Chapter 20: Colonial Encounters, 1750-1914

After the opening vignette, Chapter 20 starts with the second wave of European colonization which spanned from 1750-1900. The second wave was quite different than the first wave because Asia and Africa were the focuses, demographics didn't change much, and the Europeans used different forms of control like through military action. It's disturbing to think about Europeans forcing their "better" culture on these Asian and African entities, but I can't oppose it since I'm living in a time that was directly and indirectly influenced by these colonists. I do think about what was forced upon these peoples, because as I said in my last blog, just because a form of government or lifestyle works for one entity, it doesn't necessarily work another due to culture, history, politics, and location. The best thing people can do when something or someone is forcing themselves on them is rebel like the US or the India who were both against Great Britain.

The second wave of European colonization demonstrated the extreme effects of the Industrial Revolution. Even the way these Europeans conquered these people portrays this because they used new technologies like repeating rifles and machine guns and therefore, they usually won.

Reading about how the colonists' education for different countries were made suitable for "primitive minds". It's sad because these peoples had the same capacity of intelligence as the colonists, but the colonists couldn't recognize that they had different ways of thinking. It's strange because these colonists were adapting to change themselves and yet they were largely incapable of treating other people with the same consideration.

I remember reading about Leopold II when I was younger. I don't think I understood the abuses his constituents forced upon on the Africans and then the complete exploitation of their natural resources like rubber. Maybe my age and being in grade school influenced the type of textbooks we had, and therefore, sparing us kids the gritty details. I believe I forgot that Belgium took over in 1908 to stop the horrible treatment. I believe Belgians were the inventors of the french fry, or pomme frites. The name, "french fry" has nothing to do with France or its origins, but the language the fry is originally in. INTERESTING.

I like how in different cultures, women were highly regarded or at least seen as equals to men. The Europeans had to come in and ruin the female perception! Anything the natives did were barbaric even though it wasn't. It was just different.

It sounds that once the Europeans began to colonize, "race" was constructed along with scientific racism. I tried searching on Google for when the word, "race" started being used, but instead I came upon a Yahoo answer. This person said, "I'm guessing you're in college? PC liberal universities like to think that if they pretend race doesn't exist, that racism will go away. This, in fact, makes racism worse because it forces dishonesty." It's so sad because it is a construct. I want to challenge this person to research in libraries all over the world before the 17th or 18th centuries and try to find race as something concrete and tangeable. In fact, human genetics are nearly 99% the same, so that 1% must be physicality.

Chapter 18: Revolutions of Industrialization, 1750-1914

Whenever I think about the Industrial Revolution, I always think about the bad stuff like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, children being exploited as labor, people losing limbs due to dangerous work, and The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. The idea of the laboring classes doing the physical work in order for the higher classes to benefit when the poor won't benefit much is difficult for me. That idea is somewhat prevalent today, but more along the lines of the poor being unable to rise in class structure (at least easily) rather than in the Industrial age where kids were put to work and the employees were subject to whatever abuse their employers desired like endless work hours and extremely low wages. I believe it's because I don't know a world outside of a country industrialized and how it is now, so I forget the true importance of the Industrial Revolution. Because of this revolution, the world was been blessed (or not depending on your stance) with beginning technologies of efficient transportation, fast/cheap clothing production and distribution, and the start of modern medicine. Most people correlate the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions with Europe, and therefore, any other continents being lesser and primitive. Those people forget how in their history classes, their instructors do mention how, for example, the Chinese invented paper in 105 AD and print making in 610 AD. However, it is true that Great Britain was one of the most powerful countries in the world after the Renaissance due to exploiting different peoples and natural resources due to colonization.

When I think about the Scientific Revolution, I think of positive things such as logical reasoning, the separation of church and state, and general inventions that have attributed directly to the technology we have today. The Scientific Revolution is a larger turning point than the Industrial Revolution since the Industrial Revolution was born because of the Scientific Revolution.

I believe the idea of socialism is quite nice, but overall it hasn't shown to effect societies positively when put to use. Over the last century, we've seen governments like the USSR implement their own version of socialism that ultimately ended. The key words in that sentence are "own version" because a general form of any government would not automatically work in each country given their politics, cultures, and locations. It's unfortunate that forms of socialist countries like Norway aren't publicized. The Norwegian government seems to be working well with mostly content citizens.

I refuse to give into American Exceptionalism, but the US clearly became the world's leading industrialized power in 1914. I feel that people believe that now, but it's untrue. Other countries, such as China, presently are more wealthy than the US and more technologically advanced.