Chapter 15

In Chapter 15, it talks about how the Scientific Revolution was an revolutionary and it also becoming a challenge to the universe because of people discovering things that no one could find. The earth was no longer unique or at the obvious center of God's attention. There is an Italian named Galileo that developed an improved telescope in, which he observed sunspots or anything that was moving across the face of the sun. Galileo also discovered the mountains of the moon and Jupiter's moon. His experimental work one the velocity of falling objects. According, to the book some thinker began to talk about the notion of an unlimited universe.  Another person that is important is Sir Isaac Newton. He is an english man who formulated the laws of motion and mechanics. Newton invented calculus and he formulated the concept of inertia and the laws of motion.

The new approach to knowledge was in the human reason and also in the natural laws that were now applied to the human affairs not just to the physical universe. Numbers were growing of people and they believed that it was the long-term outcome of the enlightenment. The enlightenment was another term to as the Age of Reason. It was a philosophical movement that took place primarily in Europe and later in North America during the 17th and 18th century. Enlightenment include the rise of concepts such as reason, liberty, and the scientific method. The enlightenment philosophers were skeptical of religion especially the powerful catholic churches monarchies and hereditary aristocracy. Enlightenment philosophy was influential in ushering in the French and American revolutions and constitutions. Another additional thing is that European enlightenment thinkers shared this belief in the power of knowledge to transform human society. The central theme of the Enlightenment and what made it potentially revolutionary was the idea of the progress. Science and the Enlightenment challenged religion and for some they form religious belief and practice.

Most definitely the modern science was cumulative and self critical in, which in the 19th century and after it was applied to new domains of human inquiry in ways that undermined some of the assumptions of the Enlightenment. Not only did the perspectives of the Enlightenment was challenged not only by romanticism and religious.

Blog #3, Chapter 14

In chapter 14, it talks about about the slave trade and how the middle passage came about. The slave trade was clearly the chief cause of this and from that point on the slaves were for sale on the African coast to the massive use of slave labor on the American planation. Also, something interested that I read was The Atlantic Slave Trade which was represented an enormous extension of the ancient practice of people owning and selling other people. In this trade coming about, there was an estimation of 12.5 million people from Africa that were shipped across the Atlantic for the infamous Middle Passage. There was about 1.8 million slaves that died during the transatlantic crossing. Another thing that was interesting is that Russia authorities imposed a tax payable in furs, on every Siberian male between the age of 18 to 50 years old. This enforcement was to make a payment of the hostages that they took from Siberian societies and with the death was an outcome if the furs were not forthcoming to them.

Lastly, the Middle Passage was basically men and women were forced beneath the deck into the bowels of the slave ship. The captives lay down on unfinished planking with virtually no room to move or breathe. It was an uncomfortable and for the slaves. Some slaves died of diseases, some of starvation, and other simply of despair. The Middle Passage was brought to the slaves from West Africa to the west Indies. Accordingly, the west indies slaves were treated a little better as in they were fed and cleaned in hopes of bringing a high price on the block, but those slaves that could not be sold were left for dead. Furthermore, as in Asia, they became involved in transporting Africans goods, including slaves, from one African port to another.

Chapter 13

The chapter starts off talking a lot about the European advantages, the Great Dying, and other events that happened along the way. The European were as much close to the American empires. The countries rimmed off Europe as Portugal, Spain, Britain, and France. These countries were very close to the Americas then the Asian continent. The Europeans innovated in mapmaking, navigation, sailing techniques and ship design building to cross the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and Chinese regions. Also, the European had the advantage as in geography, disease (contact with animals), manifest destiny, they didn't assume bad intent, they also had weapons as in swords and horses, lastly they competed with other European nations. The European populations grew as their economy did which was based off on wheat and livestock. They also had grain, sugar, meat, and fish meant that the Europe had and also needed a larger land base to support the expansion of its economy. Something interesting was that Chinese and Islamic precedents allowed them to cross the Atlantic with growing ease as in transporting people and supplies. In addition, their ironworking technology, gunpowder weapons, and horses initially had no parallel in the Americans.

The Great Dying happened because the European had the advantage, 'disease', 90% died within the decade,and  rationalized it was okay to use their advantage. The Caribbean islands vanished within the fifty years of Columbus's arrival. A great many died from this plague and many other just died from hunger. People could not get up to find food and everyone else was too sick to care for them, so they starved to death in their own beds. Another thing, that I found interesting was that sugar was produced by pioneers by Arabs, who were introduced into the Mediterranean, European learned a lot of techniques and transferred it to the Atlantic island and then into the Americas. Sugar then transformed Brazil and the Caribbean. The production was both growing largely in the sugarcane and processing it into useable sugar, very labor intensive and could profitable occur into a large scale.

European women joined the colonial migration to the North America at an early date. Slavery was too different. It was somewhat less harsh in the North America than in the sugar colonies. By the 1750  slaves in what become the United States proved able to reproduce themselves, and by the time of the Civil War almost all the North American slaves had been born in the New World. More slaves were voluntarily set free by their owners in Brazil than in North America.

First Post

I have no idea where you got your "wake up and smell the compost" but maybe you got it from Italy or somewhere in Europe.