What a year!

A-Block MWH with Mama Pugs: a class I always looked forward to.

Junior year will feel very empty next year without a class like sophomore history. Not only did we have the opportunity to learn an incredible amount of material in a year's time, we learned about HOW to learn, study, and analyze (and have fun too!). After this year I know what it means to be a historian. I learned how to prepare an argument and how to develop a strong idea and eventually a thesis based on evidence that we have seen throughout history. History is not about learning facts and events that have occurred in the modern world, but rather seeing a connection between the way things happened. This notion was made clear to me this year. I learned that two abstract ideas that seem completely unrelated at the surface, for a completely random example, the Carolands Mansion in Hillsborough and the Terracotta Warriors in Xian China, can be connected to each other so strongly...even strongly enough to write ten pages about! I will do my best to take the things that I learned to be so fun about history with me next year and throughout the rest of my historical career. Thank you Mama Pugs for the tremendous year you have given us! Please come back to your true passion of teaching history after next year as you are fed up with teaching just the boring English for an entire year.

Connection Webs

If I had to choose the single most important thing that I learned this year, I think the connection webs can best summarize it. Beyond the factual connections, the connection webs that we constructed at various points throughout the year and on both of our finals encouraged us to look for patterns throughout history. By creating these connections between ostensibly unrelated historical events, I found that history does repeat itself. Similarly, in the extremism essay, I synthesized knowledge of various extremist groups and interpreted the factors that allowed them to become so popular, finding that each of the distinct events were spurred on by equally miserable circumstances. Also, what's that other word we mentioned this year? Nationalism, maybe? The idea of finding connections throughout history is useful in explaining why our world has become the way it is today, but the most compelling part is that this knowledge can be used to relate our understanding of common historical themes to the modern world and current events so that we can influence the shape of the future.

SOAPS, SPECS and gutting

The single important thing I learned this year in Modern World History was how to organize information. SOAPS, SPECS and learning how to gut a book were concrete skills that I can continue to utilize in my studies. I'm not an abstract thinker or a very creative person so I need structure when I work. I would get stressed out when I had a source because I didn't know what to do with it. I would just annotate and take notes but couldn't glean the most important info. SOAPS and SPECS help me identify background info on the source and where the argument is coming from. When doing research I would completely avoid books because I didn't know the most effective way to extract information. I thought that you had to read the entire book, which was more time than I wanted to dedicate to my research. But now I know the most efficient way to use a book in research and am not limited to just the internet any more.  

Iran and Algeria: Same Vibration

SKIM the thesis, timeline, and SPECS table of the three other revolutionary groups. CHOOSE one of the revolutions and WRITE a comparison between it and the revolution you researched in class. POST this paragraph to the blog with the LABEL: Your first name, late 20th revs - 3

The Iranian Revolution and the Algerian Revolution had about the same amount of success: almost none. While the two revolutions differed in many ways, the outcomes were very similar, both literally and on a more analytical level.
While the Algerians were rebelling against their French colonizers, and the Iranians were rebelling against people of the same original nationality, both countries went from a Westernized government to a government controlled in some part by Islamic groups. In both cases, power changed hands many times, making the government very inconsistent and unstable. In Iran, people still fear the government to the point of completely losing hope. In Algeria, there has relatively recently been very large amounts of violence, so everything is still in turmoil.
Perhaps one of the largest indicators of failure is the collapse of both countries' economies. While an economic failure may seems small compared to massacres and violence, it can have much more devastating long-term effects. In Algeria, people are trying to escape their failed economy, only to be sent back home by their government. Violence can change governments very quickly, but a bad economy can ruin even the best.

Cold Rivalries

READ 678-681. WRITE a blog post in which you compare the rivalry of the Cold War (as outlined in the reading and in our in-class work) with other international rivalries we've studied this year.
LABEL: Your first name, cold rivalries

The rivalry of the cold war had many similarities and differences to the more traditional rivalries we studied earlier in the year. The "normal" rivalries typically consisted of dissent between adjacent nations, an arms race of some sort, perhaps a fortification of borders, and maybe even an attack. In this sense, the cold war was both traditional and not at the same time.
As most people know, the cold was was a major nuclear arms race between America and the Soviet Union. This type of arms race leading up t a war is completely normal, but in this case the arms race pretty much was the war. It was this nuclear presence that set the cold war so far apart from others. Because the US and Russia were across the seas from each other, the fortifications occurred in other countries in Europe, which was very unusual. And instead or making defenses for their own country, each side simply pointed progressively more nuclear weapons at the other side. The long range of the weapons was what created and international panic: now even countries on the other side of the world were a serious threat.
The "war" was the result in a difference of two ideals, those of communism and those of capitalism. This kind of cause is normal, although the two sides were not. While sometimes fighting may break out on one side of the argument, the communists weren't even CLOSE to unified, which is highly unusual for a war, and especially ironic, as the point of communism is everyone working together for a better future.
While you could argue that actually engaging is battle is not necessary for war, it seems that a term like "contretemps" may better fit the cold war.


Note: I am not trying to say the cold war wasn't an issue; I understand that it was very close to being World War III, and quite possibly the end of life in Russia and America, but I'm not sure it fits the definition o a war.

The World Is a Big Bowl of Paperclips

WRITE a blog post in which you discuss, explain, muse upon the single most important thing you learned in Modern World History this year. It can be about history; it can be about the study of history; it can be about current events; it can be about yourself as a student, as a scholar, as a thinker, as a world citizen; it can be about other people. It can be anything.

What I've learned.... how do I pick just one?! I learned so much in history this year, and I had fun doing it! This class really opened my eyes to stuff going on outside of my little shell in the Bay Area, and I feel like I know my world a lot better!

I think the main thing I learned (if you're really forcing me to choose one..) is that history and the world is not just lots and lots of separate events that happen, and then they're done. They are all connected. Every single event in every corner of the world affects another part of the world, maybe in that same second, or maybe in a hundred years. Even more importantly, when we look at these events all together, and when we make connections, we can notice patterns. We can analyze the past in a way that makes sense, and is useful to know. If paper clips are events, the world is like what happens will you dump a million paper clips in one big bowl. They all connect. Whether we want them to or not, those little hooks latch onto each other and they all string together in complicated ways, and it would be impossible to unhook them all.

I don't think I'll ever meet someone who loves connections more than Ms. Pugliese, but really, connections are probably the most important lesson in history. I now know that we can't just make a decision as a nation, thinking that once it's done, we can just forget about it. It's going to be remembered for years to come, and it's going to be compared to other events in history that we might not even know about. It's going to matter.

Mmmm, Chocolate

There are so many things I learned this year, it's impossible to say the most important. I think it might be that all things history can be related, but can also be completely distinct. You can almost relate everything in history, but you can distinguish everything too. Studying history made me realize that in history, as in life, it all depends on how you look at something. It's kind of like chocolate covered pretzels. Can lump them all together, or, you can eat one pretzel at a time, making it individual. Let's look at revolutions. Sure, the French Rev, Industrial Rev, Algerian Rev, etc. are all revolutions. But when you study one in particular, you can see it's individuality and specificity emerge. Similarly with flags. So many countries show their nationalistic pride by waving their countries flags. They are all in the "flags" category, but each nation has it's own flag. Just like looking at a pretzel with individual clumps of chocolate. It's somewhat of a stretch, but I like to think about things in terms of food. Especially chocolate.