Cat's World History II Blog

Inspired by the legacies of the French and Scientific Revolutions, the Industrial Revolution transformed human society. It began as a quest for greater amounts of energy sources and was sustained agriculturally through seabird feces as fertilizer. The consequences of this movement included an increase in the rise of technological innovation, harm on the environment, capitalism, and globalization.  The Industrial Revolution was another European event that placed Europe in the center of global dominance. This is because its makeup of competitive rivalry states called for innovation, and their states' monarchs needed a way to obtain revenue. Europe's new global network brought them into cross cultural exchange with global people. However, its roots have long been a controversial debate. As Strayer puts it, "other areas of the world experienced times of great technological and scientific flourishing" besides Europe, (741) so it is Eurocentric to give them all the cred...

Echoes of Revolution In many ways, today's class discussion set the stage for this reading. We dove into the notion that the ideas of the revolutionary era still "echo" the world today. For example, it was only recently that Haiti paid off their independence debt to France. Further, we see many rights movements in our contemporary world, including the fight for immigration, women's, and LGBTQ rights. We can therefore say that we are still living the values of the Enlightenment period through these political protests and popular sovereignty where elected officials serve as public servants to the people. We must remember that liberty, freedom, popular sovereignty, and other such concepts are "ideals" because reaching these goals is still a work in progress. Even in my sociology class today, Deviant Behavior, we discussed the idea that our system of government was built on the hope for "men," as our values of who deserves rights have significant...

Part 5: The European Moment in World History (1750 - 1914) Strayer emphasizes that the "long nineteenth century" from 1750 to 1914 was inevitably Eurocentric. During this century and a half, new human societies were created that primarily took shape in Western Europe. Then these modern societies could use power over other human populations. However, Strayer does present five methods to combating Eurocentric geography and history, which will be covered in the following chapters. One such example is for us as readers to remember that Europe rose within an international context. Strayer closes the introduction to part five with a fair statement that reminds us this is a world history, not a western civilization course: "None of this diminishes the significance of the European moment in world history, but it sets that moment in a larger context of continuing patterns of historical development and of interaction and exchange with other peoples" (693). Chapter 16: Atla...

Do this exercise with the handout "Living Justice." In writing margin notes, see if you can make connections between the reading and the Hallmarks. Do the opinions expressed in this article reflect the Hallmarks in any way? This section, Colonialism and Economic Development is very important in several ways. First, it highlights the historical context that has set up the global wealth gap, which was mainly the result of European colonization. Second, with this information, it clarifies the difference between charity and social justice . While both charity and social justice are ways of fulfilling moral obligations, charity is like putting a bandaid over a problem, whereas social justice examines the root causes of an issue to prevent it from continuing in the first place and ending it on a population level. As the article mentions, social justice is difficult to do at first because "no individual in isolation has sufficient power to change the large economic and po...

Today, Friday February 2nd, I joined other NDNU students and faculty for a historical tour of our campus, led by Sr. Roseanne Murphy. Receiving this tour was a worthwhile experience. It was a beautiful day and we got to appreciate Belmont's beautiful weather and our school's lovely greenery, all while learning a little bit more about the birth of our university. We first met in front of the library, where Sr. Roseanne gave each of us these informative handouts which I have inserted below. The font is small and a little bit difficult to read, but the first handout is basically a summary of NDNU's history, mission, values, and spirit. Something interesting I learned from this is that NDNU was formerly known as College of Notre Dame. It was also originally an all women's institution until it became coeducational in 1969. The second handout is interesting too because it lists the buildings on campus and who they are named after. I learned St. Joseph's Hall was actual...

In this text, we discover that Julie Billiart and Francoise were the foundresses of the SND, and we examine their individual upbringings, their social contexts in the age of growing up One aspect of the reading I found surprising is that Francoise had a very aristocratic upbringing. This is not something I would expect of someone who had a strong sense of spirituality, morals, and ethics, but this was who Francoise was. One role model in Francoise's life was her grandmother, who helped to instill good values and morals in her when they went together to check on people's practical well-being. These visits helped shaped Francoise to becoming a more altruistic person. Likewise, Julie still remained persistent and gave lessons to the children despite her illness and being confined to her bed, revealing her utmost compassion. Last semester, my freshman seminar class focused on the academic study of happiness, and we integrated the study into reading Martyr of the Amazon.  Though w...

Cultural Transformations: Religion and Science (1450-1750) The marriage of Greek rationality and monotheistic tradition set up the modern Western cultural civilization. Though Europeans were "central players" (644) in the rising of these two cultural trends, Strayer does not leave out the other civilizations and religious traditions that experienced cultural transformations too during this era that other texts are likely to skip over. After all, this is world history, not just Western civilization. The Globalization of Christianity The significance of the Protestant Reformation in the globalization of Christianity was that it gave rise to a divided but "renewed" (650) Christianity. The movement began with Martin Luther, who essentially protested the corrupt, authoritative tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. His ideas, which many resonated with, encouraged people to read the Bible for themselves, independent of the Church institution. Christianity also spread...