Introduction to Part 5

Part 5 is called "European Centrality and the Problem of Eurocentrism." The century and half between 1750 and 1914 is referred to as modern and created the concepts of Scientific, French, and Industrial revolutions. It also let grow the ability for societies to take their power over other people. A lot of countries were recognized to be having constant change, others were recognized to not have changed very much at all. Europeans thought that if countries weren't changing in the same direction as them, they were bound to become extinct. This part of the book will show the readers that even though the Europeans are talked about a lot throughout history, the "European moment" was very brief and recent. The rise of the Europeans was possible because the Chinese did not take action with their naval fleet and the European concept grew internationally as they took over the Indian Ocean. Also, although the Europeans growth was known internationally, it was not easy for the Europeans to maintain the dominance they had. It was difficult and caused a lot of battles and rebellions during the process.

Since the Europeans were so advanced compared to other countries, the other countries decided to take their ideas as their own and make their own use of them to either be one step ahead of the Europeans or to just use them for their own benefit. Although the Europeans were the ones that were mostly known internationally as having power, they were not the only ones. Asia, Africa, and the Middle East had their fair share of power, but they did not use it as obnoxiously as the Europeans did.

Chapter 16 Part 2

This second half of chapter 16 talks all about science as opposed to religion in the first half of the chapter. Before the Scientific Revolution, everything in European culture was centered around religion, mainly Christianity and Catholicism. Before scientists did their research, people believed that the earth was flat and that it was the center of the universe instead of the sun. A lot of mathematicians and scientists dedicated their lives to figure out the truth about the science of the earth. Nicolaus Copernicus proved that the center of the universe was the sun so he put to rest the rumor of the earth being the  center of all things. Johannes Kepler proved that not only is the sun in the center of the universe, but that all the plants revolve around it every year. Galileo Galilei created an improved telescope and discovered the many moons of the planet Jupiter. Isaac Newton made probably one of the world's most famous scientific laws, which is the law of gravity. Kepler viewed the world as a giant machine that did not require angels or even God to control everything in the world. A lot of scientists also discovered answers to a lot of questions concerning the human body. Although, the Catholic Church highly opposed the scientists taking research to discover more about the human body. A lot of scientists were forced to silence themselves or were killed because they were contradicting the teaching of the Catholic Church and they were not okay with that because for many years, religion was what answered people's questions. Newton on the other hand was a well known biblical scholar and did not see any contradictions between religion and his scientific discoveries. The church held their self proclaimed superiority by saying that no matter what the scientists may "discover," the church will always have the real ultimate answers to the ultimate questions of the people.

Chapter 16 Part 1

This chapter talks about religion and science. An interesting quote that I read on the first page is "that life is so complex that it must have been created by some higher power." Also, there has always been a big rivalry between those who believe in religion and those who believe in science because they obviously contradict each other. Christianity came from both America and the Philippines and it was hardly practiced more towards the Middle East. The ones who mainly wanted to expand the idea of Christianity were the Europeans because they were the people who practiced the religion the most. The people who lived in the Middle East who practiced Islam also tried their hardest to expand their religion as far as they could. Christianity first spread to Spain and England and then towards Russia and Central Asia. It also spread vaguely in African countries such as Egypt and Ethiopia. When the Ottomans took control of Vienna it spread Islam into more of Central Europe, whose majority practiced Christianity. The Protestant Reformation was also a big part of the chapter in which Martin Luther which used his Ninety-five Theses to demand the churches to reform themselves. Something interesting that I found within these religions is that they put men in much higher positions than women. Men were the ones that were put into power in all these religions. Men were the priests, the popes, even the Christ figure was a male. Although a lot of women practiced these religions, women were never seen as having any sort of power. On another note, there was a lot of violence in France between the Christians, the majority, and the Protestants (Huguenots), the minority. Since they were two different religions that did not exactly get on good terms, there was a lot of conflict between the two, which the Christians mainly took control of. Christianity also took its control in Spanish America. Spanish America was mainly Aztec and Incan, but with the Spanish taking over, they also took over their religion, causing all the people that lived there to convert to Christianity. Meanwhile in China, they practiced completely different religions, such as Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. There was conflict between the Jesuits and the Chinese. They were civil with each other, but it was hard for the Jesuits to respect the religions they were practicing because it was so different from the religion they practiced. There were a lot of different religions in the world at this time. A lot of them were civil with each other and a lot of them weren't because they all believed their religion to be the superior one and the one that was true. Back then, all people had to rely on was their religion and their beliefs. The most interesting thing, in my opinion, is that practically all the religions that are mentioned in this book are all around today and fully intact. Religion is a powerful idea that many people believe in because it is their reason for everything.

Chapter 15 Part 2

This part of the chapter mainly talks about the Atlantic Slave Trade between Africa and Europe/Asia. I feel this is a very important topic in this book because this is something that still goes on today. Probably not in the same exact way and it is definitely not accepted by the majority of the world's population like it was back then. This part of the chapter mainly concerned itself with what kind of people were traded into slavery, why, and what they did. The typical people that were traded in the Atlantic Slave Trade were Africans because they were seen to be very strong and athletic so they were capable of doing the hard work that people wanted the slaves to do in the first place. The slave trade changed the lives of the African people immensely. The African people went from having freedom and well lived lives in their home countries to living under the orders of "superior people" because they didn't have power and resources like the others. They chose the Africans because they were easy to target. They had a lot of greed and they wanted the money that it would give to them. Also, they didn't take in to consideration that all people deserved rights. They never made laws that made it essential for everyone to have their rights, so they took for granted that these people were ignorant to it.

Chapter 15 Part 1

This first part of chapter 15 would explain to the readers of the Indian trade and about what countries participated and how they participated. Portugal was one of the countries that was mentioned and the way that Portugal participated was quite different than the way that the rest of the countries did. Portugal took advantage of the fact that no one that they were up against was much of a threat with the type of military that they all had so Portugal used this to their advantage. They decided to use power and intimidation to get the merchandise they wanted and needed because they did not have the money to get what they were after. For example, since they did not have much money, they taxed the merchandise that they had from 6-10% that only merchants have to pay. Their reasoning for this extra pay was that if they paid this money, they would receive protection. Spain was also mentioned in this chapter as trying to take control over the Philippines. Spain wanted to gain control of the Philippines because it would've given them easier access to Asia during the trade and because since there weren't many people in the Philippines, there wasn't much military power either, so that made the Philippines an easier target than any other country Spain could've taken over. There were many countries involved in the Indian trade, and they were all different and the same in many ways. One way of how they were all the same was that they all wanted to participate because there was more to gain than to lose. And also how they were all violent in one way or another. A way that was different was that they all had different types of government which obviously would make them clash and bang heads when they would cross one another.

Sugar Reading

In the reading about sugar, I thought it as interesting that people used to think that sugar was a drug. It's interesting because when people think of sugar today, they don't usually categorize it as a drug because sugar is in almost everything. But if people were to think about it, would we still like all the foods we enjoy if it didn't have sugar in it? Sugar is in just about everything that people eat today because otherwise the food would be bitter or flavorless. An example that I can come up with is that a lot of people have a "sweet tooth" and have a lot of cravings for sweets, which obviously contain sugar. But people never looked at this as an addiction because so many people eat sweets and use sugar everyday. Also, it's interesting to know that people in the United States take advantage of sugar. People in the United States use sugar everyday and they use big amounts of it for food or drinks or snacks, but they don't really take the time to think about how and where sugar came from and the history of it. If people took the time to look at the history of sugar and how it came to be and where it came from in order for them to be able to use it, maybe they would think differently about using it so often. Back then, when sugar was first being traded, slavery was not a big deal and people considered it to be normal and the natural way things should be. People don't think about how sugar came to us through slavery in the beginning and they take advantage of it. People don't like to buy things that are made my child labor and things like that, so would people use sugar as much as they do if they knew it originated from  slavery?

Chapter 14 Part 2

This half of chapter 14 talks about a lot of conquering and domination. The Russians were mentioned for a significant part of this chapter. The Russian Empire what particularly different than the British, Spanish, and Portuguese empires. The British, Spanish, and Portuguese had their colonies in America become independent for a long time, but the Russian Empire did not fall until the Soviet Union itself fell. What played a large part in the transformation of the Russian Empire was that of the influx of Russian settlers. The settlers weakened a lot of the long-standing economies. Also, the nomads were highly recommended to abandon their usual ways but that required paying fees and getting permission to get across the agricultural lands. The Qing Dynasty also had a lot to do in this chapter because they conquered a lot of land as well, like central Eurasia for example. Although the Qing dynasty were not dictating the lives of the people that lived in the land they conquered. They did not force people to convert religions and respected the beliefs of other cultures like Mongolian, Tibetan, and Muslim peoples. The conquests of both China and Russia completely changed central Asia. Another empire that was mentioned was India's Mughal Empire. They hosted interaction of Muslims and Hindus in South Asia. Mughal's emperor Akbar tried to make everything as comfortable as it could be for Hindus, as they were the majority of the people that he ruled. A lot of things that he imposed were restraining Islamic ulama, and removing taxes that non-Muslims had to pay. Akbar made a lot of changes to accomodate everyone that he ruled but there were people that had different opinions. Aurangzeb changed Akbar's original policy completely and enforced Islamic supremacy above all others. The last empire is the Ottoman Empire which went from a small empire to one of the most powerful empires in history. The Ottoman Empire showed everyone the power of the Turks that was growing larger and larger everyday. They even conquered Byzantium when Constantinople fell and they became very famous for it. I find it interesting that all these empires rose and fell in different ways and were located in different parts of the same continent. It seems that a lot of the most powerful empires were created and destroyed in Asia. I find that these empires stand as a sign to everyone that empires never survive forever. As strong and successful and powerful they may be, empires always end up falling.

Chapter 14 Part 1

I found the first part of chapter 14 interesting because I like reading about how things got started in the world. I thought it was interesting how everything started in Africa and then spread out to the rest of the world. How the other continents would have had a lot less if the first humans did not first travel to other places. What if the people never decided to migrate East, West, North, or South? How long would the majority population have survived if they never left Africa? How would America look if people from different continents didn't find the Americas? The migrations to the Americas brought good and bad for the natives living there. The people that were already living there, let's call them Native Americans, were living a content and good life before the Europeans came along and indirectly caused 90% to die. The Europeans brought diseases to the Americas that the Native Americans were not immune to, making them fatal. But if the diseases hadn't caused the majority of the Native Americans to die, I'm sure that the Europeans would have ended up killing them anyway because they knew how easy the Native Americans would have been to conquer because they were so ignorant to the technologies that the Europeans had. Although the arrival of the Europeans brought a lot of bad things to the Americas, it also brought a lot of the things that the present day would not have. There are a lot of animals and plants that we would not have had if the Europeans would not have migrated over here. Therefore, the Europeans had a big impact on the Americas, good and bad.

I'm done!