History Since 1500 Essay

Modern history began in the end of the 15th century, which witnessed the beginning of reformation and the disc everyplacey of the youthful continent. In the following five centuries, many historic events (such as the two worldly concern fights and the cold war) have fundamentally changed our world in the fields of politics, economics, and culture. semi semipolitical Systems in atomic number 63 afterward the xxx Years War The cardinal Years War (1618-1648) refers to a series of wars intermittently fought chiefly among the Roman Empire and the Protestant principalities with which French allied.Theses wars were fought for religious, territorial, dynastic, and commercial reasons (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2009). afterwards the cardinal Years War ended with the Peace of Westphalia, European states were divided into divers(prenominal) political regimes. For the five virtually important ones, Spain, Portugal and France remained absolute monarchies, opus Holland and England bec ame a republic and a constitutional monarchy respectively. The political differences significantly affected these countries performance. tour being the first European counties to start colonial enterprises, Spain and Portugal rejection of new ideologies and new political thinking rendered them weaker day by day. There is no suspect that ideological change plays an important role in political change. That is to say, the Reformation do those Protestant states much easier to adopt to a considerableer extent democratic political forms a republic or a constitutional monarchy. It is worth noting that the overtake of the Spanish Armada happened in 1588, almost three decades before the start of the Thirty Years War.It is safe to say that Protestantism was one factor that brought Capitalism, which requires a more democratic political system. Among the five nations, only the Dutch body politic was as enlightened and democratic as England, and even more so at times. For instance, the P ilgrim Fathers took refugee in Holland before settling in the Plymouth colony. For another, the constitutional monarchy in England was make possible by the Dutch invasion during the Glorious Revolution. However, the Dutch Republic was too small to be a colonial super part for a enormous time.The lack of manpower and resources led to Dutch defeats in the intravenous feeding Anglo-Dutch wars, and when the last war ended in May 1784, the Dutch were at the nadir of their power and prestige (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2009, par. 4). In sharp contrast with the Dutch Republic, the French Bourbon Monarchy was then a much larger country than England and the most powerful European state in the early 18th century. However, its regardant(postnominal) political system made it unfit for the global competition with Britain. subsequently defeating France in the Seven Years War (17561763), England became both the dominant power in North the States and the global superpower in profit to the naval s upremacy it had maintained since 1590s. The Causes of being War One earlier the First World War, a great many wars had been fought in Europe for various reasons such as the thirty years war, the Anglo-Dutch wars, the Anglo-French wars, and the Napoleonic wars. Of the wars mentioned above, nearly were fought on a big scale.For instance, the Seven Years War mingled with Britain and France were fought both in Europe and in American colonies, bearing well-nigh resemblance to the First World War. However, we can not deny that World War One was far more catastrophic than any forward war. Thus, what was it about the modern world that caused such a catastrophe, and let good deal doubt the virtues of progress in its aftermath? The immediate cause of the big(p) War was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 by a Serbian studyist.However, the incident itself was not worth a total war thither were other deep-rooted reasons. Undoubtedly, national state (nationalism) was one of the main causes. Since 1850s, a number of national states, such as Germany, Italy, and Japan, arose from across the globe, trying to conflate and centralize their nations. There were also some failed attempts, such as the Magyar Revolution (1848) and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851-1864) in china, both struggling for national independence from their foreign rulers.However, these nationalist movements were quite problematic and troublesome themselves. First, these nations think to build up unified and alter states for themselves, but denied equal rights to social minorities within their boundaries. For example, while unifying German states in central Europe, Prussia never considered the self-determination of the Polish population. Second, during the unification, these national states failed to solve territorial disputes with their neighbors peacefully.For instance, territorial disputes over Alsace and Lorraine were one of the main causes of the Pruss ian French war, which started the lasting hostility amid Germany and France until the end of the World War Two. Moreover, because modern national states were more centralized and got more so during the war diaphragm, World War One became both the first total war and the first war of attrition. In addition to national states (nationalism), interdependence and modernization also played a role in causing this catastrophe. Machine gun and trench were two embodiments of the First World War.Machine gun and heavy artillery made the army a much more efficient killing simple machine the well fortified trenches let the massacre on the western depend continue for over four years. New technologies can also tailor the war and thus reduce the casualties, such as the German safety blitz on the western front in World War Two. just now in World War One, they only greatly prolonged the stalemate. European industrialization and commercialization in the 19th century made them more dependent on ea ch other and on oversea colonies they necessitate raw material, market, and capital from outside their own territories.Therefore, each country paying(a) more attention to alliance and navy to protect their market, resources, and trade routes. The diplomatical maneuverings and the naval competitions obviously heightened the tensions between individual states and between deferent blocs. The insensate War After World War One, the Soviet Union and the coupled States were two superpowers along with Britain, France, Germany, and Japan. However, the Soviet Union and the U. S. had larger territories and populations than other nations.After the Second World War, the defeated Germany and Japan lost all their colonies, so did Britain and France in a much longer period. As a result, Russia and America became the only two post-war superpowersJapan and Germany were no longer military powers while Britain and France were too small to qualify. It was this bipolar state made the cold war possibl e the two superpowers could incorporate smaller nations into their camps to fight a long lasting war of ideology, politics, and economics. The cold war era refers to an unpleasant that less painful and bloody period compared to the two world wars.Yet, this description was from the two opposing military groups (NATO and WARSO pact countries) standpoint for those origin colonies (quasi-colonies), this place can not be farther from the truth. During the cold war, NATO and the WAWSOW did not look each other in order to avoid a nuclear war, which could annihilate both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Yet, the collapse of the colonial system offered them a distant and relatively safe battlefieldthe newly independent former colonies (quasi-colonies).Conflicts there had made the cold war nastier, bloodier, and more suffering. For many third base world countries, the cold war era is the most painful period in modern history as they served as pawns in the ideological war between Rus sia and US. In the cold war era, the two biggest wars were fought in Korea and Vietnam Cambodia saw the biggest massacre after World War Two China experienced the greatest famine (1959-1961) in human history and the ethnic Revolution almost wiped out this 5,000 years old civilization.However, these events themselves did not define the course of the cold war. The communists fought to stalemate in Korea, won the Vietnam War. However, several months after Chinese communists crushed peaceful protesting students and civilians with tanks and armed vehicles and firmly controlled the situation, communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe quickly collapsed.Since 1500, human being has made breath-taking progress in government, technology, business, education, health care, etc it has also suffered a great deal from wars, national rivalries, epidemics, environmental damages, natural disasters, and all kinds of discriminations while spiritedness standards have been steadily impro ving. Since technology and productivity can be ambiguous swords, it is urgent for the current generation to learn the lessons from the past five centuries.