Thursday, October 28, 2010


Patton is second from the left on the front row, Eisenhower is in the center of the same row; Omar Bradley is second from the right, seated.

Hitler and Rommel pose in front of the Eiffel Tower.


Note the remarkable size of Germany's gains (and then its losses) on the steppes of Russia.



American troops were particularly vulnerable on the Omaha and Utah beaches as they had to make their way to the "shelf" beyond the beaches and the hills beyond.

The message over the gate at Auschwitz reads, "Work will make you free."

Study Terms--WW II & Chapter 31 (cont'd).

The Second World War:

The European Theatre
Invasion of Poland
The Fall of France
blitzkrieg
Vichy
Marshal Philippe Petain
Fascism
The Allies
Charles de Gaulle (Free French)
Winston Churchill (Battle of Britain)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Pearl Harbor)
The Second Front
North Africa
Erwin Rommel
George S. Patton
Stalingrad/Moscow/Leningrad
Nazi Defeat in Russia
D-Day
6 June 1944/Normandy
Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau & The Holocaust

The Pacific Theatre
Japan
Asian and Pacific Empire
Pearl Harbor
7 December 1941
Battle of Midway
Guadalcanal
Douglas MacArthur
“Island Hopping”
Iwo Jima and Okinawa
The (Planned) Invasion of Japan
The Firebombing of Tokyo
Robert McNamara
Hiroshima/Nagasaki

The Descent of the Iron Curtain and the Rise of the Cold War
Yalta Conference (The United Nations)
The Bi-Polar World
Cold War Disaffections
Potsdam Conference, Failure, and the “Iron Curtain”
Winston Churchill
Berlin Blockade and Airlift
Harry S. Truman vs. Joseph Stalin

Monday, October 25, 2010

The March to War




Jubilant Austrians celebrate the "Anschluss" with the German Third Reich
The leaders of Europe at the Munich Conference
Neville Chamberlain proclaims he has secured "peace in our time."
Winston Churchill

Russian Revolution






Nicholas II and the Romanov family in more peaceful times.



One of several street demonstrations that racked Russia in the lead up to the Revolution.




A younger and older Leon Trotsky

Note how Leon Trotsky (to Lenin's left on the lower step) has been "cut and pasted" out of Russian history in the lower photograph.

A younger and older Joseph Stalin



Note the fate of the majority of these good "party members!"

Benito Mussolini & Italian Fascism








Though this last video clip lacks subtitles, it is very apparent just how "mass" a mass movement Italian Fascism was. Mussolini's oratorical skills are certainly on display. You can also get a hint of the notion of the "Cult of Personality" that grew up aroung "il Duce."


German Fascism



The video clip reveals the "mass" part of the mass movement that was German fascism. Note also Hitler's oratorical flourishes and how he plays on the emotions of his "youthful" listeners.
The second video clip is Charlie Chaplin's incredible satire of Nazism, "The Great Dictator."








The severe economic straits in which Germany found itself in the 1920s and early '30s provided fertile grounds for the rise of extreme parties. The National Socialist German Workers' Party would be one of them. Through the organizational and oratorical skills of its leader Adolf Hitler (and also intimidation and street violence), the Nazi Party would come to dominate the political landscape of Germany

The Jewish Question and the Final Solution


The Nuremberg Laws (named after the German city where the Nazi Party held its massive rallies) were anti-semitic laws enacted in 1935 to identify and marginalize Jews on a racial basis.


The Nazi began the process of "ghettoizing" Jews by segregating them from the larger population by force. The most famous of these was in Warsaw, where diseases like typhus and outright starvation killed thousands.



As the Third Reich expanded special paramilitary groups were sent out with the express orders to annihilate Jews, Gypsies, and Russian political prisoners. Tragically, it was soon determined that Jews were "not worth the price of a bullet."



In January of 1942 a meeting was held in Wansee, a suburb of Berlin, where the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Problem" was formulated--the systematic murder of 6 million Jews in death camps throughout the Reich.

The video clip is a fascinating history of the building where the Wansee Conference took place. Pay particular attention to the roles of Eichmann and Heydrich.

Study Terms: Russian Revolution, European Fascism & the Final Solution

Revolution in Russia
(Chapters 28 pgs. 881-891)
Czar Nicholas II/The Romanovs/Absolute Power and Abject Poverty
The February-March Revolution
Provisional Government & Alexander Kerensky
The Soviets
V.I. Lenin & the Bolsheviks
“All power to the soviets!”
“Peace, land, and bread!”
The October-November Revolution
The Politburo (The Vanguard and the Proletariat)
Josef Stalin
Leon Trotsky
Kulaks
Collectivization
Five-Year Plans
The Gulag

European Fascism
(Chapter 28 pgs. 867-880)
Fascism and Totalitarianism
Organic State—No Individualism
Charismatic Leader—is the will of the people, and the Cult of Personality
Energy, Force, Anti-rationalism, (Struggle, Action), Manhood
Mass Movement/Race, Citizenship and the “Other” (Unification thru Hatred)
(Extreme Nationalism)
Anti-Communism
Anti-Church
Anti-Democracy—Leader “is” the will of the people/No Parliament

Fascism in Italy:
Benito Mussolini—“Il Duce”
King Victor Emmanuel III

German Fascism:
The Demise of the Weimar Republic
Reparations, Inflation and Middle Class Ruin
Adolf Hitler
National Socialist German Workers’ Party
Nazism
Mein Kampf
Joseph Goebbels/Heinrich Himmler
The Reichstag
The Enabling Act
Extreme, Primitive Nationalism

The Jewish Question and the Final Solution
Nuremberg Laws
Ghettos
Wannsee Conference

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Spanish-American War/War of 1898/Philippine "Insurrection"

View these brief clips (from a very good History Channel documentary on the war's centennial) in order from top to bottom after reading the essay in the "American Imperialism" Blog.



Study Terms--Empire

Empire in Africa and Elsewhere
(Chapter 24--pgs. 738-752)
The Scramble for Africa
Berlin Conference of 1884
Great Britain
“From Cairo to Capetown”
South Africa
France
French West Africa
Germany
South West Africa (Namibia)/Herero Extermination
Belgium
King Leopold
Henry Stanley (David Livingston-Missionary)
Belgian Congo (latex)/Joseph Conrad/Heart of Darkness
Imperialism in Asia: India, the Philippines, China, and Japan(Chapter 25)
India East India Company
Sepoy Rebellion
United States
William McKinley
Spanish-American War/Philippine Insurrection/War of 1898
Cuba/Puerto Rico/Guam/The Philippines—Spanish Colonies
China Qing Dynasty/Manzhou
Xenophobia
The Myth of the China Market /New Markets for New Products
Opium Wars/“Spheres of Influence” (leases)/Hong Kong
Taiping Rebellion
Cixi (Tu-shi)
Sino-Japanese War
Boxer Rebellion
New China Movement
Sun Yat-sen/Chiang Kai-shek /Nationalists
Chinese Communism/Mao Zedong
Japan Tokugawa/Shogun/Samurai
Matthew Perry
Meiji Restoration:
Military
Constitutional
Industrial (Zaibatsu)
Imperialism
Nationalism
Sino-Japanese War & Russo-Japanese War
Manchuria (1931)/“The Rape of Nanjing”
Social Darwinism—Race and the “Struggle” for Survival among Nations
Racism & Empire—Rudyard Kipling: “The White Man’s Burden”
U.S. and the Japanese Pacific Empires

US Imperialism in the Victorian Age

The link below has an interesting discussion regarding the "philosophical underpinnings" of US imperialism. Keep in mind that many of these "rationalizations" for empire were voiced and embraced not only in Washington, D.C. and New York City, but also in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, and even Brussels.
US Expansion

Monday, September 13, 2010

Darwin and Natural Selection



We have noted in lecture how Copernicus' "geocentric" conceptualization of the Solar System knocked mankind from the center of creation to the "third rock from the sun." But many people could still elevate mankind to a special place in Creation, indeed at the pinnacle of that Creation. But it would be Charles Darwin who would firmly root mankind as "just" a part of nature, of Creation, and thus once again dislodging Man from any special place or status. The following is a link from the Smithsonian magazine--a nice, but brief synopsis of Darwin's story.
Origin of Species
The second link connects to a longer (but not too long) essay about Darwin and the famous voyage of the "Beagle." Note the extensive bibliography at the end. (If you are interested in a more detailed investigation of Darwin's notions of Evolution, click on the "Home" button for the "Strange Science" website from which the essay is taken.)
Darwin and the HMS Beagle

Study Terms for Chapter 18 and 22

“The World of Yesterday,” Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment & French Revolution
(Chapter 18)

Pre-Industrial to Modern Europe, or “The World of Yesterday”
1.) Small Scale
Rural
Agricultural/Communal/Pre-Market
Industrial Revolution/Urbanization/Transportation
2.) Religious
Christianity/Catholicism
Protestant Reformation
Scientific Revolution & Enlightenment
3.) Traditional
“past-directed”
Scientific Revolution
4.) Hierarchical
Aristocracy
Bourgeoisie
French Revolution/Industrial Revolution
5.) Feudal
Decentralized
Absolutism

The Scientific Revolution
Three “Signposts” of Modern Science
Observation/Experimentation/Empiricism
Use of Mathematics
Attack on Tradition
Nicolaus Copernicus
On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres (1543)
Heliocentric Universe
(Ptolemy/Geocentric Universe)
Catholic Church: Aristotle on philosophy, Ptolemy on astronomy
(The Index of Forbidden Books)
Galileo Galilei
Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems (1632)
Isaac Newton
Universal Theory of Gravity
Principia
The Enlightenment, or The Age of Reason
Four “Pillars” of the Enlightenment
Application of Scientific Method to the Human World
Importance of Reason
Centrality of Freedom (& Education)
Human Progress
John Locke/Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Philosophes/Salons
Ancien Regime
Denis Diderot/Encyclopedia 20 Volumes (1751-1772)
Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet)/Candide (1759)
Mary Wollstonecraft/Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
Thomas Jefferson/Declaration of Independence (1776)
Adam Smith Wealth of Nations (1776)
Capitalism/Laissez Faire/Anti-Mercantilism
Deism
Natural (“Unalienable”) Rights
Anti-Monarchy
American Revolution
Declaration—Thomas Jefferson (1776)
Constitution—James Madison (1787)

The “Moderate Phase of the French Revolution”:
Debt, Privilege, and the Rise of the Middle Class
Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette Estates-General
1st, 2nd, & 3rd Estate Versailles
Bourgeoisie National Assembly
“Tennis Court Oath” (Jean-Jacques David) The Bastille
The End of the Ancien Regime Declaration of the Rights of Man & Citizen
“The March of the Fishwives” “The flight to Varennes”

The “Radical Phase of the French Revolution”:
Sans-Culottes
Jacobins Maximilien Robespierre
Jean Paul Marat (David) Georges Danton
Committee of Public Safety Courts of the People
Levee en masse (Citizen Army) Reign of Terror
Republic of Virtue “Rationalization” of French society
Thermidorean Reaction

The “Napoleonic Phase of the French Revolution”:
Napoleon Bonaparte:
Corsica/Coup d’etat The Emperor and the Empire
Nelson and Trafalgar Continental System
Russia (Elba) Waterloo/Duke of Wellington (St. Helena)

Nationalism
Patriotism
Identity
Republicanism
Meritocracy
Napoleonic Code (e.g. primogeniture)


Europe’s Industrialization and Its Consequences
(Chapter 22)
Precursors to Industrialization:
Agricultural Revolution
“Scientific” Farming
New Technologies & New Crops
Enclosure Movement
”Commons”
Open-Field System
Gentry
Population Growth
Diet & the Columbian Exchange
The Industrial Revolution
(Previously the “Putting Out” System or Cottage Industry)
English Phase
Raw Materials (Coal & Cotton)
Transportation (Water & RxR)
Textiles
James Hargreaves/”Spinning Jenny”
Richard Arkwright/”Water Frame”
James Watt and “English Steam”
Eli Whitney/”Cotton Gin” (American slavery)
Railroads
George Stephenson/Liverpool-Manchester Line (1830)
Continental Phase
(Ruhr Valley)

Consequences of Industrialization
Factory Discipline & the Factory System
Urbanization
Child Labor
Gendering Work
(American) Slavery
Bourgeoisie
Pre-Marxian “Utopian” Socialism
Charles Fourier/Phalanstery/Anti-Individualism & Anti-Competition
Robert Owen/New Harmony, Indiana
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
“Scientific” Socialism/Communism
Class Struggle
The Proletariat and the Vanguard (or “Temporary Dictatorship”)
Classless society/Worker’s state
Communist Manifesto (1848)
Das Kapital (1867-1873)

Charles Darwin
(Charles Lyell—Geological Time & Thomas Malthus—Population “stress”)
Natural Selection/”Survival of the Fittest”/Origin of Species (1859)

Inustrial Revolution Images and Video Clips



The ideas of Karl Marx and his co-author, co-respondent, and friend Friedrich Engels were some of the most influential of the 20th Century, though their roots were firmly established in the turmoil of the 19th. Click this link for a synopsis of the Manifesto that was published in 1848. Manifesto
Then click on "Analysis" in the upper right for a fuller explication.



Click on to this link on "Lectures on European Intellectual History." Pay particular attention to the broad outlines of the "Utopian" notions of both Fourier and Owens.
Charles Fourier

View this clip and pay particular attention to the social effects of mechanization:


View this clip with the question of why the Industrial Revolution began wherfe and when it did.








Yankee inventor (and history teacher!) Eli Whitney made a few small technological innovations in his "Gin" (short for engine) with very large social, cultural, and political ramifications.




James Watt's developments of the earlier bulky and inefficient steam engine brought English factories down out of the hills (where water power was preeminent) and into the modern industrial city.





Before the rise of the Spinning Jenny and the Water Frame, the production of textiles took place in homes, cabins, and farms. But with the rise of Richard Arkwright's complex, large, expensive, and water-driven Water Frame, industry needed its own space, the "factory."

The clip below examines the roleof water power in the development of industry.





The "Jenny" (an adaptation of the word "Engine") played a significant role in the early years of the Industrial Revolution. A few things to keep in mind: it was manpowered--or more accurately "woman-powered"--and was still small enough to fit in the homes or cabins of "spinners."