Age of Empire Blog 1

The change from the seventeen hundreds to the eighteen hundreds was a drastic one. The global population just about doubled and industrialization was happening rapidly. Trade became more centralized around Europe, more concentrated, smaller. Europe went from struggling for importance in the Pax Mongolica to dominating the capitalist world and the bourgeois. Europe was the most literate in the world at this time and dominated the cultural scene as well as that of technology while the USA stayed in the shadows until the 20^th century. However, even though they were behind in technology for a time they were still part of the dominating western world. At this time, all of the western countries had a serious superiority complex.

In the change of centuries those countries that had ideas and beauty like the Islamic World, China and India had little importance anymore and no guns and weapons to stand up to the Europeans. The separation between what is now third world and first world countries in the 17 hundreds was not much of a separation at all. However, with time and into the 18 hundreds the separation widened. The now third world countries became dependent on European and all western countries and steadily dropped lower and finally landed in the third world level they are in today.

I think that a big reason for this separation and that third world countries such as those in Africa could never build themselves up to the level that the Europeans was greatly caused by the slave trade. It seems to me that it would be next to impossible if more than half of the young men were taken from your country to regain your status. I can’t see how most African countries could even have a working population and a growing economy during the slave trade.

I also think the slave trade is something that really should have been talked about more. It involved millions of people and continents. It could have been one of the most important reasons why Africa had so much trouble entering the dominant world.

--Dorothy Smith "Bunny"