Week 2 Readings

Chapter 14: Empires and Encounters

In the beginning of the chapter the author, Strayer, discusses how the Europeans were able to dominate in America and their advantages of doing that. I may not agree with how they were able to concur and take control of the Americas but I can see that it was successful. It was not right for the Europeans to pretty much come to the new land and take over by killing off most of the native people and or enslaving them. Once the Europeans came to North America they brought with them new diseases that the native people were not immune as a result the native population was killed off. This was called “The Great Dying”. I feel like this was very unfair because the natives did not have a chance to defend themselves in order stay living on their own land. Also if they were able to survive the Europeans still had weapons and more advance technology then the natives had, so as a result the Europeans still dominated over the Native Americans. Yet even though the Europeans did take over the new land unfairly they this still gave them some advantages in which help them grow. I believe that it was a good thing for the Europeans to come to the new word. This then helped them grow. Coming to the new world allowed the Europeans to find wealth, enlarge their empire, they then were able to spread their religious belief. I think since the Europeans came to America it was a great achievement for them.

            Further in the chapter Strayer talks about other empires and how they grew and expanded. For example he talks about the Russian Empire, the Asian Empire, the Mughal Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. He discusses how in order for each Empire to grow they have to concur more land outside of their own empire. Theses empires began taking over land throughout Asia like the Europeans took over the land in America. I feel that in order for any person, it doesn’t have to be an empire, to be successful they need to grow somehow and this is what theses empires did in order to gain power and be the strongest. Yet what I don’t agree with is how these empires forced those who they concurred into living a curtain way and making them convert. But I do understand that that is how many societies took over land especially the Russians.

Sugar and the Origins of the Modern World

            It is amazing to think about how we generally get our food and goods and we forget about the concept that we have to trade in order to get these items. I am like most people that take advantage of the goods and luxuries that are so easily accessible to me and to think that, that was not the case when trade began. We forget about how valuable a simple item like sugar could be and that not everyone had it. Because sugar became such a luxury item people started to create large plantation for the production of sugar. This was new since before people would only items on a small scale. I also found it interesting that because the sugar was being produced so much it went from a luxury good to a good that the common person could enjoy. As a result having sugar soon then did not represent the amount of wealth a person had. It is amazing how just a production of one product can bring together a group of different types of people that work in different fields of sugar industry in which creates a social and economic system. I did not realize how many different field of work there in order the sugar to be distributed. For example there are the consumers who want the product, there are the laborers who produce the product, there are the organizers of production who make sure that everything moves smoothly, there are then the manufacturers and lastly the merchants who then trade and sell the product. I did not realize that in the seventeen hundreds there were some people who saw that sugar was unhealthy for humans and made the connection by seeing that when the increase of sugar intake cause people to not be as healthy. I also felt that the British government was smart in taxing the sugar production since it created a lot of revenue even though it did create wars when the tax was raised.