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Regional Studies Zusammenfassung ¹1 Introduction· Logic of change: history, coherent, logical process à result: current situation, structure, behaviour of the US, political, social, economic development · US most powerful single nation state · Most influential country in history of the world · Geographical isolation: after WW II not destroyed like other countries · Democratic, liberal, capitalist order: model for thinking how humans society has to be constituted · State, capitalism,(individual) rights à that’s the idea but is it right? · Is there some kind of tension between the elements? · Analyse this question by looking at the history of the US · Historical analysis · Europeans presented America as the ‘New world’ even though it was already inhabited by people living in complex societies · In the eyes of the Europeans the native American people did not belong to the history of the world · The conquest à what did the different groups think of each other? · 1914-1915 Europe’s suicide · Nuclear weapons Colonization 17.04. ¹2 Economy · Why did the Europeans travel across the Atlantic? · 1450-1650: Britain, France, Portugal: major powers à “maritime empires” · Expiditions: Atlantic & Indina Oceans · Development in sailing technologies (galleon) and cargo à driving the colonization process à access to wealth of Asia/Mongol. Empire in India = very wealth + Chinese were much wealthy as the Europen · Wanted to reach Asia with its goods: spices (big money maker), precious metals, porcelain, cotton à bring it to European markets à 100% profit à governments desperate for new sources · Europe: maximal diversity in minimal space à competition which expressed itself in military form · Looking for a route to the East à land routes were controlled à you had to pay à 75% paying taxes etc. à expensive and dangerous route · Guns, steel swords, horses à found the “new world” · They brought diseases à 98% of the people were killed but they found : Natural resources; silver, sugar, cotton à exploitation · The Asian was collonised. · Double-entry accounting, new forms of credit, banking institutes, joint-stock trading company (royal charter) à become institutionalized · First they thought they’d find gold (original motivation) à new techniques of mining · Money making Organization: Between 1540-1700: 50.000 tons of silver reached Europe; 2/3 of it came from one mountain in Bolivia (àto Spain) à Spanish King used profits from Silver to pay debts to the Italian bankers & they in their turn sold it to China -> globalization · Gold fever = Esp. in South America · Various European powers searching for trading opportunities/access to resources · Development of a modern nation state · English settled 1607 Jamestown colony à founded by Virginia Company à private company à agricultural advantages. => Companies there = extension of the GB (British Impirial State) · E.g. John Rolfe bought land: hybridize tobacco (Orinoco) à 1st mass consumption product · Big companies à expansion of British empire · Dutch: beaver fur hats! Dutch spice trade in Indonesia; any aristocratic had a beaver fur hat à luxury · Who were these people? · Small rich group of elite · Rich land owners · Indentured servants (debt bondage): people from England whose only chance to get money was to work for 5 to 7 years without payment and at the end they got the right to be an independant farmer & got a piece of land à make your own way as a land farmer -> The growth of the cities · Reality: less than 50% got their freedom à many were killed by diseases/whereas women had less rights – were often raped by their owners à structured in domination · Land owners had already the good parts of the land à they got land on which it was nearly impossible to raise crops (àwestward expansion) · Stimulated the westward expansion
Date: 2015-01-29; view: 895
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