Revisionist Western

Why was Great Britain the first Industrial nation? Great Britain had an abundance of factors that gave it a significant advantage over other countries and Empires when it came to Industrialisation. Britain had all it needed to begin this revolution as they had large amounts of natural resources such as coal, an increasing population due to agricultural improvements, the development of new inventions and most importantly, an ever expanding Empire. All these factors contribute and provide the…

The persecutions of marginal groups that occurred in Europe from the 10th through the 13th century were some of the most influential events to occur in Western Christendom. These events not only influenced the history of many ethnic and religious groups but also influenced the rise of influential bodies of power such as the Roman Catholic Church which would go on to be one of the most powerful bodies in Europe. However, the causes that led to these occurrences are a matter of dispute. Through…

In the last few decades, Muslims have come to constitute a significant immigrant group in the United States. As a result of this relatively recent arrival, the second generation, defined as children born in the United States to immigrant-origin parents, are the first generation being raised in America and are starting to reach maturity. Their unique perspective on the United States, thoroughly unlike that of their parents, forces the second generation to confront issues that their parents and…

a view into a different culture. A Belgian girl working in corporate Japan, shows the difference between eastern and western cultures. This is important because it illustrates a new taboo culture to western audiences. In the Japanese culture, the regular person sees themselves as a small being who need to start small and the only way to grow is to have experience while in a western culture, a regular person sees themselves as a large, significant part of society and that you need to have…

What happened during the Armenian genocide still today affects those who survived that horrific experience and even the family members of those victims who didn’t make it through and of those who did survive the genocide. The reason for the genocide was that the Ottomans believed that the Armenians were a problem in Turkey ands they needed to get rid of them in order to save Turkey and also because they were non-Muslim and believed them to be second-level and this is what led to the mass murder…

Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp’s photo Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Selavy did more than just represent the change occurring in gender roles during the time of its creation in the United States during the 1920s. This photo and the others of Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Selavy influenced many artists including Yasumasa Morimura. Morimura went as far as to make a parody of the famous photo Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Selavy. Morimura’s image was called Doublonnage (Marcel) and was created in 1988 but this is not…

Henri Matisse painted Bonheur de Vivre (c. 1905-1906) within the introductory period of radically charged, color-based fauvist work. The color in Bonheur de Vivre easily conveys a sense of joy present in a free-natured romp through nature the painting attempts to emulate. The painting contains sixteen feminine-coded human figures sitting in a hyper-colored field. Instead of a contemporary scene, trees enclose a mythic clearing. This deifies these figures as they lounge nude in multicolored grass…

In his definition, Orientalism is not wholly concerned with anthropological or epistemological studies of the “Orient,” but with a caricatured portrayal of the people who live in these areas to demean their humanity using the powers of Western hegemony. Said states on page 6 of Orientalism “I myself believe that Orientalism is nothing more than a structure of lies or of myths… more particularly valuable as a sign of European-Atlantic power over the Orient than it is as a veridic discourse…

Asad was able to trick me into a much more pertinent discussion of terrorism than I could have ever imagined. Asad’s analysis of power dynamics within Western liberal discourses of war, terrorism, the civilized, ‘the other,’ and justice is phenomenal, for he places each term in its Western context and analyzes the discrepancies between Western theories and their worldly manifestations. The essence of power is what makes this book so amazing, for as Asad says it best, “My argument, however, is…

the idea of being sent back. Another challenge this era of immigrants faced was rising nativism. Nativist sentiment was high during big waves of immigration. Between 1880 to 1920, the largest number of immigrants continued to come from northern and western Europe, notably the Irish seeking refuge from the Potato Famine. They were treated as trash, almost as…