The Era Of The 19th And 20th Centuries

Militarism was another factor, and the threatening behavior when powerful countries involved in powerful alliances begin forming unbeatable weapons would not have affected war had there not been a prior fear that war would be coming. England produced a ship made to kill in attempt to prove to the Germans that they still owned the sea, and this kind of behavior is what triggered an additional rise to the pressure building in Europe. Nationalism relates closer to imperialism because it was due to nationalism that imperialism was not always successful. When the European powers attempted to invade and take over China, they were unable to due to the unity of the Chinese people, and also the interferences by other countries. This nationalism prevented countries from extending control over many people, for rebellions occurred and changes had to be made.

During the 19th and 20th century, Europe witnessed its so-called demographic transition, with a fall in birth rates and an even greater fall in mortality rates, which led to a rapid increase in the population. The demographic transition was essentially a result of a decrease in chronic infectious diseases like tuberculosis, syphilis, diphtheria, measles, dysentery, and typhoid fever.

As mentioned earlier, Europeans powers and Japan start looking for land and resources in other places. “The period between 1870 and 1945 was characterized by sustained and intensive imperial activity that remapped significant portions of the globe”. In what became a fierce competition for land and resources, the “territorial accumulation became both a symbolic and material index of national power and international standing: advocates of colonialism in recently unified nation-states of Germany and Italy as well as in Meiji Japan gave particularly strong expression to the idea that an extensive empire was a crucial indicator of a nation’s strength and modernity.” This element describes the feeling inside European powers about their colonial policy. A deep nationalistic feeling about the competition for land was prevailing. New powerful empires were built thanks to the land and resources controlled in other parts of the world. The German empire was an example. But “World War 1 ((1914-1918) marked the end of this empire: some German colonies were seized by rivals at the outset of the war, while the remaining territories were redistributed among France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan under the provision of Article 22 of the Treaty of Versaille.”

It can be argued global competition fueled by nationalism, imperialism, and militarism along with shifts in the balance of power and alliances, led to WWII. The unresolved issues of the Treaty of Versailles, the Great Depression, the failure of the League of Nations, and appeasement each play a part in causing WWII. These factors can be traced back to global competition, thus proving it as a spark that ignites WWII.

“Like a cyclone, imperialism spins across the globe; militarism crushes people and sucks their blood like a vampire”- Karl Liebknecht. This quote is significant to World War I because it means that imperialism spread quickly, bringing large armies and destruction wherever it went. World War I was a huge war that lasted for four long, difficult and destructive years between the Allies and Central Powers. In this war, the Allies (which included Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and the United States) fought against the Central Powers (including Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire). Both went to war against each other sparking World War I, but what was the main cause or reason for them fighting in this war? There were four main reasons for starting WWI and these reasons were: Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism. First, militarism is the use of armaments in a war. Second, alliance is a treaty done between two or more nations. Third, imperialism is the taking over of countries. Last but not least, is Nationalism. Nationalism is the devotion towards your country. Out of these four main causes, militarism and imperialism were the two causes that greatly impacted the Great War.

Nationalism is one of the major causes of WWI. Nationalism had spread itself all over Europe and largely influenced in many countries. Every single capable country is greedy for power and competitions are getting more intense in warfare. According to Howarth, he stated that there are two forms of nationalism: “the nationalism of the great power, who wanted to extend their boundaries and their influence to make them even more powerful; and the nationalism of groups of subject people who wanted to set up their own independent national homelands and states.” (Howarth 16). Most of the major powers of Europe

The eighteenth century brought great transitional change, as America dealt with government conflicts, the War of 1812, and the political elections which brought Andrew Jackson to national prominence. In the midst of these happenings, significant changes arose for the women in the eighteenth century, as they appealed to create differences in their status and lives. Equality is considered as a given right, but this was not always the case in history. The conventional organization of the family was considered as men expected to make their living in the competitive world of the marketplace, while women took care of their children in the sheltered environment of the home. Even prior to the eighteenth century, women did not obtain much freedom, as society was ruled with a patriarchal mindset. Whether it was in politics, church governance, or simply hierarchical status, men were always categorized above women. “Men viewed women with distrust, perhaps intuiting the impossible polarity this would create in their lives, and that it would ask decisions of them which they could not imagine taking.” This leads to the posed questions: Why were women initially closed off from having independent rights? How did women combat against these limited obligations and expand their status? Changes and implications were clearly made by women to declare their existence and importance in society. Breaking free from the conventional male dominated society, women assembled together to endorse changes

Nationalism was one of the biggest factors in lending to the cause of the First World War. Most Europeans believed in the supremacy of their nation. Nationalism caused alliances that eventually started the war.

Imperialism stands for “A policy of extending a country’s power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means”. Nations like Britain and French had lots of colonial powers in Africa, South-East Asia and South America. Places like Germany who did not have colonial powers. They wanted to grab some lands from France and Britain in Africa and South-East Asia. But France and Britain never wanted to give what Germany want. That brings us to our final cause Nationalism. Nationalism stands for “An extreme form of patriotism marked by a feeling of superiority over other countries”. If we look at the pre World War I era countries have been fighting since revolutions of 1840s to make a country national identity for themselves. Compare to other nations in Europe some nations like Germany were a newly found nation at that time. A member of another patriotic group Pan-German league journalist-lawyer Heinrich Class stated in 1912 that “if any nation has just cause to seek to expand its sphere of influence, it is the German one, whose population is rapidly growing, whose industry needs new markets, and whose overall economy needs new land from which to derive new resources… we need these things and we need them now, and we need to acquire them by any means whatsoever…we must engage in a protective politics abroad –in fact, let us state it bluntly: we must be aggressive…To begin with, any expansion within Europe can only come from direct

1. The 19th century was a time of change with the Industrial Revolution affecting the economy, society and politics. The steam engine expanded industries. Western Europe saw many inventions during this period as well as the notion of developing national identities. Russia was emerging from feudalism during this time and did not embrace industrialization. Russia had become one of the most powerful countries in the world and was able to play a role in European affairs after especially after the defeat of Napoleon in 1814. The English society in the 19th century was called the Victorian era because of the long and peaceful reign of Queen Victoria. This time appeared to be dignified and restrained but there was child labor, prostitution, and

The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century was a time of strife in Vietnam.

In analyzing the Churches of Christ today as they grapple with women in leadership, Lesley F. Massey points out that "those in the Stone-Campbell Movement who, in contrast, supported increasing women's rights in the nineteenth-century were able to do so by rejecting the traditional interpretation of relevant biblical texts such as 1 Cor 14 and 1 Tim 2, and in turn by moving away from a slavish biblical literalism." This turns the attention back to the issue of hermeneutical legacy- the adherence to a literalism which is rooted in a commitment to take the Bible at face value. Unfortunately, what has become apparent in the modern day hermeneutical commitment to understanding cultural differences, language nuances, and thematic content, is the

There are many things that change societies and nation in the nineteen-century one of these things is modernity. It emerged in Europe, especially in French and British than it establish to all European countries. The term modernity has many synonym words in the whole world like modernity, industrial period, and post modernity.

In my opinion, nationalism and alliances are the two factors that drove Europe toward two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century. Based on the facts, world war one started as a result of several different causes with the climatic event being the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria Hungary while World War 2 was started as a result of the left over tensions residue over from the First World War. This then leads the second factor in my opinion, the alliances. In a perfect world alliances are meant to protect the countries that form the alliances. It is meant to show strength in numbers and stop other countries from attacking. In the case of the two world wars, while the alliances did strengthen those that form

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the academic social sciences were divided into specializations. Historians covered Europe, the Mediterranean, and European expansion; the areas of China and Japan, as well as Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Persia were the filed of study for orientalists; anthropologists covered the topics of contemporary people of Africa, the Americas, and South East Asia; and the rest of the world fell into the laps of sociologists or economists . Historians largely focused on single societies1. They largely looked at the building of nation-states, commercial economy, industrialization, and imperialism1. During this time, historians had a very ethnocentric and Eurocentric view of world history. Since most of the scholarly