Post Modern Era

As far as the post modern era goes I feel like we are most definitely in a new era.  I would put the beginning of this new era around the time that the world wide web started.  When the masses had access to the wide expanse of communication and information. The internet has become our new tool, a tool that has shaped the way we view the world.  our ideologies have changed, the way we raise our children have changed.  we are moving from country governments to world governments.  We now compete to for dominance not by taking over land and making an empire but by controlling the flow if information on the internet. 

 

Everything is different now.  With all the good that the internet has brought to the world it has also brought new ways for the bad to show itself.  I don't think the internet has caused more bad people in this world but it did make it easier for bad people to do bad things.  This world is becoming easier to be destroyed because the tools we use to destroy it are easier to obtain with the internet.  Looking forward what this world needs for us is four things:

 

Perspective

Compassion

Understanding

Bravery

 

We need to have PERSPECTIVE to see the other side of the events of the world.  We need COMPASSION to keep in mind the feelings and pain of others around the world.  We need UNDERSTANDING of the way others do things in different parts of the world.  We need BRAVERY to do the right things to fix the world no matter how difficult it may be or how unpopular in is.  If the people of the world do not take on these values then the world history of man will see its last chapter.

 

World at war

After focusing on finding tools, spreading over the world, revolutionizing agriculture, learning how to trade and discovering a new continent, humans have finally found themselves in a very unfriendly situation – A world war. What’s interesting to me about the war is that after humans were very united and they all worked for a common purpose, throughout the years, the more knowledge men acquired the more they started dividing and forming allies in the search for power and control.

The best example of such division, at least for me, has been the Holocaust. It is absolutely degrading to think about the value that men can give to a human being.  The Holocaust is a product of some of the atrocities committed to innocent people. For example, this type of behavior was seen during the cash crop, when if slaves were not able to produce as expected, they were mutilated.

On another note, one of the good outcomes from the WW’s is that the U.S. was able to develop as a great power economically, socially and military, and although the U.S. suffer a really bad economic fall which we know as the Great Depression, it is still a very stable country that provides a home for thousands of people from diverse cultures and many different countries.  However, I still think that it was pretty bad that the two atomic bombs were dropped and killed thousands of innocent residents in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Another point that I would like to talk about is Africa and their leader, Nelson Mandela.  After reading the chapter, I decided to do a little research and found a movie called “Invictus”, in which the life of Mandela as a president was well described.  I feel nothing but sadness now that I know he is sick and the world might loose a great leader like he is.

Freedom

After reading the chapters, all I can think of is how humans ended up giving freedom a price?.  The beginning of our existence, described by Strayer, talks about humans belonging to small groups, being nomads, not really knowing why, when, what was that they were doing at the time.  As years passed, tools were made, groups were established and territories started to be claimed.  

In the last chapters we read about Colonialism and how Europeans came to America looking Glory, God and Gold.  We read about how unfair was that they treated Natives as slaves, exploited the lands, and committed genocide against natives.  The reading ends with the imposition and the emerging of different religions as well as science.

Then, our view of the world in the new readings starts with the Atlantic Revolution and its Echoes, and the key word “enlightenment”, which refers to the “inspired efforts in many countries to abolish slavery, to extend the right to vote and to secure greater equality for women” (Strayer 500); hence the title of my blog for this post. Humans started being free and throughout time, instead of taking advantage of that freedom, they constricted themselves by stepping over each other and using the term Civilization to think they were better than the rest of the people. For example, the creation of slavery and the way slaves were seen just as a workforce and were given the worse accommodations, if we can call it that, and have such a short life expectancy, which was just for working purposes.   

To be honest the fact that humans saw other humans just for production made me really angry, especially after looking at the picture of the two children who have experience hand mutilation because they did not produce as much as it was expected. I also was very annoyed at the fact of how women were treated and not being able to speak up or participate in society. However, I was happy to have been born during an Era were the ideals of past Eras, specifically Enlightenment, are getting closer to becoming a reality.  We still have a lot of work to do to become EQUALS, but we a moving forward to accomplish it.

I really wonder if we’re really transitioning into the new Era. So many things are happening… for example, a big one, the election of a president of color in the United States, which definitely broke the mold for the European ideals in here. Are we really going to finally reach the point of freedom where we all are equal and will be treated as equals? I hope so… but it will still take a long time to see it really happen.

La Conquista and Global Commerce

It was definitely quiet interesting to read again about the conquistadoresand how Europe came and revolutionized the way of living of the Natives in the Americas.  Right now reading about seems very normal and we all simply just accept it, but what did the Natives think and felt of all the oppression and the changes they had to go through in order to not be killed and in order to keep their families tradition even if it was hidden. From the Native’s point of view, it makes me really angry to think of Europeans, especially how Spain came and claimed a land imposing their culture and their beliefs.  It is also sad to read about families loosing their loved ones due to illnesses brought from Europe and not being able to find a cure or fight against it since they “could not get up to search for food, and everyone else was too sick to care for them, so they starved to death in their beds” (p407).  It is also really sad to see how Europeans also treated Native as their slaves but it’s god to know that others got to be educated but only if they had the chance of looking “White”.    On the other hand, at least something good happened, being this the exchange of plants and animals which helped men in the Americas to work better in the agricultural field.

From the European point of view, this conquista had a great significance for Europe.  It made it possible for the Columbian Exchange, which gave rise to “an interactive Atlantic world connecting four continents” (p409). Without the colonization in America, “Europe would have remained inferior, as ever, in wealth and power, to the great civilization of Asia”.

Speaking of Asia, it is really important to mention that while Europe was busy making slaves and claiming land in America, Asia and Russiawere not wasting time. Russia was really busy creating their empire, but even though Russia and Europe were in different continents, they were both oppressing others and gaining power colonizing new lands.

The whole conquest and the birth of Empires only gave rise to the global commerce of spices, textiles, silver, gold and slave trading. Although China had more experience in the trade market and therefore it continued to “remain [one of the] major engines of the world economy despite the emerging presence of Europeans around he world” (p458). 

So far I have talked about the colonization in America and about the global commerce that accompanied such colonization after the intercontinental trading and all the doors that were open for commerce.  A very important and really controversial topic is religion.  It is an extensive topic that I would not be covering on this post but I most definitely will talk about and dedicate a whole blog just to it.

The Mongols

In chapter 12 we read about the Mongols, their pastoral and nomadic societies, but most importantly about their military vision.  What’s important to know about Mongols is how their “revolution of domestication” helped their people live in more “favored environments”.  This domestication helped them to have a very promising economic foundation. The Mongols nomad societies did not focus in having very elaborate structures, such as those of other empires; on the other hand, their focus on agriculture and animal herds.  

I feel that if it was not for the Mongols then the western European powers would not have been able to gain the momentum they did when they did.  They may still have at some point became as powerful as they did but it would have taken them a lot longer, probably hundreds of years later.

Something really interesting about the Mongols was their vision of women.  Compared to Islam, which I talked about earlier, Mongols had women in a higher status and had fewer restrictions. “[women] had a greater role in public life than their sisters in agricultural civilization” (p335), women also had to take care of their families and they did not have “negative connotations” like for example the Chinese had with their women. I am a woman and I see that as a positive characteristic of the Mongol society, I also believe women had more chance to do so because men were more focused on their military success. 

Islam is peaceful

To be honest, a couple of year ago I was very intrigued with Islam.  I had many friends who are from the Middle East and I always liked the way they were so close to their families.  I always wanted to talk about their religion because it was something that they, as many other religions, protect very much.  I would ask questions about meanings and or their verses, but they would always just give me a little explanation and change the subject.  For a world religion class I took a couple of years ago I was given more information and I even had the experience of going to a Mosque and see what their religious life is like.  Like in the chapter it’s explained, it is a monotheistic religion that “presents Allah as the only God, the all-powerful Creator, good, just, and merciful” (p304).  In the chapter, it is also described how this religion reveals the message of God through prophet Mohammad and that it was very revolutionary because unlike the other Polytheistic religions at the moment it required the submission of the followers to believe in one God.  At the same time, Strayer specifies that during the early stages of Islam becoming a religion, women were seen as equals, they were no less than their opposite gender which is completely different from what it has been lately seen in various regions in the Middle East.  Like any other religion it has pros and cons, or rephrasing this and speaking from a religious point of view, lots of dogmas that followers have to believe by means of faith.  What really gets me thinking is how such beautiful philosophy of being merciful and helping others can be altered and completely misunderstood.  For example, if it’s a religion that invites people to be merciful, how come many of the countries in the Middle East treat each other so bad and are always at war.  Also, how come some men treat women very disrespectful and act very condescending towards them.  One of the reasons I believe causes this type of behavior is the fact that for Islam politics and religion are not independent of each other.  I think that man by nature always want to be the alpha in Politics, so when it comes to making decisions for a country and being able to be more dominant for some reason believe they are better than females.  I might be wrong and many of you might not agree with me, but I think that could be one of many reasons.  Another reason might be the “sharia”, which it was “concerned with correct behavior in every aspect of religious and social life” (p313).  In their society women are supposed to be submissive and follow what the man says, which leads to “distraction and deviation from the purer spirituality of Muhammad’s time: (p313).

World Commerce and China

Commerce and Culture this chapter was really nice to read because it looks forward reminding us that the whole idea of exchanging and globalization had been around for many years and it’s not something new. Strayer tells us “the exchange of goods among communities occupying different ecological zones has long been a prominent feature of human history”. (p217).

In the past, as we have been studying, we can see that our ancestors started trading goods because they had a surplus of resources. Such surplus helped other members of their community who were lacking any type of grain, per ce. With time, we see that societies took advantage of their climates and kind of resources each of them had the most.

The advantage they took was to exchange those goods for the ones they did not have, allowing the birth of commerce, which nowadays it’s still one of the most important forms of business in our era. An example of good commerce exchange tradition was the Silk in China, which “symbolized the Eurasian exchange system” (p221). 

The exchange system also helped politically because a big decision had to be taking, this decision was whether or not cities governments needed to implement a taxing system or just keep it private in the hands of the men who were trading their goodies. With time, the resources trader escalated in numbers and also in diversity. Later on, what started to be traded were Gold, salt and Slaves. The culture simply changed and instead of seeing one another as human beings, the differences in color and in social status gave chance to men allowing themselves to sell one another. It has been really hard for men to stop thinking that way and leave slavery behind.

I think we are doing better every day but there’s a lot that needs to be still worked on. Now talking about China to be honest, I really do not know much about China. I know that it is a place where its citizens are extremely disciplined and hard working. After reading the chapter I can tell that China has gone through many very important changes that have shaped the way the government is now. I am personally not a fan of how they make some of their decisions or how their pride is portrayed in books or in dynasties, but I do know that their internal and external sources of change during history have helped it shape its political views and government.  For the most part China has not changed its status as a country since the time of Confucius.  Most other Countries have gone through extreme changes resulting in the formation of separate new countries.  These new countries may be standing on the foot prints of the old country before it but almost all other aspects of the old country are gone.

We think of ourselves as a new world where we have a global market but the truth is we are not doing something new, we are going back to the way it used to be, the way it should have always been.

First writings, Gilgamesh and becoming "Civilized"

In the first chapters, the picture of how humans have started inhabiting the earth was really broad because there was not a structure to follow or many groups to capture and compare many differences. We saw how little by little humans started building weapons and gathering food to provide for their groups. On the other hand, after the Agricultural Revolution, a big shift in history happened and it changed the course of humankind. In class, we acted out parts of the Epic of Gilgamesh which I found to be a fun way to learn a new story of human history, even if it made me look a little silly. I got the idea behind the words after we dissected it and we talk about how men had evolved and how being civilized played a very important role in society. I found it interesting how even then, males was shown to be guided by sex.  I also found it equally interesting that males were seen as easily manipulated by women sexuality as we are seen today.  As a class, we only saw some of the criteria that men has to put up with in order to become civilized, but in part II of our textbook, Ways of the World by Robert Strayer, where this whole civilization description has been explained and its origins have been discovered. It is important for me to mention that even though we are reading the facts of world history from the same source, these last chapters we have read, have more and more credible evidence because there exists more than just drawings, after civilization became so important, men discovered an excellent way of communicating thoughts and experiences, men learned how to write.

In fact, I did a little research and I found where the first writings have been found.

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Later on chapter five, Strayer describes the different cultural traditions civilizations started to follow and how after believing in many gods, humankind started “moving forward Monotheism” (p138). The religion played an important part mainly in the Middle East, where during the Persian Empire gave chance to the division of more religions or sects if we can call it. On the other hands, civilizations such as in Greece, did not follow just religion, their citizens started “the Search for a Rational Order” (p141), which made possible the “emphasis on argument, logic, and the relentless questioning of received WISDOM”. (p141). This type of thought did not last for too long though, the Roman Empire picked religion to be the center or the “glue to hold together a very diverse population in a weakening imperial state” (p148). To me it is really interesting how when in the beginnings men were so simple and lived day by day the feeling of manipulation grew so much that people was moved politically and economically according to their religious beliefs.

The Beginnings of Mankind and its evolution (Ch 1,2,3)

Before we could leave the class on the first day we had to memorize and say the five major eras of the world (Paleolithic, Neolithic, Ancient, Classic, and Modern).  These eras are very important to human kind because they portray a very wide picture of how the humans started populating the planet. When reading chapter one of “Ways of the World” by Robert Strayer, one can see the description of how humans have evolved and how long it has taken for us to develop the knowledge, the abilities and the skills to survive and create a whole different world for ourselves. In the beginning, the purpose of humans was simply of “gathering and hunting”, but then I asked myself how historians can tell weather that was the only thing our ancestors did or did not; in the book, it is explained that historians came to that conclusion by studying the Paleolithic era.

In this Era, anthropologists have found many drawings and cavern paintings that have been clue to the discovery of such conclusion. In the drawings, our ancestors portrayed scenes of men and women using tools, made with stones, to be able to hunt and to fight bigger animals. A very interesting description given in the book is that during the Paleolithic era, our ancestors had very closed relationships. I was amazed at the fact that they did not have any kind of hierarchy even though they had chores divided between men and women. Both genders helped their group by providing the food and all enjoyed it.

The Paleolithic era accounts for 95% of humankind history and it has very significant importance in our study of history. It is also important to mention that even though a lot of facts are given in the book, they are more of speculations rather than actual facts, but still very well described according to evidence. So after studying the beginnings of humankind and the many Paleolithic societies that develop from that time, we jump (figuratively speaking) into the Neolithic era which happened 10,000 BC – 3000 BC.

The significance of this era is the birth of the agricultural beginnings and revolution, which “represented a genuinely revolutionary transformation of human life all across the planet and provided the foundation for almost everything that followed” (p36). The agricultural era happened due to the end of the Ice age. The weather was just perfect to start planting and it also helped Homo sapiens to start moving around the globe, which allowed the spreading of humans to different territories.

I personally think that the agriculture has been one of the most important discoveries for humankind, but at the same time, it has also been the one reason men started hierarchies and the creation of social classes. In the beginning, humans used agriculture as a way to feel both animals and themselves, but the more land they started acquiring and the more they were cultivating, the more they saw the opportunity for growing and exchanging the products. Nowadays societies used the same idea of having more and more to be able to sell and have more wealth than others; this idea of having more than others created gap between societies, the ones that were more “civilized” and the ones that were not. The earliest civilizations that emerged were in three places, “one was called the Cradle of the Middle East, the Mesopotamia and the Sumerian” (p56). All these civilizations “represent a new and particular type of human society, made possible by the immense productivity of the Agricultural Revolution” (p56).

Matthew Cochran

World History

Notre Dame de Namur University

May 25, 2016