The Rise and Fall of World Communism Pt 2

Communist expansion into China, Korea and Vietnam led to the Cold War's most destructive and prolonged "hot wars". Both Korea and Vietnam started to turn against its own country to split into two. Thats why today we have not just Korea, but North Korea and South Korea. To save Vietnam, US troops  intervened and hoped to stop a communist victory. In the end, Vietnam united their country under communist control by 1975. Our efforts had failed.
     The United States started to emerge as the "superpower of the west" from 1945-1975. WWII and the Cold War gave the US a chance to take over what had been Britain's previous role. The United States was shipping off it's soldiers to various countries around the world. By 1970, the US had more than 1,000,000 soldiers in 30 different countries, was a member of four regional defense alliances and an active participant in a fifth and much more. Along with United State's dominating military, political, economical power, their popular culture was expanding rapidly. American rock and roll was becoming a big hit. By the 1990's, American movies took about 70 percent of the markets in Europe and there were 20,000 McDonald's restaurants in 100 countries. Brand names such as Kleenex, Coco Cola, Jeep, Spam, Nike and Kodak started being used worldwide as well as words like "groovy", "crazy" and "cool".

The Rise and Fall of World Communism Pt 1

In this chapter I learned that in the past, Communism was a world wide thing. Communist regimes came to power almost everywhere during war, revolutions and other struggles. During the past two decades of the twentieth century communism has collapsed almost everywhere except China and the Soviet Union. Other than Russia and China, communism also traveled to Eastern Europe.
     In Russia, the communists came to power within a single year in 1917. There was one historic event thats opened the door to a huge social upheaval. Soldiers were seeking to end a terrible war or even go a wall. New trade unions arose to defend workers' interests and some workers even tried to gain control. During the civil war the Bolsheviks had harshly regimented the economy by seizing grain from angry peasants, suppressed nationalist rebellions, and perpetrated bloody atrocities.
     When China was under the rule of Mao Zedong many achievements, tragedies and limitations were made. Production in steel, coal, fertilizer and cement increased by large amounts. Along with the increase in production 17 million urban youth were sent to work in the fields and average life expectancy from 35-65 years. 20 million died during the Great Leap forward, 500,000 deaths during the Cultural Revolution and between 1 and 3 million counterrevolutionaries were killed. Mao's rule was both positive and negative but I don't think industry was worth all those lives.

Colonial Encounters Pt 2

Western education seemed to have a big impact on the way people acted. Many people embraced European culture, dressing in European clothes, speaking French and English, building "European" houses, getting married in long white gowns and many other European ways of living. Education in western India was a bit different. With their new intelligence they wanted a new Indian culture free of underage marriage, caste, discrimination against women and Hinduism. The western education gave the Indian culture the inspiration it needed to change.
    Throughout the twentieth century, Christianity seemed to have spread worldwide. Around 10,000 missionaries had descended on Africa by 1910, and by 1960 almost 50 million Africans became Christians. Protective charms and medicines started to be used as well as medicine men. Western education influenced every type of person in different ways. It helped to shape the way our world is today.

Colonial Encounters Pt 1

This chapter was a very interesting one to me. I liked how he began the chapter with a personal experience in his life. he talked about how when he was traveling through Africa his bus broke down so he had to hitchhike from Kenya to Uganda. During that journey he learned a lot about the African culture that he didn't expect to hear. The African men weren't suppose to know english because the white men were scared the Africans would take their white women. The englishmen wanted nothing to do with interracial breeding or relationships.
     Another big part of this chapter was about control over Africa and Africa's fight for independent nations. The French owned 6 nations in Africa; Algeria, Mauritania, West Africa, new Guinea, Sengal and Gambia. The British owned a whopping 11 states; Gold Coast, Nigeria, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Rhodesia, South Africa, ect. All the rest of the nations are owned by many other countries. Some such as Germany, Italy, Portugal, Belgium and Spain. Only Ethiopia and Liberia are
independent states in Africa.