World History Spring 2018

My favorite thing about reading Strayer’s writing is that he consistently maintains a global perspective. I love that he wrapped up his text by providing an overview of the major events going on all over the world, instead of with an American-focus or a Eurocentric focus.   My favorite part was that there was a section about INDIA!! I have so rarely learned about my country or culture in school. I actually didn’t know anything about Indian politics so it was great to learn about the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885. India is usually associated with not being very contemporary or liberal, but the formation of the INC was really progressive at the time as it was the first major political way India took a stand against the British.   I also loved being able to learn more about Gandhi. One thing that stuck out to me was that Gandhi got married at age thirteen. I was surprised that he didn’t find an issue with getting married so young. I didn’t kn...

I thought this chapter was interesting because it totally contradicted my preconceived notions about communism. Prior to understanding the roots of communism, I thought of it as a very rigid society centered around solely giving power and authority to the people at the very top. My only real knowledge of communism was based on China’s communist policies and that too was largely based on the One Child Policy China had adopted years ago as a means of population control.   I was surprised to learn that communism is actually rooted in Marx’s ideas designed around distributing power more equally. In fact, Strayer describes Marx communism as “a final stage of historical development when social equality and collective living would be most fully developed, largely without private property” (930). Interestingly, communism seems to almost be a polar opposite from the fascism that had been trendy in the early 1900s. It minimized nationalism and focused on bringing equality to ever...