Periodization

The problem of dividing history into periods arises from the fact history isn't so clear cut and it's difficult to cut it up into nice little sections and trends slowly give way to one another, rather than changing over night. After all, the fall of Rome occurred over many years and can't really be pinpointed to one event, nor can the start of the dark ages or the beginning of the Renaissance. After all, no one living in the era we call the "Dark Ages," referred to it as such. While these labels are indeed useful and necessary to the study of history, it has certain limitations due to the fact that different parts of the world were very different for much of the world. For instance, the era we classify as the Dark Ages may have been such for the Occident, but for the Islamic middle east or Asia they were quiet progressive. Still, there are most certainly elements of truth in the dividing up of history into periods, and while it may be difficult to pinpoint the exact moment one period leads to the other, one can clearly see the difference between the renaissance and the dark ages and the classical periods.

Trying to use the same principles to periodize modern history is difficult, as it is still being made, but it is certainly a useful thought exercise. It is somewhat difficult to do this to modern history considering the breakneck speed of change in the last 2 centuries. Modernization has spread across humanity and although colonialism still exists in some forms, it has in the most direct sense ended and even the nature of the nation state and how they interact with one another has changed much since the 19th and early 20th century. The easiest "pivot points" to mark in most recent history would be the collapse of the Soviet Union and the attacks of 9/11. The fall of the Soviet Union marks the end of the Cold War, which arguably defined the structure of the post WWII world and international politics. This gave way to American unilateralism and the eroding of the old power blocs. This segways nicely into the attacks of 9/11, which arguably mark the slow demise of the "American Century" and the beginning of "No One's Century," in which the world has no penultimate power. It also marks the increased resistance of third world forces against first world domination. I would like to point out that it does not mark an increase of terrorism, as that is a tactic that has been a broad issue since the 19th century.

Blog 9

Despite race, culture, creed, and location, the motivations of people are all very similar and often rather simple when one gets down to it. All people look to ensure their own survival and access to the resources necessary for it and to make their lives a little more comfortable. This often manifests in the search of raw materials, but also of land that can be inhabited and cultivated and for people to trade with to attain goods otherwise unavailable.

However, a people's culture and the pressures of their environment certainly do affect how they approach these goals and the fervor that they do it with. For instance, the early Polynesians conducted many colonization efforts during their voyages, and it can be concluded that they were looking less to trade but to find new lands they could live on and that could support them. This can be attributed to a need to find new places to live as space on various islands became a premium and population pressures necessitated this migration. This can be contrasted by the Chinese and Indo-sphere's expeditions, which had trade in mind, as well as evangelizing in the case of the Muslim states. Indian expeditions showed great success as trade networks were established all around the Indian Ocean and a great deal of cultural diffusion could be witnessed. The Chinese also pursued oceanic trade with great vigor with admiral Zheng He's expedition, which was composed of many great treasure ships and soldiers.  However, due to China's ability to produce many of its necessities and in no small part to a certain sense of xenophobia, the Chinese kept much of their trading partners at arm's length wary of an unfavorable trade balance and although they could have, they did not pursue any colonization projects.

The Europeans had a great capability for naval exploration comparable to the Chinese, a greater capacity for ship production than the Polynesians, and perhaps the strongest pressures to explore and expand. Europe was an unstable place, but it was also sophisticated, urbanized, and while it was not resource poor there was an ever growing need for more compacted by the difficulty of overland trade through hostile Muslim lands and the inhospitable Eurasian wastes. The beginnings of large scale naval exploration was spearheaded by the Italian merchant states who had long proven themselves as seamen, and the Iberians, who's experience in the Reconquista had given them a southern look to Africa. The Christian kingdoms of Iberia looked to spread Christianity across Africa, but more importantly looked to gain access to the lucrative gold trade and later to gain direct access to India. This led them to circumvent Africa and find many resource rich and easily exploited areas that they would later go on to develop often to the detriment of the natives. Because of the long and almost constant history of warfare in Europe as well as the technological superiority over both the African and American natives, the Europeans were more predisposed to take various undeveloped areas and exploit them to their own benefit while engaging in trade with the local polities.

The balance of trade and the benefit derived from them often depended on the level of development of those involved and the distance from Europe. The Chinese did better than the Indo-Sphere which in turn did better than the Swahili trade cities, which in turn did better than everyone else. Where the Europeans could, they worked to exploit the local area for maximum profit the best they could. This is best illustrated by Portugal's interaction with the kingdom of Kongo, the most advanced polity in Western-central Africa, but a comparatively weak and undeveloped power to the Portuguese. Despite its conversion to Catholicism, its friendliness to the Portuguese, and several laws to limit trade, the Portuguese that settled there to trade brought in many goods that the people wanted and greatly increased the slave trade because of it. As a side effect, this worked greatly to undermine Dom Alfonso, the sovereign of the Kongo, and his government's ability to control its vassals not to mention increase the misery of those sold into slavery by their neighbors. While many of the individual Kongolese gained access to goods they would otherwise never had and a great deal of scientific knowledge hitherto unavailable became available, the Kingdom of Kongo and other, less developed people benefited little as a whole and were arguably worse off for it in the end.

While all the blanks on the map have been filled for a long time and we enter the so called "post-colonial world" motivations have changed little, although the scale and the nature in which they are pursued have. Although industry allowed the West to dominate the world it also gave everyone the machine gun and as a result attaining the resources wanted now take more cooperation and/or guile. Despite this, exploration still exists although it now takes place in the most inhospitable and inaccessible recesses of the earth and to a much lesser degree space. It now takes the form of exploring the ocean depths and exploratory oil drilling. While the surface has been mapped man now plumbs the depths of the earths looking for the resources necessary to maintain the industrialized global economies that ensure the survival of more people than this planet has ever seen.