The Age of Empire (Ch. 5-8): Patrick Garner 6/2/10

Chapter 5 discussed the working class. The working class really evolved into it's own political group,The Proletariat. The reason it evolved into its own massive group like this is because many people went to work in industry since the world was quickly becoming industrialized. So many people joined this work force that it evolved into its own political group. Because this group was so large, labor unions began to develop and this is where all the working regulations were developed sucha s minimum wage.
Chapter6 discusses how nationalism became popular after all the spread of democracy. Nationalism was a way for the country to unite as one, however, this is not always a good thing. Nationalism caused a lot of violence and wars between countries. Hence started to prepare for wars and put more time into evolving there militarys. This began world war I.
Chapter 7 discusses the bourgeoisie group. These people were pretty much middle class/upper middle class. They were the first people to start spending money on cars and things of that sort without having to worry about money. They spent a lot of money on leisure things and they valued education. The bourgeosisie were the class who began participating in sports and more leisure things. The bourgeoisie class was the class that began to give women a voice. This was the start of the feminist movement and women's rights began evolving.
Chapter 8 dealt more with the feminist movement. A lot of things began to change with women. They also started working along with their husbands. This made birth rate drops because of women focusing on careers and marrying later. Many changes like this took place and women began to move up even further in the world and they began to have a voice in society.

I found it interesting that the bourgeoisie were the first to really establish recreation sports. I assume that centuries before created and developed sports especially the greeks and the romans. The author sort of made it seem like this was the first time that recreation sports were organized. I would have to disagree and say that this started much earlier, centuries before hand. On the other hand, I guess the author is just trying to make the put that the bourgeoisie had more than enough time and money on their hands to organize leisure things that the working class couldn't. The interesting thing now is that sports have developed into being controlled by the wealthy but I feel that a lot of sports are dominated by atheletes who are not neccessarily from the middle class or higher. It is amazing how things change and now everybody has a chance to do anything they set their mind too.

As my discussion point, I want to discuss how women got the chance to finally get into society and have a voice. They got to take on professional jobs because of the middle class that was established. Although, men were already on the scene and had this chance, do you think that this also opened up opportunities for a larger amount of men? So basically, I am thinking that not only did this time period open up new limits for women but it also paved the way for men who might have not neccessarily had a chance to reach new limits without the bourgeoisie class.
Does anyone agree?