Chapter 23 - Capitalism and Culture

Wrapping up with our reading for the semester the class is reading about Capitalism and Culture. This is also known as The Transformation of the World Economy. When the term globalization is brought up most peopler referring to the immense acceleration in international economic transactions that took place in the second half of the twentieth century and continued into the twenty-first. I asked my roommate what she thinks about the term globalization and she said it is the spread of ideas and innovation between countries. I agree with her that it is the process of international integration originating from the interchange of world views, products, ideas and other aspects of culture. Many people have come to see this process as almost natural, certainly imminent, and practically unstoppable. The first half of the twentieth century are about wars and the Great Depression. The aftermath of World War II was very different. The capitalist victors in that conflict, led by the United States, were determined to avoid any return to such Depression-era conditions. In 1914, the United States convened the Bretton Woods Conference to plan post war economic growth and stability. From the first through the 20th of July 1944, 730 minister from 44 Allied nations got together and hammered out an agreements to create three economic organizations. The first organization is the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development known as the World Bank. The second s the International Monetary Fund. The last is the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, which became the World Trade Organization in 1995. The Bretton Woods system of state led economics was very successful until 1971 when the US pulled out, opening the way to a market led economic system. However in 2013 economists and some politicians are calling for a Bretton Woods II the as a solution to current economic problems stemming from the 2008 crash. On page 1154, there is a figure that demonstrate Brazilian Feminism. The world is now shifting to a new idea and new openings for women so that their voice can finally be heard. This figure is demonstrating a protest macho culture and violence against women in San Paulo, Brazil in mid-2011 desired to counter the assumption that female victims of rape were responsible for those attacks because of how they dressed. The women in the figure are marching as "sluts", wearing revealing clothing, while arguing the "transformation of the world by feminism." The yellow sign declares: "It's my body."

On the last few pages of the textbook, the visual sources illustrates a heartbroken image about the globalization. This image shows a diverse group of women standing in rows folding jeans endlessly. By looking at their faces it looks like they do not want to be there working for hours and hours nonstop. Studies say globalization has led to "the most remarkable spurt of economic growth in world history from $7.1 trillion in 1950 to $55.9 trillion in 2003. Also, the gap between the rich and the poor has increased from 3 to 1 in 1820 to 86 to 1 by 1991. Similar gaps are seen in medical care, availability of drinking water, educational and employment opportunities. Overall, the globalization has been a dramatic change both positive and negative. Negative because there has been a down hill change about the workforce and positive because the world is now looking into the cultural change and the countries are now starting to accept the changes between women and men. With everything that has started in the 1940s it made an important impact in the twenty-first century.

Chapter 22 - Documents Visual Source 22.1

In today's reading we are focusing on chapter 22 documents and it is on the African National Congress. This was also known as the ANCa national liberation movement. It was formed in 1912 to unite the African people and spearhead the struggle for fundamental political, social and economic change. For ten decades the ANC has led the struggle against racism and oppression, organizing mass resistance, mobilizing the international community and taking up the armed struggle against apartheid. The African National achieved a decisive democratic breakthrough in the 1994 elections, where it was given a firm mandate to negotiate a new democratic Constitution for South Africa. The African National Constitution's key objective is the creation of a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society. This means the liberation of Africans in particular and black people in general from political and economic slavery. It means uplifting the quality of life of all South Africans, especially the poor. This visual document display an image of the flag of the ANC is made of equal horizontal bands of black, green and gold. The black strip symbolizes the people of South Africa who, for generations, have fought for freedom. The green symbols their land. The gold represents the mineral and other natural wealth of South Africa, which belongs to all its people, but which has been only a small racial minority. In the background there are people marching to fight for their rights and land. Overall, this poster represents the struggle against the United States because of how much the Africans have fought for their rights, but it did not pass until later on because of the United States. This action reminds me of Cesar Chavez doing the Civil Rights Activist where he and many people were trying to fight for their rights.

Chapter 22 - The End of Empire

In today's reading, Strayer discuss about the freedom towards the African American and Asian Independence. The phrase "Third World" is of a Cold War origin referring to that area of the world that was neither part of the Capitalist West nor the Communist East. In the textbook Strayer mention the third world as the "Global South", recognizing that the southern hemisphere is poorer than the northern hemisphere while recognizing that the Global North owns the Global South some help because of the former exploitation of the South's capital minerals, labor, and land. In 1900, European colonial empires in Asia and Africa came as permanent features of the world's political landscape. In the late 1940s was the first dominant breakthroughs occurred in Asia and the Middle East when the Philippines, India, Burma, Pakistan, Indonesia, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel achieved independence. The time period from the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s was the age of African Independence as province after province, in total of fifty into what is now called freedom. Towards the end of empire in world history the European colonies in the Americas threw off British, French, Spanish, or Portuguese rule during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the Americas, however, many of the colonized people were themselves of European origin, sharing much of their culture with their colonial rulers. In this case, the African and Asian struggles of the twentieth century were very different, for they no only claimed political independence but also declared the vitality of their cultures, which had been submerged and denigrated during the colonial era. During the twentieth century, many empires collapsed. The Austrian and Ottoman empires departure following World War I, giving rise to a number of new states in Europe and the Middle East. The Russian Empire also unraveled, although it was soon reassembled under the sponsorship of the Soviet Union. Next was the World War II that ended the German and Japanese empires. Then, African and Asian movements for independence shared national self determination. On page 1094 is one of the most widely recognized and admired picture in the global struggle against colonial rule was India's Mahatma Gandhi. In this photo Gandhi is sitting crossed-legged on the floor, clothed in a traditional Indian garment called dhoti. Near him is a spinning wheel, symbolizing the independent and nonindustrial India that Gandhi sought. Gandhi was born in Gujarat, Hindu family and was alive from 1869-1949. He got married at age 13 and embraced an opportunity to study law in England at 18. He became a lawyer in 1893 and accepted a job in South Africa. Gandhi was the primary leader of India's Independence movement and also the architect of a form of non-violent civil disobedience that would influence the world. This part of Gandhi's life amazes me because even though he got married at a young he still had a goal and he achieved it with his hard work. Throughout Gandhi's life he experienced racism. This did not stop him but instead made him become a stronger person by organizing his first mass civil-disobedience campaign, which he called "Satyagraha" (truth and firmness), in reaction to the Transvaal government's new restrictions on the rights of Indians, including the refusal to recognize Hindu marriages. Majority of his actions did not make the government stop Gandhi, however this did not make him stop either but he still kept on going until he accomplished his task to create an Indian Independence movement for equality.

Chapter 21 - Revolution, Socialism, and Global Conflict

In today's reading, chapter 21 talks about the revolution, socialism, and global conflict. A Frenchman, and Englishman, and a Soviet Russian are admiring a painting of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The Frenchman says, "They must be French: they're naked and they're eating fruit." The Englishman says, "Clearly, they're English: observe how politely the woman is offering fruit to the man." The Russian replies, "No, they are Russian communists, of course. They have no house, nothing to wear, little to eat, and they think they are in paradise." This statement is a joke between the Soviet Unions as a means of expressing in private what could not be said in public. A major theme of those jokes involved the deceit of a communist system that promised equality and abundance for all but delivered a dismal and uncertain economic life for the many and great privileges for the few. The Soviet Union was a single-party Marxist-Leninist state. It existed from 1922 until 1991, and was the first country to declare itself socialist and build towards a communist society. It was a union of fourteen Soviet Socialist Republics and one Soviet Federated Socialist Republic which was Russia. Global communism also known as world communism, a form of communism that involves international scope. The long-term goal of world communism is a worldwide communist society that is stateless, which may be achieved through an intermediate term goal of either a voluntary association of sovereign states or a world government. Modern communism found its political and philosophical roots in the 19th century European socialism, inspired by the teachings of Karl Marx. Most Europeans socialists came to believe that they could achieve their goals peacefully and through the democratic process, those who defined themselves as communists in the 20th century disdained such reformism and advocated uncompromising revolution as the only possible route to a socialist future. Soviet Union called Russia in and was the first country to experience such a revolution. In 1970s, almost one-third of the world's population lived in societies governed by communist regimes. The Soviet Union was by far the world's largest country in size, and China, the world's largest largest country in population.

In document 21.3, talks about Living through Industrialization during the 1930s, an enormous process brought huge numbers of peasants from the countryside to the cities. Many of the workers found their way by learning new skills. In this document, it mentions some of the workers statements about their disappointment or they were celebrating their new possibilities in life. These sources come from letter written to newspapers or to high government officials, from private letters and diaries, or from reports filed by party officials based on what they had heard in the factories. An example is a letter in a newspaper from a Tatar Electrician. He said, "I am Tatar..." Throughout this personal letter Tatar was saying that Russian people were not allow to think about education, or getting a join a state enterprise. Now that he is a citizen of the USSR, he has the right to a job and education. Overall, I believe this is a great opportunity to turn the table around and to open doors for those who are not allow to dream about going to school or getting a decent job.

Chapter 20 - Collapse at the Center & Documents

In today's reading, Strayer introduce a new chapter about the World War, Depression, and the Rebalancing of Global Power that is taken place from 1914-1970s. The first World War happened from 1914-1918. A World War is a war involving many or most of the world's most powerful and numerous countries. A World War I veteran, Alfred Anderson, said, "I was told that I was fighting a war that would end all wars, but that wasn't the case." What he said is true because there are many wars that occurred after the World War I and there are many wars that happened that would end all wars. The World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war centered in Europe that began on the 28th of July 1914 and lasted until the 11th of November 1918. It was followed by the economic meltdown of the Great Depression, by the rise of Nazi Germany and the horror of the Holocaust, and by an even bloodier and more devastating World War II, a struggle that surround much of the world. More than 70 million military, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. Since 1500, Europe had militaries that were in excellent conditions and the marvels of its Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. However, great things did not last long for the Europeans and WWI was their starting point that conflicted everything. During WWI, there were many propaganda advertisements. Propaganda is an information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular cause or point of view. One of the propaganda that I am going to talk about is "Women and the Great War." This shows a woman putting on her working coat and hat to get ready to work making equipments for men to use during the war. The poster says, "These women are doing their bit. Learn to make munitions." WWI temporarily brought a halt to the women's suffrage movement as well as to women's activities on behalf of international peace. Most women on both sides actively supported their countries' war efforts, as suggested by this British wartime poster, inviting women to work in the munitions industry. Before women were not able to work, but when WWI started men had to leave their wife and children to serve their country. Now no one is working in the factories so women are stepping up to take the men's place and work. In one of the documents, document 20.1 talks about Hitler on Nazism and what Hitler had to do with WWI. Adolph Hitler published his political views well before he came to power. Hitler was born in Austria and he captivated a profound form of German nationalism, which he retained as a profoundly disappointed veteran of WWI. Next, Hitler joined a radical group called the German Workers Party, where he start to gain his powerful abilities. Soon Hitler wrote an autobiography about his political and social philosophy and titled it Mein Kampf (My Struggle). In his autobiography he starts off dictating the book to Hess while imprisoned for what he considered to be "political crimes" following his failed Putsch in Munich in November 1923. Overall, this chapter discuss about the transition from the first war to the Great Depression where everyone had to go through the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in history of the Western industrialized world.

Chapter 19 - Empire in Collision

In today's reading, it is talking about the European Empires going in for the final kill of the Middle East and East Asia. The China's Century of Crisis began in 1793-1911, about an emperor Qianlong was the last great Manchu emperor. The 19th century marks the end of China's greatness agricultural and military decline, combines with administrative and economic collapse led to higher taxes and peasant unrest. The picture on the left of the first page on the reading caught my attention while reading this chapter. It made me wonder and I think it is talking about groups of the European, Middle East, and East Asia trying to come together to form a treaty and be fair with one another however, it is not working because the man with the knife just cut the pie in half. This French cartoon is called Carving Up the Pie of China. It is from the late 1890s, the Great Powers of the day starting from the left the woman is Great Britain's Queen Victoria, the man is Germany's Kaiser Wihelm, the next man is Russia's Tsar Nicholas II, and the female figure having her hand on the Russian guy represents France, and finally the guy at the far end right is the Meiji emperor of Japan. The Germany man is dividing China, while a Chinese figure behind them tries helplessly to yell, "STOP" for cutting his country in half. There are multiple conflicts between Europe, Middle East, and East Asia. The British Opium Wars was in 1839-1842 and 1856-1858, led to the Taiping Uprising, in which China lost 20 to 30 million people, gained an ever increasing deficit, and surrender to foreign occupation. Frederick Townsend Ward was one of the White/Europeans fighter for the Manchus against the Taiping rebels. In 1895, China lost in a war with Japan and lost control of Vietnam, Korea, and Taiwan, and in 1898-1901 the internal uprising called the Boxer Rebellion led to Western including USA powers controlling China. The 19th century was not a pleasant one for China not the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. In 1872-1881 the Chinese government sent Chinese Education Mission about 120 Chinese students to America to study Western subjects with the understanding that they would return to China to help to reform the government. The Ottoman Empire, "Sick Man of European" was still the central political fixture of a widespread Islamic world. Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, which was to cut off Britain from India was beginning of a series of invasions into Ottoman territories that Muhammad Ali conquered Egypt in 1808 and established an empire lasting until 1952. Now shifting to the Modernization Japanese Style, the technologies gave Japan an advantage and opportunity to change their country to become a more rapid environment. While reading this section, I realized there were a lot art. Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts artworks, expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill. I think Strayer included the art in the reading to let the reader not just read and try to understand the reading, but also visualize the reading. Most people can understand the reading well with pictures, while others cannot so when the art is illustrated in the text they can see to make connection with the text. For me I am a visual learner so when I see pictures of the map or how it was like in the past I have a better connection because I can see people's emotions on their face or how difficult it was like living without technologies.

Chapter 18 - Colonial Encounters in Asia and Africa

In today's reading it is about The Colonial Encounters in Asia and Africa that began in the 1750-1950. The first wave was aimed at American however, the second wave aimed at Asia and Africa. One of the most major points that occurred during The Colonial Encounters is Industry and Empire. During the Industry and Empire, new economic needs found solution abroad. This created the need for extensive raw materials and agricultural products such as bananas from Central America, rubber from Brazil, meat from Argentina, cocoa and palm oil from West Africa, and gold and diamonds from South Africa. By the 1840, Britain was exporting about 60% of its cotton-cloth production, sending millions of yards to Europe. Between 1910 and 1914, Britain was sending about half of its savings overseas as foreign investment. Another main point to The Colonial Encounters in Asia and Africa is the Race and Culture. Europeans had defined others largely in religious terms, now they adopted the idea and techniques of more "advanced" societies. This means it is precedented by wealth, and used both to produce unsurpassed military power. It is not surprising that their opinions of other cultures dropped sharply. European eyes to the status of tribes led by chiefs as a means of emphasizing their "primitive" qualities. Still Europeans used the device of science to support their racial preferences and prejudices. Going onto the second wave of European conquests, between 1750 and 1914 was a second and quite distinct round of conquests: Asia and Africa. Construction of these new empires in the Afro-Asian world, involved military force. India and Indonesia, grew out of earlier interactions with European trading firms. British East India Company took advantage of the fragmentation of Mughal Empire and facilitated penetration for them. Also, Dutch acquisition of Indonesia was also as traders and alliances. Slowly without a plan, soon they had conquered the islands. Under the European Rule Australia and New Zealand, both taken over by the British during the nineteenth century, were more similar to the earlier colonization of North America. Also, diseases that reduced by 75%. United States practiced a policy of removing exterminating Indian people.