World History Reflection ch 17-20

 The American Revolution: interesting to know that the American experience was not the revolution itself, but instead the existent emergence of the colonies and the independence from Britain.   Was this the hope and model of the human race?  Sure, except for the black slaves and women…

The Haitian revolution on the other hand was epic in that they had the only successful slave revolt in world history; they became equal, free independent citizens.  That makes me feel

On the coattail of the Haitian revolution opened the door to additional echoes of revolution with the goal of crushing oppression and inequality; Abolitionists sought to end slavery, Nationalists hoped to end disunity and foreign rule and feminists to do away with male dominance.

The feminist movement of course sparks my interest; I have mixed emotions about this I’m glad that women finally found their voice butt it makes me angry that it took so long to find it… The twentieth century!  Interesting that Elizabeth Cady Stanton published a Women’s Bible, in which she omitted the parts that were offensive to women.  At some point I may delve a bit deeper into this, sparks my curiosity.  There is always an opponent in the crowd.  It’s silly though the reasoning that they used, they really thought that by going to school and having a life outside of the home would cause reproductive damage???  Oh my gosh, don’t read that book, may cause birth defects..  They even claimed that women were selfish and how could they be willing to sacrifice their home and “nation” … and these are the same men that fought for our independence and helped build our Country..  What’s wrong with that picture..

The Industrial Revolution: after reading the chapter, one thing that stands out to me that I wasn’t aware of is that the steam engine was a very important invention, and that in the twentieth century industrial revolution became global.  I actually feel that it paved the way to our current global economy.  I wonder, if the industrial revolution would have never transpired, where would we as a society be right now, would we still be hunting and gathering???…

Great Britain was the first Industrial Society,  In 1800 the British Textile consumed 52 million pounds of cotton,  in 1850 they consumed 588 million pounds, it’s amazing that within a matter of fifty years, the amount of cotton has increased by over 500 million pounds, could it be because by 1891 it went from agriculture society to industrial only?  I was surprised to know that by then only   8% of the National income was created by agriculture.  Because of the industrial revolution the population of people that were once farming were now working in the factories.  I think this had a huge long term impact on our farming systems today. 
   
There was an overwhelming abundance of forced labor in the twentieth century, I was alarmed to learn that in French Africa all natives were legally obligated for statue labor; they were round up like cattle and brought off to work.  What really stood out was the harsh cruelty and abuse that was administered to the people in the Congo if they did not collect enough rubber.  The photos of these poor boys that literally had their hands severed because they did not meet the expectations.  It certainly puts things into prospective, as rough as it appears that things can be, it hardly holds a candle to how rough people had it back then.  Even though there is still an enormous amount of struggle to survive, it’s comforting to know that there has been major milestones around labor, compensation, working laws.