Linkage Activity

     During the 18th century, there was a heavy flow of both goods and ideas across the Atlantic. From Africa came an almost inexhaustible supply of slave labour which was transported to the Caribbean and the Americas. Raw materials were exported from the Americas to Europe, where they were processed into manufactured goods that were sent to Africa and the colonies. Outside of the Tirangular trade however, the radical ideas of the Enlightenment (or Age of Reason) were reaching America from Europe. This precipitated the Great Awakening and sparked the passions of such intense preachers as George Whitefiled.  

Analysis of York County Records

     By 1648, the difference in attitude towards black labor and white labor was already becoming apparent in York County. Whereas English indentured servants were only expected to work for a specified number of years, Africans were kept for life. From these records, it is clear that Africans were expected to produce a considerably larger amount of tobacco than their European counterparts. This was quite a change from the status quo of three decades prior, when skin color had little effect on the treatment of laborers. 

Semester Two Final Project

http://robertfortunestravelblog.weebly.com/

Middle East Presentation

USSR Final Assessment

Worst things about the Soviet Union:

A complete absence of government transparency lead to an utter lack of accountability to citizens. 

Loss of private property removed all incentive to be productive. 

Famine arose partially due to government interference, straining Russia's already damaged food supply. 

Complete totalitarianism ensured the silence of discontented citizens and destroyed any diversity in political opinion. 

Forced labor camps resulted in an estimated 20 million deaths.

Thoughts and Reflections on Chapter 19

      Society (in the developed world at least) likes to think of itself as having long since abandoned such horrific and backward practices as genocide, which is why the willingness to accept Hitler's regime is so shocking. Yet at the time of Hitler's rise to power, Germany's situation was so disordered that it could hardly be considered a developed nation by today's standards. The circumstances leading to the systematic elimination of Jews and other groups neatly parallels the concatenation of events present in Soviet Russia under Stalin's leadership. Both countries were in a state of economic crisis, and both leaders found scapegoats suitable to their respective purposes. While a very few spoke out against the obvious brutality of the massacres of Hitler and Stalin, the consequences for doing so coupled with the propaganda issued by the two leaders ensured the silence of the majority. Again, the developed world likes to think that such horrific events as the holocaust and the purges of Stalin could never happen in our enlightened modern society. Yet this pattern suggests that the moment the stakes are down, the majority are more the capable of being hoodwinked by a charismatic leader with a semi-plausible scapegoat. 

Thoughts and Reflections on the Communist Manifesto

     When comparing the idealistic world of the ruling proletariat portrayed in Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto to Stallin's Russia in the 1930s, it is clear that somewhere along the line something must have gone awry. A large part of what Marxism boils down to is the abolition of private property, the ruling of the working class, and the permanent removal of the bourgeoisie. While Stallin did deliver on the first and third of these, he fell short in terms of proletariat rule. Private property was indeed done away with, much to the chagrin of the kulaks, and this (along with the exploitation of anyone who owned more than a cow and a handful of grain for slave labor) resulted in the apparent destruction of class. The difference between this and the approach outlined by Marx is that Marx did not intend for mass famine and harsh working conditions to kill people by the hundreds of thousands. Indeed, these very conditions are what spurred on Marx and Engles to write their manifesto. As for the rule of the proletariat, there were two primary classes of citizens: Stallin and not Stallin. Once the revolution which Marx had predicted had installed a leader (the leader in this case referring to Stalin, not Lenin or any of his rivals), the conditions were far worse than they had ever been in industrial Europe.