May Madness: Promotional Video

This is my promotional video for the May Madness competition. My ruler is Mehmed II. Good Luck to everyone participating.

Map of Imperialism

Why do most of the countries go after Africa and colonize there? About every place in Africa is colonized by some other country.

Does Australia play a big role in the trade networks?

If so many countries are in Africa, then why is it still underdeveloped when compared to other places?

White Man's Burden Response

Rudyard Kipling describes the native people very differently as opposed to the Europeans. He speaks so highly about the "white man" compared to the natives. Kipling at various times in the poem describes the natives as uncivilized and not culturally proper. He also believed that imperialism was greater than the government of the natives. The attitude that he shows during this poem is arrogance and this is directed towards the natives. He even tries to tell natives to renounce their current lifestyles and adopt the European ways ("white man's burden"). Kipling is illustrating that everything that the Europeans do is the proper style and nothing else works. Overall, Kipling is trying to support his opinion that all natives are foolish and need to be disciplined, while the Europeans are very advanced and ahead of everyone else. 

Lin Zexu's Letter To Queen Victoria Response

Lin Zexu conveys his distaste for opium by stating many negative aspects of it and the people who sell it. Lin says that opium causes all sorts of pain and problems for the Chinese people; even Heaven is affected by the use of opium. He is even more angry at the fact that opium usage has already spread to many of the provinces in China and nothing is being done to stop it. Also the traders of opium constantly sell opium in China even though there are laws that should prevent this from happening. The punishments inflicted on opium peddlers suggest that Lin's perception of opium's threat to China is a strong one because he believes that if the Chinese people who have interacted with this drug are setenced to death, then the traders who sell it should be killed as well. Lin explains that if there is to be peaceful trading between their countries, then everyone must obey the regulations that have been placed explicitly. 

Impact of the Industrial Revolution

From the Industrial Revolution, there came a lot of misfortune and bad circumstances. By changing the very concept of work, the social, political, religious, and economic aspects of people's lives worsened. In the case of economy, as technology becomes more integrated, there is less work because the machines alone are able do what various humans cannot. For example, in China, the working class lost value because of the better technology that replaced workers. For social aspects, the technology integration makes the family life worse. For example, families became less unified because the males needed to leave farther away from their homes for work. For political aspects, the change doesn't just occur in America, it happens even in places across the world. However, some places didn't have an Industrial Revolution and never developed. In Africa for example, since there wasn't any political unity, there wasn't any Industrial Revolution that occurred because government never stabilized as it did in the U.S. For religious aspects, the integration of technology made a lot of people from different cultures move because work required them to, which caused more diverse cultures to appear. Technology is a negative aspect because it makes the lives of people harder than it already is and it changes the structure of life. For example, you see women beginning to work in textile factories, which is a man's job. For the concept of wealth, land is no longer very important because of agriculture being controlled by a minority of people; this in turn causes the demand for land to decrease.

The Industrial Revolution was responded by in various ways. For example, the Luddites were shocked and afraid by the new advances of technology in the work places. They thought the new technology would become a major obstacle to the textile craftsmen. In class last week, we learned about the spectrum of positions that people were catogorized in. In this case of the Luddites, they would be placed in the reactionary category because they did not want change.

TED Talk: Response On Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson really interested and taught me many things that I didn't even know. The best part of his lecture was that he was able to keep everyone entertained while giving accurate information. The most important part of his lecture is when he speaks of the 6 six killer apps that include: competition, the scientific revolution, property rights, modern medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic. The 6 killer apps are what allowed many civilizations to improve their economies and they sum up The Great Divergence. Now, The Great Divergence is the difference in GDP of various countries like America, China, India, and Britain. From this, Niall explained how in the 1500s, countries like China were more wealthy and grew stronger than a lot of other countries. However, through the 1600s - 1900s, the difference in GDP in various countries became drastically different. Niall explains that this occurred because of the economic and techological changes. For example, Niall says that the average American in 1970 is 20 times richer than the average Chinese and he says this all ties together with the lifestyle of the country and its people. Overall, Niall supported all of his statements with concrete facts and explained them in an easily comprehensible way.

Fabian Fucan Rejects Christianity Response

It seems as though Fabian has experienced a great deal of misfortune throughout his life. In the beginning of his life, he was supposedly mislead on the wrong religious path and this angered him greatly because he wasted so many years for nothing. He hated the faith of Christianity and tried to attack the teachings of it through his work, Deus Destroyed. Fabian said that Japan is the Land of the Gods and that the adherents of Deus are trying to convert the people there. He also believes that Japan's rulers have received their instructions for rule from their own gods such as Amaterasu Omikami; this supports the fact that Japan has its own cultural and religious aspects which shape its political structure. Finally, Fabian says that other countries such as the Philippines and Mexico have already fallen under the conversion to Christianity, but Japan will not fall because it's much more fierce. Overall, Fabian shows the spread of Christianity in many places and tries to prove that it's a religion of false ideals.