithic art suggest migration, hunting and family cultures where were cultural universal themes during the Paleolithic era. After the ice age formed land bridges the opportunity to travel was defined and global nomadic resettlement.

12,000 years ago – Agriculture gave us the roots of civilization during the Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution era.  Humankind refined technology to travel and farm. The domestication of animals and tools provided dominance over the environment and social leaders formed small cities and infrastructure. The migration of people allowed the growth of a wide variety to harvest, to store and increase trade. Development based on the evolution of power over plants and animals.  We have over 200,000 plant species and only several hundred of those are domesticated, and five of those supply half of the calories for humankind consumption these days.  Much like the Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution, current global food production companies still genetically modify ears of corn, still try to meet the demands of growing populations, still try to survive an unknown future.  Looking at the era of the Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution, social similarities are too obvious to overlook: the need for clean water, controlled irrigation, clean farming, high performance fertilizers, food production, security of the boarders, control of the religion and political forces, domestication of plants and animals, all utilized to provide people prosperity without illness.  Society still strives for deliberate dominance over environment to enhance food production.  Prosperity in society is still judged the same as during the Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution era.  The literate are honored, the rich given power, and the inequities among same-clan members remain in our culture today.  Often the details of cultures are vastly different but if you look at what evolved out of the Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution it is apparent that there was global expansion of wealth, dominance over people, plants and animals, establishing a set a pattern of domestication by dominance under the guise of prosperity.  The Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution brought humankind into a place of deliberate domestication. The progress of this era was extensive and spread globally.  Genetic engineering is over 6000 years old.  Corn was first domesticated during 4000-3000 B.C.E.   When corn was less than inch, Neolithic / Agriculture revolution, it was manipulated from harvest to more than six inches by the year of 1500 A.D.  Corn is now over twelve inches long and used as a staple in feeding the world globally.   

2,500 years ago – Birth of Buddha and Greek Civilization.  2000 years ago – Birth of Jesus.  500 years ago – Artec and Inca Empires.  October 22, 1734 - (1734-11-02)November 2, 1734 the life of Daniel Boone, explorer, most famous of my ancestors.  1950’s – present, the life of author of this blog and student of World History.

Chapter 1.  First Peoples: Populating the Planet, to 10,000 B.C.E.
Paleolithic, trance dreams, dream time, Venus figurines (25,000 years ago, female sexual statures with curves were sexy and ornate, indicating women as cherished art forms and sexual refinement), social cultures of hunters and gathers, social and political resolution styles, sharing common goods and power: the leveling of wealth.  This was an exciting and long part of human history, not the cave man, but real family humans with lucid dreams.  

Chapter 2. First Farmers: The Revolutions of Agriculture, 10, 000 B.C.E-3,000 B.C.E. 
Neolithic / The Agricultural Revolution, a time of great migration and innovation.  Sophisticated social changes occurring globally defining food production, economic growth and social dominance. Herders and famers, grown from the ancestors of hunters and gathers, gave raise to animal husbandry, genetic engineering, textile development, metal work, technological and urban advance of waterworks and ultimate  power.  Advance farming techniques, control over the environment by gaining control over the resources, allowed for successful migration of crops and humans.  This transformation was global and provided settlements to become prosperous.

Chapter 3. First Civilizations: Cities, States, and Unequal Societies, 3500 B.C.E. – 500 B.C.E.
Civilized people are refined, organized, develop infrastructure, create pyramids, build temples, support palaces, write literature and read poetry, create complex calendars, define social class, revere the privilege, while creating slavery and the birth of large-scale warfare.  During the First Civilizations, social ethics are entering humankind and the social norms are determined by cultural conditioning from leaders who control economic and spiritual mindsets.  There is state oppression and inequalities formed in cities, controlled by statesmen, who systematically minimize the equality of woman and others.  Power goes to the leaders of the state, or the Kings, who teach they are acting from teaching of a God, that will offer eternal life – if you allow yourself to be dominated and allow the domination of others.  Early civilization tax, support wars, and have epidemic disease control concerns. Members of these societies want to lead, others destine to follow.  Many believe in a future, some plan an escape.  Early civilizations reflect many of the same human traits of the global societies of today: from family to farms, birth to death, marriage and ceremonies, sexual conquest and the laws of betrayal, choices evident throughout our history.

Part Two:       The Classical Era in World History 500 B.C.E. – 500 C.E.

Chapter 4         Eurasian Empires, 500 B.C.E. – 500 C.E.
The distance of time and place left a void of understanding of how people lived in our first urban societies 2500 years ago. Persian Empires and the Greek Empires are societies felt foreign to me. Where civilizations were strong and growing having in place kings that controlled and citizens that were dominated, depicted humankind was successful at urban development and lacking basic understanding of morality and humanistic kindness.  Civilizations formed as large societies with economic development. Most leaders were killing and conquering neighboring lands to fuel their empires. Social integration was by force. The imperial states displayed brutality on others to gain land, slaves and cultural exchange. Great Greek rational thinkers discussed democracy and freedom as an ideal to social change, they challenged humans to think logically.  Socrates, a philosopher in Athens, Greece, questioned what citizens thought about the state of democracy in Athens, classical era. Socrates wanted the citizens to think about the government’s agenda of the accumulation of wealth over wisdom, and to discuss the world with logic and rational thinking, and to question authority.  His outspoken teaching style, which was critical of the Greek government, made him feared by the authority.  Discussions of what constitutes a good life threatened these rulers. Socrates was sentenced to death by the same Athens’ government which he taught others to question.  The death of this well known Greek thinker, communicator to the commoner, had to be known to many as inhuman.  Socrates death drew attention to the inequity of the leaders. His death left commoners thinking about justice, and what part they each played in civilized humanity.   

Chapter 5         Eurasian Cultural Traditions, 500 B.C.E. - 500 C.E.
The culture of the Classical Era is still an influence on modern man today.  The classic thinkers and philosophers are studied for their wisdom of social order and mystical beliefs.  The religions founded during this time are still followed today with societies still studying Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism.  The Old Testament recorded social traditions and this legacy is still a global ideology which causes conflicts to this day.  War was the way to power but war also brought social chaos.  Leaders looked for ways to provide social order, as chaos proved to be expensive and inhuman.  China codified rules and laws outlined to control social disorder through a system of Legalism, a state mandated way of rule of right and wrong, in an effort for equity and justice. The actions and consequences were outlined to make individuals accountable for social actions.  China was harsh in its punishment which was state mandated but inequitable.  Brutality made the practice of Legalism impossible to enforce since inequality was built into China’s social structure.  

Chapter 6         Eurasian Social Hierarchies, 500 B.C.E. – 500 B.C.
The Caste system in India distributes humans in a social structure that indicates they should be shelved for production and punitive placement.  The citizens are controlled in an economic and social system that is derogatory, discriminatory and limiting.  Herding of humans gives the government power to protect its own class elitism, establishes authority over migrating groups into India, and provides placement of social status of all citizens.  This system is still in place today, proof that humans are happy adjusting to their place as it and find it difficult to challenge to authority of what may be their natural destiny.  India is populated with citizens who find harmony in inequality. With a history of cultural beliefs defined in Hindu philosophies, the act of disobedience would not be good for spiritual progress.  India’s social system has supported this Castes system and it manifest into social mainstream today.  Slaves are in these early societies but Indian tried to provide a human treatment of slaves through the Caste system where they lowest class was disbursed among the Varna and slaves could inherit and earn money.  China had a society with one percent of the population as slaves, Greeks had one third of their total population as slaves, while Roman Empires had forty percent of the population as slaves and the treatment of human as animals was barbaric.    

Chapter 7         Classical Era Variations: Africa and the Americans 500 B.C.E-1200 C.E.
The expansion of humankind into the Americans with math in Peru, and an agricultural revolution in the Mississippi River Valley, portrayed expanding humanity and cultural diversity into civilizations.  Large and expansive social movements developed farming and industrial development from Africa to the Americans. A complex urban economy was evident as artifacts showed music, art, rituals, and cultural events to be global. 

Part Three:     An Age of Accelerating Connections 500-1500

Chapter 8         Commerce and Culture:           500-1500
At the time of post-classical era, trade routes emerged which linked societies and cultural providing progressive and economic diversity. Three major economic zones developed, the most famous was known as the Silk Road, and has existed for over two-thousand years.

The Silk Road was a trade route across Eurasia linking several routes across the land between Arabia, Persia, India, Turkestan and China.  People crossed in camel driven caravans, and later horses, carrying products to trade with citizens of other cities and other countries.  Consumer items of raw materials, artifacts, medicine, spices, food items, and weapons, were traded with others providing economic develop and a prosperous commerce to the region.  Cultural exchange was most successful when the large and powerful states secured the terrain for the merchants and travelers of the Silk Road.  The Sea Road and the Sand Roads were progressive and dangerous routes of trade.  The Indian Ocean was the route to exchange between China and East Africa tied together by merchants who visited urban centers along the Indian Ocean bringing trade and economic development. The Sahara linked North Africa and the Mediterranean and is referred to as the Sand Road.  The Sahara had valuable resources of copper, salt and gold.

Resources and the diversity of exchange brought development into urban and rural regions. Trade offered an opportunity of civilizations to thieve socially, culturally and economically. Commodities were traded along with religious ideas and artifacts.  Diseases that traveled these routes were also exchange. Diseases caused an estimated 10,000 deaths per day die in 534 C.E. in Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire.  Between 1346 to 1350 one third of the population of Europe died from the Black Death, a plague carried from China to Europe. This exchange of diseases also carried immunities and common medical remedies, marrying the separate cultural believes into a thriving and expanding diverse prosperous civilization.

Chapter 9         China and the World: East Asian Connections 500-1300
The Tang dynasty (618-907) hard work was the foundation for the prosperous Song dynasty.  It was the Tang dynasty which had a civil engineering system sophisticated enough to build canals, with 1,200 miles of length, providing water to the northern and southern parts of China. The canals provided infrastructure to China.  The canals were combined with waterways, a route to trade China’s vast resources.  Providing economic trade and prosperity to over 30,000 miles waterways, combined with China’s population growth, a successful economic civilization developed in advanced agricultural developments and sophisticated enterprise. It was this foundation which provided for the “Golden Age” of the Tang and Song dynasty (960-1270) extending power via trade with central China.  Their system of government, states with ministries, is similar to the cabinet and state structure of the United States.  These two dynasties were prosperous and growing in population, with about 120 million people by the year 1200.   The most urban country in a postclassical era was China and the city of Hangzhou was the capital of the Song dynasty.  Hangzhou had an estimated population of more than a million people.  Other civilizations took pride in trying to reproduce the Golden Era in their own countries by learning from China.  Korea had influence from China and was able to maintain independence but used the tribute system of China to gain a gentle political subordination.  Not everyone wants to be controlled by China. The Trung Sisters of Vietnam in 39 C.E. set the tone for revolution by rebelling against the Chinese stronghold into Vietnam.  The Trung Sisters committed suicide when they rebel forces were taken over, but Vietnam remains an independent and separate state from China.  China continues to have cultural and economic influence on global civilizations.  This dynamic relationship between China and the rest of the world continues to exist today.

Chapter 10       The Worlds of European Christendom: Connected and Divided 500-1300
The study of European civilization during the High Middle Ages show that the population in Europe was about 35 million people in the year 1000 and about 80 million by 1340.  There was a sense of stability and peace and climate changes brought agricultural development which was needed since the populations increased in Europe.  The expansion of people caused forest and outer lands to turn into towns and the forest of Europe were on decline.  Major cities were experience economic and cultural developments with London have about 40,000 people, Paris about 80,000 people and Venice had about 150,000 people by around 1400.  By comparison, in 1000 C.E., Constantinople had about 400,000 people, Cordoba in Spain about 500,000, and China’s city of Hangzhour had more than 1 million people, and the Tenoctitlan, the Aztec capitol, had about 200,000 people, during the same period.  The focus on agricultural and economic development was largely impacting the landscape of civilization.  Education and skilled professions thieved with people have great opportunity to self identify and self motivate.  Woman, men, poor and elderly were all provided opportunity to claim prestige by being a person with a skill rather it be that of a merchant, farmer, physician, or prostitute, there was an amazing wave of urban development which raised the standards of lifestyle for the Europeans.  With technologies proving progress civilization grew and some individual rights were left diminished.  Expansion brought conquest and cross-cultural contact with India, China and Mongolia.  The great prosperous population boom of the High Middle Ages had imminent changes in the culture and solvency of Europe. Kingdoms grew weak with expansion and it just took time before that feeling of peach and stability gave rise to war and chaos.

Chapter 11       The Worlds of Islam: Afro-Eurasian Connections 600-1500
With the birth of Muhammad Ibu Abdullah  (570-632 CE) in Mecca came the birth of a new religion: Islam.  The experience that Muhammad of a powerful religious experience had him believe he was a messenger of Allah to the Arabs and it was his task to bring scripture to the people.  The Quran was written and was, and still is, considered the sacred scriptures of Islam which Muslims see as the words of God.  The Quran is the message of the law of God and sets out the belief that a person should submit to Allah.  There are five requirements the faithful must practice, called the Pillars of Islam, and the devout show their devotion by following these five rites.  Islamic religion was a new faith which grew popular and was said to consolidate Islamic control throughout Arabia.  The growth of the Arab Empire, and Islam, was immediate and powerful.  Between 622-900 C.E. Islam spread through Europe to China, Spain to Indian and the Arab empire controlled these lands.  Islamic civilization was had both internal and external conflicts in their religious views and there was division of Muslim identity among regional groups.  These conflicts and divisions exist with Islam today.  People still fear the spread of Islam and consider the religion far from the peaceful goodness that Muhammad had envisioned.  There is a real separation of women and men in the Islam faith.  Isolation, separation and the control over woman in Islam societies is considered frightening.  The “honor killing” of woman by men is the most dishonorable thing in Islam.  The control over woman’s sexuality found in misinformation taught as religion, provides cultural misguided influence of Islamic religion, which also offered prayer, and devotional love of God.  Modern man and woman find this conflict to be deep within the interpretation of the Quran and the conflicts stay global to this day.

Chapter 12       Pastoral Peoples on the Global Stage: The Mongol Moment 1200-1500
When a civilization grows from a nomadic tribe into a network of exchange and communication that has a population of about 700,000 people, it makes modern made have a bit of respect and interest  The Mongol Empire grew from tribal alliances, led by a leader that left a history of being a barbarian.  The approach which Chinggis Khan took was to facilitate a sense of worth with alliances between others that was not dependent on the tribe or kinship relationship being the only allies.  You could have power and respect by supporting the central cause of the Mongol Empire, expansion and power, and have a position in this empire of the pastoral nomads.  The Mongol Empire brought together villages, animals, trade and technologies spreading economic and cultural exchange across Mongolia and into the Pacific coast of Asia to Eastern Europe conquering the land and people in between.  The Mongol’s destructive behavior, lack of tradition and sophistication of culture, and limited leadership provided a weak stability in their reign.  They had a brutal army known for terrorizing and exploiting others causing destruction across the vast regions they ruled.  It was during the Mongol siege of Caffa, in 1347, where the Mongol warriors saw justice was served as their army was exposed to the plague.  The Mongols threw corpses that had the plague into the city using their catapult technology to cause fear to the city of Caffa.  This was biological warfare and justice, like disease, is blind.  The Mongol army was exposed to the plague, as was the Islamic world, China and Europe and about half the population died within a few years.

Chapter 13       The Worlds of the Fifteenth Century
The poet Nezahualcoyotl (1402-1472) and King of Texcoco, Aztec Empire, writes:

“Truly do we live on Earth?  Not forever on earth, only a little while here, Be it jade, it shatters.  Be it gold, it breaks. Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart. Not forever on earth, only a little while here.  Like a painting, we will be earased.  Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth.  Like a plumbed vestments of the precious bird. That precious bird with an agile neck, We will come to an end.”

This poem, which was written by a king, shows wisdom, humanity, and awareness.  It was the king’s personal reflection that life is fragile.  A king whose is known for leading a civilization that practiced warfare, human sacrificial rituals displays his awareness of humanity in a cruel civilization.  A civilization whose population was about 5 million people, with a tribute system much like that in China, where riches and merchants prospered, and which was also unstable and unkind.  Nezahualcoyotl expressed in eloquent words, worthy of a king, that he shared the Aztec belief that destiny was in sacrifice and eventually, the end.

Part Four:     The Early Modern World 1450-1750

Chapter 14       Empire and Encounters 1450-1750

The 15^th century is the history that I remember learning as a child.  Early Americans, the colonial society which entered from Europe into the east coast of New England and New York.  Places I knew existed as a child: Plymouth Rock and Governor’s Island.  I remember learning that British setters came to America and settled here and as a child this caused confusion.  What was the big deal?  My childhood confusion was centered about the awareness that people already lived in American.  Learning of Columbus’s expeditions of 1492 brought with it an awareness of foreign cruelty to indigenous Americans.  People already lived in American.  It appeared to me to be common of Europeans invading the land of others.  Their show of arrogance and brutality became a historic even. Was it ignorance that school children were taught that Columbus was the person worthy of a place in history?  It was the Native Americans who were the real jewels of humanity and worthy of a place of honor in our history.  Columbus sailed into American and set off an unplanned genocide.  Columbus’ expedition carried diseases to  indigenous Indians who lacked immunity to fight.  Ultimately, millions of native American’s died caused from unknown diseases exported in from the trade routes of Europe and Africa.  The population in the Western Hemisphere went from around 80 million people, before Columbus’ expedition to the Americas, to a loss of about 90 percent of the indigenous population.  Such a substantial loss of people was not the goal of the European expeditions.  This form of warfare was biological.  The impact was of such a magnitude that survivors are still looking for answers and from what we know - it was a unplanned genocide.  The world in North American would look very different today if European explorers had kept their distance.  Early modern era European expeditions caused a devastating impact around the world.  The quest for resources for global expansion, led the Europeans into expeditions which ultimately responsible for the deaths of around 72 million people in the Americas.  A modern day comparison would be the number of Jewish people who died in the holocaust, which was around 6 million.  Total deaths caused by the Holocaust represent a total loss of people in numbers which estimate at 21 million humans.  The loss of these people will never be fully appreciated.  Society should do what it can to preserve the rights of humans to live in culturally diverse societies. 

Chapter 15       Global Commerce 1450-1750

During the early modern era, the trade of humans is a fascinating study of humanity and the character of man.  Studying sociologic behaviors is an interest in the quest to understand World History.  When we look back in history, scholars depict an environment which has humans trading humans and acting savagely with brutality. The slave trade led to deaths and disruption in millions of human’s lives. Yet, slavery is still alive today.  The annihilation of human rights of slaves, the debasing humanity, and exporting cruelty are all byproduct of the slave trade.  A global epidemic of inhumanity was exemplified in the sale of children, men and women whose commodity was their sex, strength, and skills.  Slaves moved globally from Africa to the Americas.  A slave’s outcome was uncertain and often their capture led to their early demise. People planned their expeditions to travel into other lands.  The expeditions of the Europeans were not just for political and cultural exchange, they for other countries resources.  Often these expeditions were the cause of many battles.  This early modern era exchange was really the first economic and social enterprise that was global.  The early inhalation of the American Indian populations, caused by the exposure to European explores, led to an enterprising exchange between foreign countries who demanded exchange of critical resources like guns, coffee, tea and textiles.  It was the need for European cultural expansion which led to the genocide of the American Indians.  This population loss was vast and rapid, leading to the European’s victory over the land and the people of the Americas. The desire to inhabit the Americans, and acquire resources, pushed the European nation notion that they could build empires out of other’s land and use the survivors (of their own biologic warfare and genocide) as their new source of slaves.

Chapter 16       Religion and Science 1450-1750

It is hard to look at human behavior during the early modern era without studying the impact of the dissemination of Africans into the world of the Euro-Americans.  What would the world look like today if Africans’ saw another tribe member as their kin and had a history of kindness?  The African people sold each other.  It is hard to understand how a neighbor would sale a neighbor but they did.  In their own country, African men, women and children were sold through a brutal chain of animalistic barter which had about 60,000 people a year leaving Africa during the 1750’s.  A person could be from the countryside of West Africa and end up the Americans, or in Brazil or the Caribbean, in North American or in Europe.  Only 85 percent of slaves made it to a destination and the other slaves died died in transit.  The slave contribution to the Western Hemisphere’s was significant with the expansion of agriculture.  Trade routes were full of slaves who moved out of Africa and into the commercial expanse of the world along with global commodities.  The technological and sociological exchange which was inherit in the African-source slave trade, has yet to be fully understood.  What is understood about slavery is an inhuman socialization of immigrants.  The justification of human expansion based on slave trade to fulfill a need for cultural commercial products depicts a humanity that is arrogant and unjust.  Migration is still a cause of struggle for civilization.  When we try to balance the distribution of limited and vital resources, the demand of labor to facilitate trade of commodities, is balanced with the equality of human rights.  

Part Five:     The European Moment in World History 1750-1914

 

Chapter 17       Atlantic Revolutions and Their Echoes 1750-1914

The Atlantic Revolutions are broken down into three “acts” with Act One beginning with the North American Revolution (1775-1787), Act two was the French Revolution (1789-1815) and Act three, the Feminist Revolution (1791) with New Zealand the first country to give the vote to adult women, Finland gave the vote to women in 1906 and in France 1945, after World War I.  In the United States of American we passed the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Guarantees All American Women the Right to Vote.  What character it took for people to fight for human rights, many died in these fights, and the outcome of revolutions often has a surprising cultural adjustment which was never the basis of the original conflict.  Although these revolutions served a different purpose, each on was a milestone in the mark towards individual freedoms.  Today, have a revolutionary process occurring in American and that is the right of gay marriage, a term that does not bring justice to the marriage equality act, but a revolution taking place today which the Supreme Court may rule on this week.  People have died in this revolution also.  The outcome of the Supreme Court ruling will indeed have a surprising cultural adjustment, like same sex marital taxation and alimony, which were never the original intent of the revolution.  Like many revolutions, we take this action state by state, with California trying in 2008, small attempts to change the larger act of justice our cultural would like see as law.  Will we amend the Constitution with another statement of declaration of rights for men and woman, equal under the law to marry.  If so, what will be the Amendment of the Constitution after that one?  We look to history to see how the countries, states and humanity evolves into one or divides into territories, and see that we are still individuals who seek our own enlightened states.  

 Chapter 18     Revolutions of Industrialization 1750-1914

“At the heart of the Industrial Revolution lay a great acceleration in the rate of technological innovation, leading to an enormously increased output of goods and services.” (Strayer, page 528). In Britain this revolution span between 1750-1900 with the industrial output increasing an estimated fifty times. This time was considered the “Culture of Innovation” where humankind was transformed by the machinery and engines, the textile machinery (cotton gin, power loom, and spinning jenny). As revolutions go, there was movement forward for humankind and movement backward, changing the landscape of economic development on a global level and changing social structures and humans dependence on technology.  Every industry changed with innovation.  The goal was of providing more productive technologies.  From the invention of lightening rods of Benjamin Franklin in 1752, the English dictionary by Samuel Johnson in 1755, and even water was transformed by Joseph Priestley in 1767 with the invention of soda water, and by 1776 we had the submarine invented by David Bushness, and 1873 brought inventions of the first parachute by Louis Sebastien, and the hot-air balloon invented by the Montgolfier brothers, innovative technological advances were on the raise.  The irony is the at 1789 the guillotine was invented, which was used so much in the French Revolution, and causing the death of many humans and their leaders, King Louis XVI and his wife both dying by guillotines.   Thomas Edison alone received over 1300 patents in his life.  Today, in the U.S. current patent rates surpass that of the Industrial Revolution, when the patent rates were their highest.  Many of these inventors were blue collar workers and their efforts provide the industrial revolution the technological advance which changed the lives of average people, and many of these technologies are used still today.

Chapter 20       Colonial Encounters 1750-1914

The colonial influence was global and colonial rule reminds me of racism, elitism and something better left in the past.  There are a few ways to look at the advantages of a colonial era and many other ways to see the disadvantages but the most influential, in my opinion, is the people can be defined by their oppression and raise up to resist oppression defining something better, bigger and resistance to exploitation.  As we compare the past colonial era, we can also look to the further as the “colonization of the moon” has always been in science fiction literature.  Modern era suggest it would be a great experience for mankind but thing of the oppression this would bring to you as an individual or to your social circle.  Karl Marx said “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please nor under conditions of their own choosing.”  (Strayer, Pg. 614) The true test of freedom and liberation is that humans make their own conditions, write their own story, self-creative in their definition of their own legacy, without the influence of oppression and exploitation to others.  Maybe the only way this would become another colonial era is if we did start civilizations on the moon.