World History Chapters 16, 17, and 18

Chapter 16: Atlantic Revolutions

Chapter 17: Revolutions of Industrialization

Chapter 18: Colonial Encounters

              Reading about the Atlantic Revolutions was intriguing to me because of the little tidbits I already know about them. For example, regarding the North American Revolution, 1775-1787 (701), last year I was in a school production of the musical 1776, and got to play Lewis Morris, a continental congressional delegate from the colony of New York. It was fun to do research and get inside the characters’ heads. And though it was a dramatization, I did learn a lot about the history of the events surrounding the signing of the declaration of independence. There was real tension in the room when the matter of slavery came up in the second act. It was chilling.

The French Revolution, if I understand what I am reading correctly, never really led to a sustained republic, and if memory serves, nor did the subsequent revolution that took place later. Fun facts: Marie Antionette never actually said “let them eat cake” when she supposedly heard about the bread shortage of the common people. Also, everybody liked Napoleon until Waterloo (I think?), then kicked him out, and after he died they decided that they liked him again and now his tomb is located in the Hôtel des Invalides that houses the Musée de l'Armée. I found it kind of cool, kind of cliché when I was there, but a fitting location since it is an army museum.

But the most interesting things to come out of these revolutions, I think, were the three major movements that followed: abolition of slavery, nationalism, and feminism.

Learning more about colonialism was both interesting and horrifying, but it is not like I was not expecting that. Especially reading over the “Ways of Working” section, and about the Congo Free State governed by King Leopold II of Belgium together with the anecdotal evidence (802-803).

Ah! Chapter 18 brought up what I was talking about in my last post, which is technically called “social Darwinism” (792). Thought I would mention that…

Okay, now I can mark this week’s readings off the list. Glad I got it done.