Chapters 21 thru 24

Wow, I can not believe I actually finished the entire book! One thing that sticks with me, as I mentioned in my last entry, is the idea that nationalism is such a new concept. The effects of this new way that individuals define themselves, the national pride and the propaganda, was further fuel for the World Wars of the 20th century.  Nationalism also allowed for the growing experiments with governments based on Marxist ideas.

I have been aware of and taken classes on these subjects before. I was already familiar with the players in WWI and WW2. I had already heard about the trench warfare of WWI and the consequences of it's peace agreements. Nazi Germany, especially, has been an important subject in many of my earlier classes. We even had a holocaust survivor speak to the students at my school.  What I think is interesting is the way that Strayer approaches these subjects.  He tries to make us understand the many situations that brought mankind to these sorts of atrocities.  It is an interesting approach since so many of us leave these lessons wondering how the heck could something like that happen on such a large scale.


Strayer also uses this approach by devoting a relatively large section to the growth of communism in Russia and China. The similarities and differences in each governments approach to communism is explained in relationship with its people. The two countries had similarities in that both countries suffered from a large gap between the wealthy and the impoverished. Besides that the people of these countries were very different. One thing that I had never realized was that communism brought so many new freedoms to women in these countries. The civil rights aspect and the original intent of these new governments paints a different picture of communism then I was taught in earlier classes. The cold war was just ending as I entered school and there was the idea that we we good and that they were evil.  I remember the fall of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin wall. I did not really understand it but I do remember the feeling that something important was happening.

The end of the cold war without actual bloodshed is also an interesting concept to me.  It is especially relevant to the discussion that we had in class last Monday regarding a possible post modern era. The idea that wars could be avoided for the good of mankind and the consideration of the affects of modern weapons on the environment is not something that we had seen in earlier times.