Chapter 13: The End of Empire (Week 12)

April 5, 2018

The Global South on the Global Stage (1914-Present)

Here is a timeline of events from this particular time in history:

“Slums and Skyscrapers”:

Before I begin discussing the chapter for this week, I would like to take a minute to analyze the interesting photo that I came across in our textbook on page 997. The photograph is named “Slums and Skyscrapers” and is a representation of the modernization and economic growth in rural areas like Latin America. At this time, countries began to modernize and develop economically, this improvement was odd to see in areas of disparity. In the picture we see a family walking in a poor neighborhood that have houses made out of cardboard and random materials. We also see some graffiti and vandalism, which also are signs of poverty. In the background of the photo, there are tall skyscrapers, these two things in one single picture/area really shows how things were at this time. There were people living in these rural areas in their own traditional ways like they always have, then suddenly the process of modern developments began in the same vicinity and this caused for a great divide.

African and Asian Independence- The Fall of European Empires:

At this time Africa, Asia, the Caribbean region, and Pacific Oceania were all under European colonial rule, which for them meant modern developments were soon to come. These countries wanted their independence back and began to struggle in attempt to gain their freedom. After putting up a fight, Europe’s African and Asian empires finally gained their independence and broke off into their own rule. Self-government became more common and I think that countries were happy about this. I believe the cause of Africa and Asia to form into independent states was the pressure that Europe was experiencing from nationalist movements. There then was a range in efforts all around the globe to develop political independent order. There were many things that made this process hard for these new independent states, things like, poverty and private economies. There were many different freedom struggles happening at this time but they all had different circumstances. It was now time for them to figure out how they were going to bring order to their new province.

A Time for Experimenting:

While things recently changed dramatically, it was now time for experimenting. When I say experimenting, I mean exploring political order, economic development, culture, etc. There was no guarantee of certain outcomes and it was time for figuring out what worked best for each new independent region. I believe that this truly was the time for trial and error, it was the beginning and if mistakes were to happen, these people could learn from it and improve their economy and develop successfully. Everyone had different views on what was the best political system but they now had the freedom to decide what they were going to do. Around the time of 1950 we began to see many places around the world becoming urbanized. Populations began to grow and grow over time due to them transforming into urban areas.

Here is a graph that shows the increase in population from 1950 and 2014 which was not too long ago: