Ryan Jagai

Prof Goodman
World Civilizations
December 2012

Chapter reviews 16-21

Chapter 16 starts off in the nineteenth century with much disorder and revolution in all
countries. As societies began to secularization many were unsure to move toward the new western
world. Many tried to avoid the westernization because of the forming of colonies. The natives of the
land went against government power and sought out comfort in their cultural beliefs to help motivate
them.
Prophecy and revitalization in the Islamic world and Africa occurred during the same time. As
the era of the Islamic expansion ended so did the blossoming of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal
empires as well. Non-Islamic Africa was also changed by the new developing European exchange
trading and also observed the rise of compelling leaders who tried to gain strength from spiritual
traditions due to the Christian European influence pressing them.
With Western influence in China, regressive financial prosperities, and community
complications with the opium trade all showed Qings inability to stop overseas effect. Sensing China
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was long overdue for a change, with rebellions breaking out because of the alleged softness of Qing.
The Taiping Rebellion was a rebellion not for weakness but to restore Chinas prominence by rejecting
the Confucian order in favor of one based on quasi-Christian ideals.
A specter is haunting Europe the specter of Communism.1
In this quote from a primary source Communism is being acknowledged by all European powers to
be itself a power. Communists are openly discussing, publishing their views, and their goals to the
world. Communists from numerous places in Europe have come together in London and drafted the
following manifesto, to be published in various languages such as English, Italian, and German just to
name a few in order to spread their communism. This quote is important in history for if the word of
communism wasnt so widely spread the middle class would have not rose together in such a large
group.
In Europe during this time, social, cultural, political as well as religious prophets rose in vast
majority to contest the supremacy of traditional rules. The Radicals wanted a total over throw and
rebuild of society based on popular sovereignty. Nationalist on the other hand wanted believed that
the sovereignty rested with the people.
In the colonized regions of the world, for example North America and India, the native peoples
turned to rebellion, prophets , and compelling leaders for guidance into what they should do in the shift
of society. In China and the Islamic world a mixture of the past and present were combined to meet a
new standard.
1Worlds Together Worlds Apart ; Primary Source: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels page 617
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Concerned about the future, many Indians followed the prophet Shawnee of Tenskwatawa, who
predicted the white mans disappearance if Indians returned to old-fashioned rituals. The native
population in the Mayan Yucatan protested against European rule as well. In this situation, the fight
lasted from 1847 well into the early 1900s. In India, contact with British colonization stirred native
uprisings that peaked in 1857.
Chapter 17 begins with Puerto Rican and Cuban embracing the ideals of the nation-state model
and sought to expand their empires; but imperial growth did not go unopposed. With the ideals of
industrialization, popular sovereignty, capitalism revolutionaries began a power struggle to resist the
nations and empires. However, Europe and the United States gained new places of supremacy in the
world.
In order to create a nation the states had to combine and standardize laws, language, capital and
administration to name a few; Japan, America and as well as parts of Europe provided prime examples
of how this was to take place. In many of the new nation-states, imperialism and nation building
followed one another. By the end of the century the competition for nation-states power in obtain land
for their colonies led to a power struggle. This was however better for the people making it easier for
information, goods and people to spread at a faster rate.
In the United States Despite the north and south hand lines drawn due to slavery but territorial
expansion temporally stopped the fighting. Unfortunately later on resolves were broken and a civil war
broke out between the north and south. The ending of the war led to the abolition of slavery which thus
began efforts to extend equal rights to people of African lineage in the United States.
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Industrialization enhanced the strength of the European, Japanese, and North American nationstates. Along with industrialization came new technologies which helped produce new materials, such
as steel and electricity. With these new materials this helped, increase productivity among labor with
machines doing more efficient work.
We begin chapter 18 with fierce rebellions, such as that following Maji-Maji Revolt fighting
against Europes imperialistic movement. Dissatisfaction in Europe came about together with rebellion
in the colonies. This bought about questions such as how long would European dominance would last.
Economic progress and the financial hierarchy led many to execrate the separation between the rich
and poor classes. Science added to a more modernistic way of life over the traditional worldviews,
which affected culture and arts. The characteristics of nations and people came to be defined and
different from one another, eventually leading to World War I.
The imperialists depend more and more on strict authoritarianism to control their colonies, faith
in the imperialists eventually lead to doubt and distress in Europe, leading to an increase in colonies
rebelling often. In Africa violent rebellions broke out; this confused the Europeans who struggled to
understand why the Africans would fight against modernizing. After the embarrassing defeat in the
Sino-Japanese War, China tried to meet expanding Western influence as the powers carved out spheres
of influence.
As the modern world hanged the roles of woman changed as well. The job careers for women
also changed and educational opportunities expanded, allowing women to become more engaged in
public life. As women found more and more professions, the reproduction of children dropped, thus
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providing more resources for the children that were born during this time. Though change was evident
some aspects such Political rights came more slowly because of male confrontation.
Artists, scholars and scientists also resisted the changes of a new age. Modernism and its
ideas grew as thinkers compared new understandings with older views and challenged the notion that
all things European were top. In the beginning of the century, education and development had created
immense numbers of well-educated consumers engaging in new forms of culture. As people moved
from place to place, their characteristics became more defined. Race also came into play becoming a
key factor for determining addition or prohibiting from a nation. Racial hierarchies were used to
rationalize imperialism as well as exclusion of certain people from the mainstream of society.
Chapter 19 begins after World War I; it was a global conflict, effecting nations near and far from
Europe to Turkey to Africa as well. In Africa, people became disappointed with European colonialism
and believed that the notions of freedom and self-determination should be given to everyone. The war
pushed liberal governments to reconsider society and to find solutions to all the economic problems
that were occurring. The day before World War II, the power of oppressive governments called into
question the value of building nations on liberal ideas of limited government and individual enterprise.
During the 1920s and 1930s, many revelations of modernity strived. Of these visions, however
the most common was the vision of mass production, mass culture, and mass consumption. During
The Great Depression three new visions of modernity: liberalism, authoritarianism, and anticolonialism
came about. Liberalism, which united capitalism and democracy, underwent failure due to the
economies collapsing. While numerous people tried to find well-thought-out alternatives, liberalism
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survived by compromising and giving more power to the state. Authoritarian governments exalted the
state by treating the individuals with lesser importance and rejecting equality in favor of authoritarian
control. Anticolonialism banned liberalism, saying it was a form of imperialism, and sought to get rid
of foreign powers from the native lands.
The Great War came about after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria
which was the trigger. European claims of superiority were destroyed and demonstrated how much they
relied on their people. The Media which consisted of newspapers, music, theater, inspired the rise of
culture after the war by film and radio. Mass culture differed from elite culture, and example of this
would be in that it appealed to working-class and middle-class tastes. It relied on new technology such
as telephones and radios which allowed people to communicate faster and easier.
Chapter 20 starts with the end of World War II where the three leaders of the War meet,
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States, the Prime Minister Winston Churchill of
Great Britain, and Premier Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union. They had met to discuss and prep for the
postwar world. The United States, Russia, and Britain believed in very different ideas of how the
coming world would be though. Roosevelt envisioned independent nation-states kept at peace by an
international body, had no interest in restoring the old European empires. Churchill, however, resisted
liquidation of the British Empire. Stalins negotiations left no doubt that he intended to secure influence
in Eastern Europe and Asia and to weaken Germany so that it could never again menace the Soviet
Union.2

2 Worlds Together Worlds Apart , page 745

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The United States and the Soviet Union wanted to increase their spheres of influence and defend
against one another which meant gathering supplies for nuclear weapons. In the Third World, hostility
broke out due to anticolonial nationalists seeking their independence. Freedom, after the war did not
spontaneously give economic strength as new states wanted to build new political orders and govern
the individual states. In the beginning of the 1970s, economic might in Asia and extremism elsewhere
challenged the dominant First and Second Worlds which being the first world was the United States
and the second world being the Soviet Union.
With the German and Japanese trying to expand brought clashes with France, Britain, the
Soviet Union, and the United States, among others. After World War II any and all claims of superiority
of the Europeans were decimated, because of this many of the countries sought after independence but
first they had to decolonize. The process of decolonization consisted of civil war, negotiated
independence, and finally incomplete decolonization. Though the process was long and difficult mostly
every country went through this for varied reasons.
The First World consisted of Western Europe, North America, and Japan who believed in the
liberal versions of modernism but also found it suitable to follow along with Third World rulers in
order to try to stop communism. The soviets fearing an invasion conquered the Eastern part of Europe
to create a safe zone. Many Third World nations wanted to create a humanitarian version of modernism
unlike the systems of the First and Second Worlds.

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