LITTLE ICE AGE

The Little Ice Age

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The Little Ice Age was a time of cooler climate in most parts of the world. Although there is some disagreement about exactly when the Little Ice Age started, records suggest that temperatures began cooling around 1250 A.D. The coldest time was during the 16th and 17th Centuries. By 1850 the climate began to warm.

During the Little Ice Age, average global temperatures were 1-1.5 degree Celsius (2-3 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than they are today. The cooler temperatures were caused by a combination of less solar activity and large volcanic eruptions. Cooling caused glaciers to advance and stunted tree growth. Livestock died, harvests failed, and humans suffered from famine and disease.

The Little Ice Age was not a true ice age because it did not get cold enough for long enough to cause ice sheets to grow larger. The cooling likely affected areas around the world but because of Europe we can determine the most records of the change.

AMERICA COMPARED (part6)

America Compared#6

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The 1920s "boom" enriched only a fraction of the American people. Earnings for farmers and industrial workers stagnated or fell. While this represented lower production costs for companies, it also precluded growth in consumer demand. Thus, by the mid 1920s the ability of most Americans to purchase new automobiles, new houses and other durable goods was beginning to weaken.

This weakening demand was masked, however, by the "great bull market" in stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. The ever-growing price for stocks was, in part, the result of greater wealth concentration within the investor class. Eventually the Wall Street stock exchange began to take on a dangerous aura of invincibility, leading investors to ignore less optimistic indicators in the economy. Over-investment and speculating (gambling) in stocks further inflated their prices, contributing to the illusion of a robust economy.

Once in office, FDR said yes to almost every plan put forward by advisors and the Congress said yes to almost every program proposed by the president. In the frantically-paced first few months of his administration, Congress passed scores of new legislation at the president's request. Historians tend to categorize these efforts as either measures for "relief" (short-term programs designed to alleviate immediate suffering), "recovery" (long-term programs to strengthen the economy back to its pre-crash level), or, "reform" (permanent structures meant to prevent future depressions). Another way of understanding FDR's Depression-fighting efforts is to analyze the politics of the New Deal. Generally speaking, the overall aim of the New Deal was essentially conservative. The New Deal sought to save capitalism and the fundamental institutions of American society from the disaster of the Great Depression. Within that framework, however, significant differences between New Deal programs existed. The "first" New Deal (1933-35) tended toward a continuation of "trickle down" policies, albeit better-funded and executed more creatively. Even in the early first New Deal, exceptional programs pointed toward the "second" New Deal's tendency toward "Keynesian" economic policies of revitalizing a mass-consumption based economy by revitalizing the masses ability to consume.

AMERICA COMPARED (part5)

America Compared#5

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The end of World War I saw the United States retreat into isolation. The Senate refused to ratify the Versailles Peace Treaty that ended World War I. The U.S. failed to join the League of Nations--the international organization that was the less-successful interwar predecessor of the United Nations. The U.S. raised tariffs early in the 1920s (although not to levels that appreciably discouraged imports). Most important, perhaps, the 1920s saw he end of free immigration into the United States. Migration from Asia had been restricted for several generations. Migration from Africa had never been an issue. But up until the mid-1920s migration from Europe had been unrestricted.

More than 1.2 million immigrants had come to the U.S. in 1914. But once the immigration restrictions of the 1920s took effect, the overall total was fixed at only 160,000 or so immigrants a year. Moreover, different nations had different quotas. The quotas for immigrants from northern and western Europe were more than ample for the demand. The quotas for immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were very small.

The United States tried to pretend that the rest of the world did not really exist. Its people turned inward, and they found that they had plenty to do. For in the 1920s the United States became a modern middle-class economy of radios, consumer appliances, automobiles and suburbs. Nearly thirty million motor vehicles were on the road in 1929, one for every five residents of the country. Mass production had made the post-World War I United States the richest society the world had ever seen.

AMERICA COMPARED (part4)

America Compared#4

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THE birth of the Philippines in 1896 was one thing; consolidating the territory was another matter. While most Filipinos would attribute the unification of the Philippines to the 1896 Revolution, in reality it was a series of local revolts against the Spanish, and later against the Americans. It remains debatable as to whether these revolts either identified wholly with Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo’s Malolos Republic, or whether, had they all succeeded, whether would unite under one contiguous territory. Already when the first American troops landed in Negros Island, Negrenses were threatening to create their own republic.

The Americans were actually responsible for giving territorial reality to Las Islas Filipinas, the basis of the future Republic. They did this first by employing force against those who opposed American rule. They waged brutal military campaigns against forces loyal to the Malolos Revolutionary Government of Pres. Emilio Aguinaldo, pushing the latter as far back as the mountain fastness of northern Luzon and scattering his troops in southern Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. The American use of armed might was so brutish that in Samar Island, for example, hundreds of women and children were killed when Gen. Jacob Smith ordered to turn the island into a “howling wilderness.” After Aguinaldo’s capture at Palanan, Isabela, there were attempts to re-establish a new revolutionary center, but all this was quashed by the Americans.

AMERICA COMPARED (part3)

America Compared#3

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Early in the 19th century, while the rapidly-growing United States expanded into the lower South, white settlers faced what they considered an obstacle. This area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chicasaw and Seminole nations. These Indian nations, in the view of the settlers and many other white Americans, were standing in the way of progress. Eager for land to raise cotton, the settlers pressured the federal government to acquire Indian territory.

Andrew Jackson, from Tennessee, was a forceful proponent of Indian removal. In 1814 he commanded the U.S. military forces that defeated a faction of the Creek nation. In their defeat, the Creeks lost 22 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama. The U.S. acquired more land in 1818 when, spurred in part by the motivation to punish the Seminoles for their practice of harboring fugitive slaves, Jackson's troops invaded Spanish Florida.

From 1814 to 1824, Jackson was instrumental in negotiating nine out of eleven treaties which divested the southern tribes of their eastern lands in exchange for lands in the west. The tribes agreed to the treaties for strategic reasons. They wanted to appease the government in the hopes of retaining some of their land, and they wanted to protect themselves from white harassment. As a result of the treaties, the United States gained control over three-quarters of Alabama and Florida, as well as parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina. This was a period of voluntary Indian migration, however, and only a small number of Creeks, Cherokee and Choctaws actually moved to the new lands.

AMERICA COMPARED (part2)

America Compared#2

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Pre-European America was drastically different from what it became after Europeans arrived. Some of South America’s civilizations were among the most advanced in the history of the ancient world. Contrastingly, the natives of North America developed into smaller tribes and families rather than empires. The effect of the European arrival on the native populations was disastrous. Predominantly Catholic, Spain and Portugal ruthlessly forced their colonies to follow suit. Similarly, British Anglicans in North America also made some effort to convert the natives, but were perfectly content simply to have servants rather than converts. The hunter-gather frame of mind of the North American natives was destroyed as their European counterparts soon turned into their rulers. European explorers in South America soon took on the name of “conquistador”, meaning conqueror in Spanish. And conquer is exactly what they did. The old way of farming was not completely lost, just turned to specifically farming what the European public desired.

The effect of the European arrival on the native populations was disastrous. Courteous at first, the explorers soon began to take advantage of the natives, stealing money and food and doing anything else they wanted. But perhaps the biggest effects were the smallpox and measles diseases that came with the Europeans. Combined, these two deadly diseases wiped out millions of Americans. In this regard, both North and South American natives suffered the same.

Spain and Portugal dominated the exploration of South and Central America with men such as Francisco Pizarro and Hernan Cortes, while Britain and France lead the exploration of North America. Predominantly Catholic, Spain and Portugal ruthlessly forced their colonies to follow suit. They even destroyed hundreds of ancient manuscripts in order that it would be easier for the natives to convert. Some explorers even believed that their express purpose was to lead them to Christianity, even if it was at sword point. Similarly, British Anglicans in North America also made some effort to convert the natives, but were perfectly content simply to have servants rather than converts. As a result of these policies, both South and North American native religions were practically eradicated while Catholicism and Protestantism now dominate.

AMERICA COMPARED (part1)

America Comapred#1

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In 1830, just a year after taking office, Jackson pushed a new piece of legislation called the "Indian Removal Act" through both houses of Congress. It gave the president power to negotiate removal treaties with Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. Under these treaties, the Indians were to give up their lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for lands to the west. Those wishing to remain in the east would become citizens of their home state. This act affected not only the southeastern nations, but many others further north. The removal was supposed to be voluntary and peaceful, and it was that way for the tribes that agreed to the conditions. But the southeastern nations resisted, and Jackson forced them to leave.

Jackson's attitude toward Native Americans was paternalistic and patronizing -- he described them as children in need of guidance. and believed the removal policy was beneficial to the Indians. Most white Americans thought that the United States would never extend beyond the Mississippi. Removal would save Indian people from the depredations of whites, and would resettle them in an area where they could govern themselves in peace. But some Americans saw this as an excuse for a brutal and inhumane course of action, and protested loudly against removal.

Their protests did not save the southeastern nations from removal, however. The Choctaws were the first to sign a removal treaty, which they did in September of 1830. Some chose to stay in Mississippi under the terms of the Removal Act.. But though the War Department made some attempts to protect those who stayed, it was no match for the land-hungry whites who squatted on Choctaw territory or cheated them out of their holdings. Soon most of the remaining Choctaws, weary of mistreatment, sold their land and moved west.

19th CENTURY LATIN AMERICA

Latin America19thcentury

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Latin America (Central/South American, and the Caribbean region) also underwent dramatic changes in the 19th century. At first glance, Latin American societies shared many historical experiences with the United States. They shared a key historical foundation, European colonization transformed their culture and historical direction, forcibly fusing the cultures of Europe, native Americans and African (slave) populations. And both the U.S. and Latin America achieved independence within the same 30 - 40 year period. However, during the 19th century, Latin American countries faced far greater difficulties achieving successful and stable independent states after independence. The outcome of the period of decolonization was dramatically different for Latin American societies, as compared to the U.S..

In Latin America, Spain was the dominant colonial authority. And the absolutist Spanish crown did not allow autonomy or economic opportunity for its colonial subjects. In Spanish-controlled American territories, tremendous wealth was generated from gold, silver and lucrative cash crops such as sugar and coffee. Thus, land ownership was directly and tightly controlled by the Spanish monarchy, the Catholic Church and wealthy/influential Spanish aristocratic families. There was little opportunity for poor, lower class Spanish to go to the "New World" in pursuit of individual land ownership; large estates were controlled by the elite, the same pattern as in Europe.

CROSSROADS OF FREEDOM

Crossroads Of Freedom

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On September 16, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan confronted Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Sharpsburg, Maryland. At dawn September 17, Hooker’s corps mounted a powerful assault on Lee’s left flank that began the single bloodiest day in American military history. Attacks and counterattacks swept across Miller’s cornfield and fighting swirled around the Dunker Church. Union assaults against the Sunken Road eventually pierced the Confederate center, but the Federal advantage was not followed up. Late in the day, Burnside’s corps finally got into action, crossing the stone bridge over Antietam Creek and rolling up the Confederate right. At a crucial moment, A.P. Hill’s division arrived from Harpers Ferry and counterattacked, driving back Burnside and saving the day. Although outnumbered two-to-one, Lee committed his entire force, while McClellan sent in less than three-quarters of his army, enabling Lee to fight the Federals to a standstill. During the night, both armies consolidated their lines. In spite of crippling casualties, Lee continued to skirmish with McClellan throughout the 18th, while removing his wounded south of the river. McClellan did not renew the assaults. After dark, Lee ordered the battered Army of Northern Virginia to withdraw across the Potomac into the Shenandoah Valley.

CALIFORNIA//CHAPTER 13

California's need for a government helped promote the Progressive Movement. This movement was an effort to cure many of the ills of American society that had developed during the great spurt of industrial growth in the last quarter of the 19th century. The frontier had been tamed, great cities and businesses developed, and an overseas empire established, but not all citizens shared in the new wealth, prestige, and optimism.

Efforts to improve society were not new to the United States in the late 1800s. A major push for change, the First Reform Era, occurred in the years before the Civil War and included efforts of social activists to reform working conditions, and humanize the treatment of mentally ill people and prisoners.

Others removed themselves from society and attempted to establish utopian communities in which reforms were limited to their participants. The focal point of the early reform period was abolitionism, the drive to remove what in the eyes of many was the great moral wrong of slavery.

The second reform era began during Reconstruction and lasted until the American entry into World War I. The struggle for women's rights and the temperance movement were the initial issues addressed. A farm movement also emerged to compensate for the declining importance of rural areas in an increasingly urbanized America.

As part of the second reform period, Progressivism was rooted in the belief, certainly not shared by all, that man was capable of improving the lot of all within society. As such, it was a rejection of Social Darwinism, the position taken by many of the rich and powerful figures of the day.

chapter 13

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CALIFORNIA//CHAPTER 8&9

During the desperate times of the Great Depression ,handbills advertising work began to arrive in towns all along the Red River. California, the sheets said, was a land of milk and honey. Thousands of acres of rich crops awaited thousands of agricultural workers. Pay was decent and land to cultivate was available to buy. With nothing to lose, families loaded up their cars or trucks with their meager belongings and made the long drive west in search of work.

The road didn't always prove a salvation, however. Cars ran on bald tires, with rope doing makeshift duty for broken fan belts. Spare tires had to be sold for gas money. If the car broke down completely - a great possibility given that they were old and driving thousands of miles through the New Mexican and Arizona deserts - families ended up walking.
The refugees made their homes in camps alongside the road, living in tents or under cardboard. They'd eat their rations of salt pork and canned vegetables, but more often than not, women would make fried dough balls out of flour, grease, and water. Unencumbered by formal schooling, kids were free to help out by bringing in food such as frogs, squirrels, and birds. The plight of the migrants was vividly portrayed by WPA photographers like Dorothea Lange, who captured the mass migration as research for Roosevelt's relief programs.

Once in California, the refugees found limited work opportunities. They competed against thousands of others for picking jobs, at depressed wages. They also faced discrimination. With disdain, they were called "Okies," and their ways were mocked as "white trash." Migrants moved into "Okievilles" or "Little Oklahomas," shanty towns built at the edges of fields where they could live among their own kind. Black families fared even worse, as they had to wait until whites found work before they could be hired. Latino migrant workers found themselves repatriated to Mexico, although many were actually Americans!

chapters 8&9

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CALIFORNIA//CHAPTER 6&7

Josiah Royce was born November 20, 1855, in the remote mining town of Grass Valley, California, to Josiah and Sarah Eleanor Bayliss Royce. His mother was a devout Christian and head of a primary school in Grass Valley. After being educated by his mother and older sisters, at the age of eleven Royce entered school in San Francisco.
He received his B.A. in Classics from the University of California in 1875. He spent a year in Germany, where he attended philosophy lectures in Heidelberg, Leipzig, and Göttingen, mastered the language and came to admire Hermann Lotze. In

1878, the new Johns Hopkins University awarded him one of its first four doctorates, in philosophy. He then taught composition and literature at the University of California from 1878-1882, publishing a number of philosophical articles and Primer of Logical Analysis. He married Katherine Head in 1880; the couple had three sons.
In California, Royce felt isolated from the intellectual life of the East Coast, and sought an academic post there. Through the recommendation of William James, Royce's friend and philosophical antagonist, he was offered the opportunity to replace James when he took a one year sabbatical at Harvard University. Royce accepted the position at half of James’ salary, and in

1882, brought his wife and new-born son across the continent to Cambridge. There, he began to develop his interests in several areas. In 1885, he published his first major philosophical work, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, proposing that in order for ordinary concepts of truth and error to have meaning, there must be an actual infinite mind, an Absolute Knower, that encompasses all truths and all possible errors. The same year, he received a permanent appointment as assistant professor at Harvard, where he continued to teach for thirty years; among his students were T.S. Eliot, George Santayana, and W.E.B. Du Bois.

California 6-7

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CALIFORNIA//CHAPTER 3

California was originally a colony of Spain, and would be so for nearly three centuries. First discovered in 1542 by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, it would claimed in the name of Spain, and would be held by Spain until the 1800's, when it would be given to Mexico. California would then be a Mexican state until 1846 when the Bear Revolt occurred, which was egged on by a US general. The hope was that California would become a part of the United States.

Like most states in the 1800's, it was originally a colony of a foreign nation, and not a member of the United States. As the United States started to grow its territory, they would run into various nations along the way, and engage in a number of wars over the territory that they wanted. The United States wished to occupy the continent from the east coast, all the way to the west coast which was referred to as Manifest Destiny. California would be claimed by several nations, and was even an independent country at one point.

chapter 3

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CUBA

Until the last decades of the 18th Century, Cuba was a relatively underdeveloped island with an economy based mainly on cattle raising and tobacco farms. The intensive cultivation of sugar that began at the turn of the nineteenth century transformed Cuba into a plantation society, and the demand for African "slaves", who had been introduced into Cuba from Spain at the beginning of the 16th century, increased dramatically. The slave trade with the West African coast exploded, and it is estimated that almost 400,000 Africans were brought to Cuba during the years 1835-1864. [That's roughly 1150 per month for 29 years!] In 1841, African slaves made up over 40% of the total population.

The late flourishing of the Cuban sugar industry and the persistence of the slave trade into the 1860s are two important reasons for the remarkable density and variety of African cultural elements in Cuba. Fernando Ortiz Counted the presence of over one hundred different African ethnic groups in 19th century Cuba, and estimated that by the end of that century fourteen distinct "nations" had preserved their identity in the mutual aid associations and social clubs known as cabildos, societies of free and enslaved blacks from the same African "nation," which later included their Cuban-born descendants. Soon after Emancipation in 1886, cabildos were required to adopt the name of a Catholic patron saint, to register with local church authorities and when dissolved, to transfer their property to the Catholic Church.

Cuba

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DEATH IN THE ANDES

A large theme of the novel Death In The Andes, is the chaos of Latin America and how it shapes men and women into tools of that chaos. Nobody is happy, really, except perhaps Tomasito, who comes across as somewhat deluded. There is hardly a sense of future for anyone, because if you survive against today's band of rebels attacking the town, well, tomorrow's marauders might just do you in. People laugh when they are drunk or when they speak lewdly. And yet, for all that, it is not a sad world that Llosa paints. It is a country in flux, a changing place, a land for potential but also for death. It is sad to think there is little hope at the end of the novel that the violence will stop. Tomasito's love is the only spark worth sheltering, but the land, the culture, the people and the feel of Peru is captured very well. Chaos has, for a brief moment, been contained within the pages of Llosa's novel. Recommended, but only for those readers who are willing to put in the effort to untangle a novel that refuses, for the most part, to untangle at all.

Death in the Andes

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