Section 5 Eurocentrism

Chapter 16 Atlantic Revolutions It is very interesting to look through the lens of Modern Revolution really occurring in the Atlantic regions and then having a global impact. I have never thought about it that way. I also found Strayers definition of "Revolution" to be interesting when he was looking at the American Revolution as a starting point. My generation certainly was not raised to think about the "American Revolution" in terms of just a colony asserting its rights, with no real change happening. I also found it interesting that it is the first big event in the Modern Era to create such huge ripple effects, down to the suffragette movement. Just as I found the information on the volume of slavery that occurred in the Caribbean Surprising, I was also surprised to learn that Haiti had essentially expelled any "whites" remaining once the revolution was complete. I wonder from a social context that even with the snowball effect of revolution happening in "colony" after colony, those in power really did not seem to get the message. If you think about Tsarist Russia and the lack of changes that were occurring it seems a bit self indulgent for the leaders to not realize that sweeping reforms would be needed or they would lose their positions. I had also never made the connection between the emergence of Nationalism and the various revolutions. Finally in this chapter I found the Zooming In story of Kartini to be fascinating, if not somewhat sad to read. I imagine that her father must have been somewhat progressive to let her continue to study even if it was at home on her own. Chapter 17 Industrial Revolution What I wondered at most in reading this chapter was the fact that the Industrial revolution was focused on Britain first and then spreading outward. Given the research indicating that the Islamic Empire and China both looked to be headed for "Industrial Revolutions" if you will. Again using the example of China and the sudden withdrawal of their fleet and drawing inward or reverting to a different way of thinking. One has to really wonder what happened to make those societies pause and say, no I do not wish to go down this path. Why did the European chose to plow forward and ultimately cause epic global change? At what point now does the world halt this progress and slow down to lessen the degree of impact we have on the world? Chapter 18 Colonial Encounters There is a drawing on page 791 of my version of the book and it depicts the 19th Century understanding of development. I call this out because while Racism continues to play largely in our lives today, I really never understood that for Europeans (and I am going to say mostly British/American) they ranked them as evolved to various levels and that they considered the Chinese to be the last step before becoming a White European. I was completely taken aback by this, even though I have thought I understood the levels of racism that exist, I really had no idea. How unbelievably arrogant these men were that colonized the Africas, Pacific Islands and Asia. To think that their idea of industry was far superior to the way these other peoples were living and thus needed to be mastered. I also found the sentiments of Cecil Rhodes reminiscent of the crusades initial launches. We have to many restless people with nothing to do, lets send them somewhere else to "bring christianity", settle areas that would benefit from our people settling in them. One wonders if this is also how homo-sapiens thought when they came across other homo species and essentially out competed them. Another very surprising fact in this chapter for me was the amount of movement between all of the countries between 1846 and 1940. Europe had the largest number of migrants to the Americas and we assume that this is what led to America looking so similar to Britain (even though it was colonized by peoples from all areas of Europe. I liked at the end of the chapter when Strayer asks the question Who Makes History? Marx is certainly correct when he says "Men make their own history." That history is still being made today and hopefully the future brings about a sea change of positiveness for humankind.