Ch 9-13 Age of Empire

Chapter nine deals with the transformation of art. Art, previously collected only by the upper class and aristocracy is now available more for the bourgeoisie. The middle class have a growing amount of time available to divulge in culture and art. Art nouveau emerges partly as a result of British example. It mixes modern fashion with technology and society. Both men and women were attracted to this art and its applications. I found it very interesting when Hobsbawn stated that William Morris wallpaper was still available until the 1980s. What set Morris apart and made his art fashionable until the 1980s?

The pre world war one world was going through major transformations. First, the universe was broken down into intellectual terms. However, both scientific reasoning and human reasoning were still present. Human viewing of natural occurrences became more misguided and misunderstood as we were trying to separate intuition from science. Basically humans were learning not to take everything for granted, and to figure out problems themselves. Today, when people have questions they type it into google and .123 seconds later have thousands of results. To what extent has the Internet taken away human intuition? Is instantaneous information bettering or hurting humankind?

The mass of publicly educated people were also very fond of reading. These educated people enjoyed reasoning, rationality, progress and proof and were dissatisfied with superstition, privilege, and exploitation. A modern world was related to one committed to science and progress. Women and men beliefs in divinity differed as well. Men's attitude towards science withdrew them from traditional religion, while women had incomprehensible loyalty to their religions. Why do you believe women remained loyal to religion while men discarded it more readily?

The emergence of the bourgeoisie destroyed the old political systems and unbalanced society economically. Older regimes were becoming obsolete, for example, Russia and the Hapsburghs. It was only a matter of time before the West overtook them, "conquest or dependency". In order to survive, ideals of the West had to be learned and put to use. Russia's rapid industrialization hindered the country rather than helping it. It developed regions disproportionally. The tsar was seeing Russia in disarray. And the people were viewing the tsar unkindly. The country was filled with social and political unrest. The only state able to do use the ideas of the West successfully was Japan. How was Japan able to become "a wolf among the wolves"?

World War I's origin, a serious debate since the early twentieth century. It's start is more about world politics spiraling out of control of government and political leaders than who attacked whom. Countires alligned themselves together and against others. For example France, Britain, Russia, and USA were against Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria. After this War, warfare was no longer glorified. What were the lasting effects of WWI on the world?

-Kayla O