Laura's Online Journal

In Chapter 22 , the title is " The End of Empire " and rightly so.  How empires no longer served the purpose and the intentions of the people.  While there is much in this chapter, I was more in tune with the section on India terminating British control of their nation. This section highlighted the beginnings and unfortunate ending of one of the greatest figures who ever set foot on this earth, Mohandas Gandhi.  I had some basic initial knowledge of Gandhi as a peacemaker who tried to unite India and the religions that encompassed within it into one group that could coexist in harmony.  But there was much more to his story than I had anticipated.  Growing up as a shy boy into the one responsible for gathering the masses to fight for their independence in India was just so awe-inspiring.  I had mentioned in previous posts about the power of a single person.  We tend to believe the phrase, "What could one person do?"  Maybe it is our view of the w...

In this series of chapters, what I found most interesting was the comparison of the Chinese, Ottoman, and Japanese Empires.  Europe had a strong influence on the way these Empires conducted business, even to the point of forcing their will upon them.  China was a very good example of that. I find it ironic that China, with all of its technology and intelligence, found itself conquered by the Europeans at that time and never truly recovered from that.  China grew in population, yet was unable to accommodate this influx of people.  Resources were scarce and so were opportunities.  With the economic state in disarray, peasants revolted.  This event caused the necessary use of monies and other resources to defend itself from its own people that in the end, the state had significantly weakened.  This opened the door for outside influences to enter, and that's exactly what they did. The Ottoman Empire was no less fortunate.  It went from being a pow...