Jared Diamond

This chapter covered the harmful effects that humans are placing upon mother earth. It covers the resources that we have been using too frequently and are now being sacred and there is no way to replace what we have taken away from the earth. This really goes back to our current situation of global warming. Since we haven't seen any "major damages" in our personal,everyday life, there is no need to change our daily habits. But the earth is slowly being effected, our ozone layer is thinning at a rate that is going to leave us unprotected, giving us harsh summers and an overflow of oceans. We are not being aware of what can happen to us in the future, because we are living on a day to day basis without knowledge of what our actions may be doing to the earth.

Chapter 24: Accelerating Global Interaction

In the beginning of the article, it starts off talking about the topic of Barbie and Ken. Barbie is meant to be the image of the perfect female body and Ken, the perfect male partner. Yet, they are both unmarried and set an odd example of what a couple should be like to the Muslim community. Compared to Americanized visions of what children should play with at a young age, Iranians have their own vision of Barbie and Ken, Sara and Dara. They are both eight year old twins who seek guidance from their parents in times of need and help finding love. This message is very different from the one that Barbie and Ken tend to express. Sara and Dara reflect the cultural values of the Muslim community, while Barbie and Ken tend to come into play with the Western culture media.

There have been factors have come into play when it comes to global interaction. There are four major processes that helped countries that were beginning to rise: world economy, global feminism, religions with modernity, humankind's enormous impact on the environment. After the World Wars, Cold War, and Great Depression occurred in the world, the economical stand point was at an all time low. Systems such as "Bretton Woods system" helped promote relatively free trade, technology helped the economy by products being produced and sold, this helped decrease the employment rate all over the world. Migrating laborers provided an inexpensive source of labor for their adopted countries. With the United States and Britain coming a halt in power, it gave Asian and African countries a time to catch up. Asian countries such as China and Japan, helped a lot with producing technology, toys, and transportation, they in partnership with the United States were also able to upstage them in their own game.

People started to take resources like fossil fuels and coal in the nineteenth century and oil in the twentieth. These new sources of energy made it possible for modern science and technology increased the production of goods and services. The growth of the population normally didn't change the environment on a large scale level, but since the growing number of the poor and the growing number of the rich consuming resources was creating a dent in the environment around them. The human remaking of the environment also greatly increased the population of cattle, pigs, chickens, rats, and dandelions. The major set back in this was the act that air pollution was starting to become a problem. The release of chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons thinned the ozone layer, which protects the earth from excessive ultraviolet radiation. This reminds me of what we are currently going through in terms of global warming.

Putin's Challenge

The article goes over the genocide of Circassians, mostly Muslim people who self-identity as Adygn (19th century) and currently settle in New Jersey. They are people that were fighting for their rights all through out history. I am surprised that I haven't heard about them in history class before. Much like the Holocaust many Circassians lost their life during various conquests by other countries. Circassians were once world-famous, the most dominant force and fountainhead of Caucasian culture. They believe in "khabza"which stands for honor, hospitality, respect for elders, egalitarianism and liberty. The Circassians had a whole culture, life style, and history about them, yet all of it was slowly getting away and being taken away from them. They were loaded onto ships and cast away to Turkey. Once settled, men were given orders and women rather commit suicide than go through with the work that they had waiting for them. This article helps you open your eyes to the world around us, that genocide and massive killings still happen. That powerful cultures can take over other cultures and delete them. It's something that happens on daily basis and continues to happen in present time.

Chapter 23:Independence and Development in the Global South

This chapter touches bases upon why the colonial empires collapsed. Theories such as: racism, exploitation  and poverty. Social and economic issues generated the human raw material for anti-colonial movements, and then there is simply because groups of people deliberately brought down the colonial system. Other topics such as India and the African community gaining independence from British control, were explained in detail. Leaders such as Gandhi and Mandela. were brought to the scene and how they are currently important to us today. The differences between the independence of India and South Africa are discussed, along with the ending of the South African apartheid.

There are times in history where I wonder why I must learn the same events every year, like the Holocaust, Civil War, Declaration of Independence, various activists,etc. I think the reason why we must learn about these things each year is to one, get a better understanding of them, two, to relate them back to modern days, and three, if we were to just learn about such events like the holocaust in 6th grade, you would only have the understanding of the Holocaust as a 6th grader. Relearning about independent events and leaders help a community grow, especially a troubled one. Looking back at all the trouble that people had to go through just to reach the amount of rights that we have today is insane.

Chapter 22: The rise and fall of world communism cont'd

This chapter was about the conflicts that arose from communist leaders and societies. Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, his nationalization of American assets provoked great U.S. hostility. The start of the Cold War is discussed as a war that never really went through on a physical level. There was a nuclear standoff, where both sides courted third world countries just emerging from colonial rule. The U.S. soon rose to power, becoming the new and improved powerhouse. It had a strong army, technology, stable economic system, and a government system. The two political parties left no room for communism to be tolerated in America. In the present, when we think of communism has a negative connotation, when there have been countries founded on communism. There are still various people that I talk to that have a positive view on communism and how America should actually try it out. But there are so many pros and cons when comes to switching the structure of a country, that already has governmental and economic problems.

Chapter 22:The Rise and Fall of World Communism

This chapter goes through how communism became popular in the eastern hemisphere of the world. The original ideas of Karl Marx helped spark the ideas of what communism will look like. Of course various countries (Soviet Union and China) took it upon themselves to make a plan of what communism would look like for their country, what it would do for their country, and how it may help them rise to the top. After the World Wars, they caused a lot of fusion between the winning alliances. During this chapter, we can see a border form between America and the use of the world. They were seen as the ones to get involved with political matters that aren't or weren't their own. Countries like Cuba had leaders such as Fidel Castro stand up to Americanized Cuban government and create a communist movement in order to get rid of the "repressive" ways of the Americans. As we can see in present day Cuba, America won that battle, but what for? This seems to always be the case when it comes to America, always getting involved in political and military matters that aren't our own. We should be known as the "ball-out" nation, because in almost every war that wasn't America's own, the U.S. seemed to have some part in helping the citizens of oppression or was the oppressor. Communism just seemed like another way for countries getting away from the American political norm, capitalism.

Chapter 21:The Collapse and recovery of Europe

This chapter went over what happened during the years of the World Wars. It went over how it affected the countries that were involved in both wars and mainly how Europe lost its power house abilities. The start of World War I, began because of an accidental assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian archduke. The Slavic nationalism and Austrian opposition was the beginning of the war. During the war there were alliances that were: Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy, and Triple Entente of Russia, France, and Britain. Europe was ahead of most of the countries when it came to their tools, but not when it came to their military services. 

The wars caused economic damage of the European empire that was once a power house on its own. As men were away from home while fighting the war, women were able to take over the jobs that the men were working before they left. During the other countries were being damaged by the war, Japan were just on the rise of industrialization and economic stability during the 20th century. Since Germany was the blame of  World War I their land was split up into pieces to be shared among the winners of the war, which was established in the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles also listed other: "Germany lost its colonial empire and 15 percent of its European territory, was required to pay heavy reparations to the winners, had its military forces severely restricted, and had to accept sole responsibility for the outbreak of the war." A positive that came from this is that America was the center stage instead Europe, because it was coming up from being colonies into a full nation that had its own military, wars, independence, technology, government,etc.