p 461-477

Chap. 16

This chapter focuses on the Religion and Science that was dominant during the 1450-1750's. Christianity was limited to Europe in the beginning of the 1500's and was divided between Roman Catholics of western and Central Europe and the Easter oOrthodox of Easter Europe and Russia. This sounds familiar because I remember learning about the two during last semester. This chapter goes a lt more in debt than what I learned in the previous course. I really liked the chart on page 464 because it lays out the significant differences in beliefs between the catholic and protestant. Reading this, it really got me thinking about my church experience. I just went to mass on campus for the first time last sunday at 7. I enjoyed going considering I havent been to church in a long time. I think the last time I went was when I was about 8, so I dont remember much. But last sunday, there was a lot spoken about Jesus and his authority with his words. It got me thinking about how much different I can change my language and how I can speak to others. I am christian so I was pretty nervous of how different it would be because it is a Catholic church. Church was a different experience for me and I would definitely go again.

end of chapter 15

            Within the first paragraph of the reading I was completely surprised to see that they took 11 million Africans out of their families and forced to the americas as slaves. This is ridiculous how man people were used as slaves. This makes me think of the movie The Help. Its all about the slavery and how they were working for white families. Its crazy how they interacted with their owners and their children. That was an amazing movie. I enjoyed it because it was very informative and it was sad. The help in the movie are considered slaves. They were treated terribly and I cant even imagine how the slaves were treated in the very beginning. Being involved in the Atlantic Slave trade would be unbearable. This whole section was about the Atlantic Slave trade and about the slaves. The slaves were used for many different purposes depending on the the region and the owner. There were also children slaves. It confused me how some parts of the world favored different slaves. For example the islamic world preferred women and Atlantic slave trade favored men. Many died just in the journey over to where they will be sold and bought. And Im sure even more died doing the harsh labor. Slavery is a tough topic to read about because it makes me mad that our society used to be centered around it.

Chapter 15 433-448

    This chapter is all about the different trade routes throughout the world and the goods that were being traded. Commerce was one of the main forces that drove globalization during this time period. Europeans wanted to become engaged in the trade with Asia because they desired to obtain the spices from these places, mainly in India. Columbus and Vasco De Gama both sought trade routes to Asia. This amazes me how individuals would just go out in search for something with no hesitation of what could happen to them or the journey that they will experience. They had so much courage and bravery to do these long voyages with limited resources. It may sound bad but I thought it was pretty cool that the Portugese didn't really have any goods that were in good competition with the others so they found a different way of getting goods, piracy. The silver trade soon took over the spice trade. The book said that 85% of silver was found in spanish america, I wonder if that is still the case today? Spanish america gained dominance with the new luxurious good of silver. It was hard for me to imagine being able to pay a tax in silver, this is what china used because of the such high demand for the good. Next was the hunt for fur. There was intense competitions for animal furs but the supply was sharply decreasing. A lot of countries were in high demand for fur but they could have done the hunting themselves but instead they relied on trade. Europeans usually traded with the indians. The russians depended on the siberians. Thats what trade became, it was the use of other peoples good in return for yours, the goods you were unable to obtain.
   

Sugar Handout

This handout is about the history and transformation of sugar in the world. In the very beginning of this reading, they stated that sugar once was considered a drug. This jumped out at me because today sugar is probably the farthest thing that would be considered a drug. And I just wonder how it can be considered a drug? The history of sugar started in South Asia when it was encountered by Greeks in India. During the Middle ages sugar became one of the most luxurious goods in the market. But why was it in such high demand if it was considered a drug? Sugar was grown as canes in hot moist places. It's production is very labor intesive and produced on a large scale. It was produced with the use of slaves. When I came across to the charts of slavery importation in order to produce the large sugar amounts struck me because of the such high numbers. Thousands and thousands of black slaves were imported tos different parts of the world to do the large scale production of sugar. Slavery conditions were harsh. Im very thankful for the events that helped fight slavery in previous history.

Pages 417 to 430

     This section was on the second half of Chapter 14. It mainly talked about the Russian Empire and the Asian Empires. It start explaining the Russian Empire and how it became the world's largest state. It was centered on the city of Moscow and emerged from the Mongol rule. Last semester the Mongols were quite interesting to learn about. They conquered by force and completely wiped out villages and cities in order to to take them over. The Russian empire grew quite fast with the use of organization and modern weapons. It became a very diverse empire. It was stunned to see that the Russian empire lasted until 1991 which was when the Soviet Union collapsed.
     The Asian empires were rather regional than global. I found it interesting that the Asian empires didnt have to deal with the devastation of diseases like most empired did because they were expanding into new places. This helped their population thrive. The book focused on the China empire also known as the Qing Dynasty, the Mughal empire which was in India, and the Ottoman Empire. The ottoman empire was known for its Islamic world. But they also had many christians in the empire which I thought was interesting that they were tolerance of having a second religion in the empire. I liked the quote they put in the book that a European ambassador said fearfully talking about the Turkish people, the ottoman empire. It showed the empire was powerful and that others almost admired it.

ch. 14

     Chapter 14 starts around the time of the 1400's, which marks the beginning of the Early Modern World. The 1400's to the late 1700's was also known as the Late Agrarian era. The Early modern era started with the beginning of globalization, elements of distinctly modern societies, and growing European power in the world. Many things contributed to the rise of "modernity." Many things such as religion, people, and goods were expanded by trade. Growth of food was demanding because of the increase in population. Larger cities and stronger government emerged. Overall, it was a time of new global patterns.

     While reading through this chapter many things caught my attention. In the first few pages, I came upon the section The Great Dying. It caught my attention because of the large amount of people it wiped out. It made me think of when I was learning about the black plague and how it spread across the silk road. But in this situation, the diseases came from Europe and Africa which killed numerous Native Americans and other people living in the Americas. The Native American population lost 90% of its people and central mexico population dropped from around 10 million to 1 million. I was shocked looking at these statistics. The second thing that caught my attention was the colonies of sugar. Parts of Brazil and the Caribbean created societies from the surplus of sugar.  Europe was in high demand for sugar and these colonies provided Europe with almost all it needed. I thought it was interesting how it was the first modern industry. It was very large scale and was produced with slave labor. Slavery was a huge part of societies for decades. We just celebrated MLK day for this particular reason.