Marissa's Blog

In the intro to part six they discuss "the most recent century" of 1914 to 2012 and question whether it qualifies for a separate phase of history. It's relatively short compared to other centuries that make up earlier eras. It discusses how our time periods get increasingly shorter the closer we get to the present and I think that makes sense because as time goes on I feel like we have gotten more and more innovative as far as technology and civilization goes. The book however, mentions that it's because with such a massive amount of information coming up in such a short amount of time it's hard to know what will matter and what won't. Part six is going to talk about how so many global themes have made this last century what it is that it could possibly be described as an entire new era in human history. Chapter twenty opens with briefly talking about World War I and how veterans who fought in that war thought it would be the "war that would end all wars...

This chapter was discussing the Empires in Collision in Europe, Middle East, and East Asia. One thing very interesting is just recently in 2011 the Chinese President Hu Jintao reminded the Chinese people about Britain's violent intrusion in the history of China just to sell opium to his people. The Chinese named this event as the "century of humiliation". In 1912 China's imperial state had collapsed and was transformed from a central presence in the global economy to a weak and dependent participant in a European dominated world. This is when Great Britain was the major economic and political player. At this time the Chinese thought they were the civilized center of the entire world and had a quite rude awakening. I think it is crazy how power can switch from country to country in a matter of a century or even less. It was interesting that China believed they were at the center of the world because I believe every country believes that about themselves. For example he...

This chapter is about Colonial Encounters in Asia and Africa. With the Industrial Revolution came many demands and productivity of materials and agriculture products. They needed to get wheat from the American Midwest and southern Russia, meat from Argentina, bananas from Central America, rubber from Brazil, cocoa and palm oil from West Africa, tea from Ceylon, and even gold and diamonds from South Africa. With all of these new demands came power from each country and the world had to rely on one another. In 1840 Britain was exporting 60% of its cotton production. They were selling annually 200 million yards to Europe, 300 million yards to Latin America, and 145 million yards to India. Europe didn't really offer Asian societies the right products they wanted to buy. Part of European and American fascination with Chine was evident back then and is still very evident now. You can see this when you look at the back of any products and it says "made in China". The lives of wo...