Chapter 22

I learned about the struggle that many countries within Africa had to go through to try to gain independence.  Empires started to fall after WWI and WWII which weakened Europe and discredited their thought of them being the most superior, opening a perfect door for them to be overthrown in colonies. Europeans began to alter relationships with colonies so they could still gain profit, but not have to deal with the headache of colonial governments. Europeans were able to successfully do this, using elections, writing constitutions and building railroads and ports.

Chapter 21

In chapter 21 I learned the  journey to Russia becoming the USSR. World War I made lower class Russians unhappy, forcing them to take more drastic measures such as organizing into parties and overthrowing elites. Many changes were instantly made throughout Russia, soldiers abandoned their posts, trade unions were created, peasants took over landlords' land and redistributed them. Even then, the government wasn't able to meet peoples demands, so a small socialist party, the Bolsheviks, came to power. The Bolsheviks managed to stay in power and renamed the country USSR. This was also Russian's road to communism and how it came to be.

Chapter 20

Chapter 20 talks about important historical events such as World War 1 and 2 as well as the great depression. WW1 was pretty much a civil was between Europe and is what resulted in the great depression. However, after WW1 the United States did become the superpower in the West. What I didn't know was exactly why the WW1 help spiral the United States into a Great Depression. During the war American produced more goods than it could sell, creating a huge deficit. Something I learned in-class was that another main cause was the crash of the housing market. I was baffled to learn that interest rates were so much that people that paid off their mortgage on time every month weren't actually making a dent in their mortgage, but instead just the interest rate. So people that thought they were paying off their mortgage, realistically never started paying it.

Chapter 19

Chapter 19 taught me many things I didn't previously know about the 1800's such as that British sold addictive opium to the Japanese's  against the Japanese' will. The problem of opium addiction was one of the many reasons their country began to decline, but also because of Japan's rising population and little wealth and resources. Japan especially did not want their citizens to be addicted to opium because if those citizens are addicted to drugs and aren't doing anything for the country like have a job then they are useless to society.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18 taught me a lot of things I didn't previously know about European conquest and colonial economies. Europe started having struggles with gathering colonies because during this time nationalism began to arise. These colonies wanted to be a strong independent colonies and became hard to conquer. Chapter 18 also made me aware of how screwed the farmers got in the colonial times. Machinery became more efficient than Artisans could be, as well, blacksmiths were no longer needed.  Slowly but surely machines and assembly lines took over individual human work. The Industrial Revolution was good to a select amount of people, but were more importantly devastating to others.

Chapter 17

I learned many things from chapter 17, almost all including things about the Industrial Revolution.
First, I was not aware that The Industrial Revolution specifically began in Britain because of the amount of available workers and how easy it was to create a company with these workers. Britain believed in science, and through experiments were able to create advancements in medical. I was also intrigued to find out that without the industrial revolution there would be no working or middle class. These are vital class' to our society today. Along with the introduction of new class', came the representation of those people. I learned that there was no political party presenting the workers, as well, socialist ideas didn't resonate with Americans because the population was so diverse, making many different view points.