Quiz 4 - Last Post

Quiz 4 1) Hallmark 5 is reflected in Strayers’ book in multiple ways. First in looking at all of history and focusing on more than Western European History. Strayer includes within each time period a sampling from different regions around the world rather than just looking at the development and history of Western Europe. Within, Empire Building he looks at all of the Empires not just the Roman, in the Classical he includes Classical eras for other areas such as China. It is an unbiased account of the development of human kind. In creating a book for use within an educational setting he is expanding students’ knowledge and understanding more fully. By using his book NDNU is creating an inclusive and expansive educational environment. Although not “in his” book, your use of the book combined with the in classroom interactive lecture style does address the needs of a class across different boundaries. For me the best part of this semester was the classroom time, I very much enjoyed your lecture/teaching style. 2) Modern Humanistic Society broke down in the 20th century because everything became more focused on the individuals. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, we began to lose our sense of small communities and reliance on each other for our daily needs. Society evolved to be more focused on industrial output and capitalism. Even with Communism the original goals broke down as people came to power. “Greed” will always out. “Slavery” may have ended in the “civilized” world, but it continued in the various forms of racism. While I believe we are headed in the right direction, I also believe we have an incredibly long way to go before truly equalize and move back to a more humanistic society. The ways have not all been mended and I believe it will take several more generations before we see a proper return to that type of society. 3) Post-Modern, I am not sure we can say for certain that we have moved into a new era and agree with Strayer when he says, “Like all other historical periods, this most recent century both carried on from the past and developed distinctive characteristics as well. Whether that combination of old and new merits the designation of a separate era in world history will likely be debated for a long time to come.” (Strayer, 873). I think that aspects of your four bullets are correct (and ever since Wednesday, I have been thinking about this). We move in fits and starts I think we started to see capitalism regulated and cooperation begin to happen, but, I think the current political environment does not favor that, and we may move somewhat backward for a bit. Sustainability as a part of technology again is partially there, but, until we stop replacing technology every year or two, we will not truly create sustainability. I think we saw with the EU a step toward some globality within governments, again though, with Brexit and some of the other concerns, we may be staking a step back. Today Facebook announced it was opening a new “Village” with 1500 homes. Employees could work and live in the one location, this would centralize even more “Corporate Power” and I thought about the fact that a Facebook or Google could be the Global Corporate Empire of the future. Western European Civilization recognizes co-equality. I think you will always have large groups of people who think they are superior to others, so back to my previous statement. I believe it will be several generations before we see the outcome of this.

Section 6 The Most Recent Century

Chapter 20 I have never found current history, meaning WWII and forward interesting. But, reading chapter 20, made me realize that we are quite possibly in the same place we were at the start of the last century. Strayer talks about how WWI lead to WWII and though I knew that Hitler rose to power because Germans were very disenfranchised during the depression, I was unaware that much of that was driven on the extreme hardships the Allied Powers placed on Germany. Why hold 1 country responsible for everything that happened. Nothing in the reading led me to understand that Germany should have been held entirely responsible. I have to say, I also found it very disconcerting to read about the collapse of the global economy and the way different peoples in different countries Felt. It all felt extremely similar to the times we live in today. From the global economic melt down of 1930's (2008), to the ability of extreme right groups being able to take power (Donald Trump). How close are we all to the edge of the knife at this point? Another thing I found interesting was the fact that initially, Mussolini made fun of Hitler for his hatred of the Jews and Italy did not initially participate in the pogroms. That only came much later during the war. Chapter 21 For all of its problems communism as an ideal does make sense. I was amazed to read that communism truly fostered feminism and was ahead of the rest. Not because I had no idea that communist women were provided the appropriate educations and skills. But because prior to reading this chapter I had not thought about it. I also don't recall ever reading or hearing about the "people's communes" in China, again, I think the idea made have made sense. It was unfortunate to read that it was unsuccessful.