w. 38

Tuesday, 15 September

We worked with sections 3 and 4 of chapter 27. There were particular terms we focused, including

faction
geopolitics
concession
maharahjah
Mogul/Mughal
sepoy
jute
Raj

It is important that you work actively with the historical terms used in your book. It's not always enough to understand the overall meaning of a sentence. You want to feel that you could use a term in your own work -- and your work even includes discussions in class.

We discussed examples of geopolitics (e.g., Russia and its interest in expanding into areas of the Ottoman Empire).

We spent some time looking at chapter 27, including the images, and thinking about what the book focuses on. On Friday we'll compare our book with the file I have given you on Vklass of pages from a Swedish history book from the 1970s.

By reflecting on how Imperialism is presented in these books, this forces us to think about the process in which history is written: Which sources are used? Which issues are focused on? What is prioritized?

We discussed different approaches to history, which can be seen as different theories:

the Great Men apprach: History is understood to be a series of events driven by the personalities and achievements of powerful men.

Feminist theory: Gender is brought into an analysis of history. This can encompass many different approaches, including a focus on the systems and institutions at work in the societies under review, the sources that are utilized, and the assumptions historians employ.

Imperialism as modernism: This approach interprets the political, economic, and cultural domination of lands in the 19th and 20th centuries by European countries and the U.S. to ultimately be a matter of modernization -- which is perceived to be an overall positive development.

Postimperialism or a revisionist view of imperialism: Here the focus is on consequences of Imperialism from the perspective of those peoples and areas controlled by Europe or the U.S. This can encompass many different perspectives, and thus is quite broad.