Take Me Through History

Both China and Russia feel easily under the power of communism, but they weirdly were not exactly the perfect fit for communism to take place. In fact communism was intend to be started in countries where industrialization was booming, but instead it started with Russia where economics was heavily based on agriculture. Because of this, Russia and China put a huge emphasis on industrialization after putting communism into place. This consisted of more factory work and the installment of backyard furnaces. Strangely enough communism was not too bad, but in order for it to work completely the whole world had to participate and the leader needed to step down from power. Moa (China’s leader) and Stalin (USSR’s leader) never stepped down from their position of power, so essentially Moa and Stalin were just dictators. After a while the two countries became extremely industrialized and were at the tail of the US in competition. This had a lot to do with the Cold War. Having Russia and Chi...

The collapse of the center refers to the collapse of western influence. European ideology was seriously brought into question after the Great Depression, the Holocaust, the two World Wars and the Cold War, all of which were brought up from a lack of capitalism working properly. For years leading up to these events European ideology was seen as the superior way to go upon living whether it were in terms of politics (democracy), economics (capitalism), religion (Christianity and Catholicism), or even just language (European native languages); however, without regulation the core structures easily collapsed. I feel that I was extremely shocked when it came to the collapse in capitalism during the Great Depression. The United States history books put a huge emphasis on how terrible and evil communism is as a structure, but do not care to lay out the limits that capitalism has. The introduction to loans and credit cards were used so immensely that the value in money heavily decrease...

We discussed the rise to fascism as a reaction to the failure of capitalism during the period of the holocaust. The Jewish community tend to live within the ghettos and when Hitler began to assert his power he forced all the Jews into the area and placed a gate/wall around them. In the beginning the Jews were allowed to work in the city and just returned to the slumps to sleep, but shortly after their ability to travel to the city was taken away. Eventually the ghettos were not enough to keep the Jews out and concentration camps were established in hope to improve their isolation. One thing that really upset me was reading about the castration laws that were put into place. When doing the partner readings, one law stated that the parent or legal guardian of any child that is 18 years of age or younger can choose to castrate their child. Most of the castration that were done were a result of pure fear. Jewish individuals in the concentration camps feared that their experience wo...

The “Scramble For Africa” refers to the way the European colonizers fought over Africa like the last piece of cake at a party. Big countries such as Great Britain, France, England, etc. all found themselves using their points of advantage against the weaker country Africa. The European colonizers had already established a government system to follow and were armed with weapons that would allow them to easily possess control over a country where those aspects are not present. I was extremely upset when learning about these colonization because of how brutal they were to the native people living there. The northern invaders took land, resources, and freedom away from the African natives. One would think that being colonized would allow for Africa to grow as a country both economically and politically, but that was far from the case. Instead, Africa was left even more poor than it was before while the colonizers grew more wealthy. The European countries took the nature resources that ...

This week we focused on catching up. We were split into two sections that would help us either wok on our blogs or work on our research essays. I was able to do both areas in the one class block period. I asked Michelle to read over my paper and double check that my main focus is in fact on history of gangs and not on psychoanalyzing them. Since I am writing a very similar paper for sociology, I needed to make sure that I would not be able to turn in the same paper to both professors. I believe that my new improvements were good enough to earn me a better score on my paper. I also went to work on my blogs, but with everyone working I asked Jimena to read them and provide me feedback. She did so, and for that reason I was able to go back and make them a little more specific. I hope that I have done enough on both ends of the spectrum to earn me an A in the class this semester.  

Our focus for this week was our PRESENTATIONS. We answered a couple questions about our first paper and were able to use those answers to create a new form of learning tools. I think I am going to make a powerpoint presentation for my second project. I will be playing the role of an FBI commander giving my team of agents a break down on the history of gangs. To start, I will discuss the Mob/Mafia when they were first spotted in the United States, that will work as my lead in to the first sighting of gangs in the LA area. Following that I will discuss a few famous gang riots and prison riots related to gang activity. When all the history is layed out, I will take one slide to discuss our present day “low point” of gang activity. By ending on this note we can predict as a unit what we believe is in store for the future.

After our midterm review., we were told to split up into groups and choose an area of study. The selection consisted of China, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire; our group was assigned Japan. From our section of the book we learned that the Japanese were pretty small in numbers in comparison to China and the Ottoman Empire, for that reason their attempt to rebel against US power was so easily put to an end. Our section also focused on samurai, and the important role that they played in Japanese culture. For a while, it was the samurai warriors and the peasant that were seen as the highest levels of status simply because they fought for their community selflessly. Samurai men were known for their ability to take out any competitor that they faced, and for that were honored. Although things changed under the new power structure, Japanese took on a new perspective towards samurai. Samurais and the working class no longer had true power over the country because the power was given to those...

Arriving back from spring break, we were all handed a piece of paper and asked to write down the questions we were most comfortable with on the midterm. We were then told to stand in front of the class and present our answers, I ended up discussing two questions. Doing this activity allowed me to see the areas in which I still need to improve. I discovered that I am very good at stating the facts of an event quite clearly with ease, but history is not all about the facts. I need to improve on discussing the importance of an event taking place and how that affect has established a difference in our society today. I feel that I will improve greatly if I pay closer attention to details in the book and allow myself to be less two dimensional.  This activity also made me very nervous, but I feel like it was great to get out of my comfort zone at least just for a little.