Cat's World History II Blog

I have heard about Nazi Germany racial laws, but I never actually knew of their details before. Overall, these were extremely racist and anti-Semitic. The fact that Jews had to hide their identity just for the sake of their lives reminds me of when I read Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, a story of a girl of about ten years old living in Nazi Germany. It's been years since I've read it, but I do remember a moment in the book when a young girl removed her Star of Nazareth necklace and hid in the closet from Nazi soldiers. The reading goes into detail about the fake science and justification of scientific racism that motivated Nazi ideology: "Despite the persistent claims of Nazi ideology, there was no scientifically valid basis to define Jews as a race. Nazi legislators looked therefore to family genealogy to define race." This was unfair and dehumanizing. These laws lead to the rise of fascism because they were a form of political system. Hitler's destroying of ...

Introduction to Part 6: The Most Recent Century (1914 - 2015) I was excited when I saw the more recent, colorized photographs on page 872 because it meant that we would get to explore history from a more current perspective that would be more relatable and understandable. This section provides a nice preview of the world's major events which include World War I, World War II, world communism, and the fall of empires with the fight for independence of colonized regions. Though the length of this era is controversial, the major event of the most recent century was World War I. Because this conflict grew out of European rivalry and failure to achieve a unified civilization, it demonstrates that the events of the most recent century stemmed from older patterns and emerged with new ones. Along with these major social and political events, economically, the nineteenth century experienced a large population growth made possible through advancements in medicine and the soaring of industri...

Chapter 19 is unique and deserving of its own chapter, because while European imperial efforts affected China, the Ottoman Empire, and Japan, they shared notable similarities and occurred in ways that would reform their political, economic, and social environments. This was a culture of modernity that moved closer toward the concept of secularization, but a focus on human rights. These places already faced internal conflict, so dealing with European aggression and culture was a challenge, yet it helped influence fresh ideas for society. I thought it was very smart of Strayer to call China's conflict a "reversal of fortune" and a "victim of its own earlier success" (834-835). From World History I up to this point, Strayer taught me that China experienced a golden age of accomplishment because of their creation of a successful, resourceful, civilization they established during the classical era. We even just wrapped up our discussions on European desires to get a...

Colonial Encounters in Asia, Africa, and Oceania 1750 - 1950 The capitalistic culture birthed by the Industrial Revolution set up European second-wave colonial initiatives. Europeans discovered that foreign investment and global imperialism was beneficial to their economy. The industrial era also influenced Europeans to develop a sense of secular superiority that caused them to diminish their perceptions of other cultures and view them as uncivilized, animal-like savages. Nineteenth century colonialism was distinctive from first-wave initiatives in several ways. For example, Europeans justified their superiority and acts of conquest through "scientific racism" (Strayer 799). Socially, political forces like tax-collection and class status divides were deeper integrated, like the British appropriation of the traditional caste system in India. Europeans even established a tribal Africa that sharpened the Western "we" versus "them" divide of "weaker race...