History Portfolio

When I first heard of the subject of World History I was curious since in most of my other history classes they had gone over one central area in the world. At the time I had believed the world was too big to do a simple study all over all the world at once. I was proven wrong when our teacher Mr.Block showed us the connections between the different parts of the world and the unity of the areas. Eventually the leason moved beyond just telling us simple relations to understanding mindset and psychology of the people of the time. This had left a large impression on me to know that these mindsets at the time were normal.

Over the course of the year we looked over many real world issues from both the past and the present. One of these moment I found as a crucial example of psychology be a main factor in our progression was the French Revolution. During this time France was going through a very heavy debt and the people living there at the time had different views about who was to blame and what was happening. To the Rich and high class the money problems did not seem like an issue, so they simply taxed the poor. Through the eyes of the poor the rich were just trying to sustain their wealth and they should use their own money to pay. This leads to a revolution and causes much bloodshed among the people of the town. THough is is immediate that in today’s world we look at the richer leaders as the bad people, perhaps it is not their complete fault. Perhaps those who were richer we not aware of the problems going on in the poorer areas since the two sides were so separate.

Another moment of mindset is in one of my journals I had written about what gender was to me. I believed that gender is just chemicals and that their are no other differences. Though in todays world this is normal I now understand that it was widely accepted to believe that there were serious disadvantages to being a woman. This is just a matter of what you know the people of the past only loose sources and generalisation to learn from, now we have science to understand what we could not before.

Another example of the time’s mindset is the idea of religion superseding science, today many people believe in religion and science coexisting. Once people believed in the idea that religion was the head of everything and certain sciences were only secondary compared to the faith they had in their Gods. The Aztecs were told a prophecy of their Gods coming to them and coincidentally Cortes and his men came and killed them. This also happened when Galileo came tried to teach the people of his religiously trusting community of his scientific discoveries. Today we do not hold the same reliance as many of the people did in the past, we do not worry or need to pray as much as our ancestors once did. This is an impact of circumstance and the progression of our society, it is a sign that we have moved forward into new ideas.