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World War II: Crash Course World History #38
Hi, I'm John Green. This is Crash Course
World History and today we're going to talk about World War II. Finally, a war with some
color film! So, here at Crash Course we try to make history reasonably entertaining, and fortunately,
World War II was hilarious…said no one ever. Mr. Green, Mr. Green! Is this, like, gonna
be one of the unfunny ones where you build to the big melodramatic conclusion about how
I have to imagine the world more complexly? Me from the Past, as long as you have that
eighth rate soup-strainer, I'm not even going to acknowledge your existence. [theme music] Right, so you've probably heard a lot about
World War II from movies and books, The History Channel, before it decided that Swamp People
were History, the incessant droning of your grandparents, etc. We're not gonna try to
give you a detailed synopsis of the war today. Instead, we're going to try to give a bit
of perspective on how the most destructive war in human history happened, and why it
still matters globally. So one of the reasons history classes tend
to be really into wars is that they're easy to put on tests. They start on one day and
they end on another day. And they're caused by social, political, and economic conditions
that can be examined in a multiple choice kind of manner. Except, not really. Like, when did World War II start? In September
1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland? I'd say no – it actually started when Japan invaded
Manchuria in 1931, or at the very latest when the Japanese invaded China in 1937, because
they didn't stop fighting until 1945. Then again, you could also argue 1933, when Hitler took power, or
1941, when America started fighting. It's complicated. But anyway, in China the fighting was very
brutal, as exemplified by the infamous rape of Nanking, which featured the slaughter of
hundreds of thousands of Chinese people and is still so controversial today that:
1. It affects relations between Japan & China and
2. Even though I have not described it in detail, you can rest assured that there will be angry
comments about my use of the word "slaughter." But the World War II we know the most about
from movies and TV is primarily the war in the European theater, the one that Adolf Hitler
started. Hitler is the rare individual who really did make history – specifically he
made it worse – and if he hadn't existed, it's very unlikely that World War II would've
ever happened. But he did exist, and after coming to power in 1933, with the standard
revolutionary promises to return the homeland to its former glory, infused with quite a
bit of paranoia and anti-Semitism, Germany saw rapid re-militarization and eventually,
inevitably, war. In the beginning, it was characterized by
a new style of combat made possible by the mechanized technology of tanks, airplanes,
and especially, trucks. This was the Blitzkrieg, a devastating tactic combining quick movement
of troops, tanks, and massive use of air power to support infantry movements. And in the
very early years of the war, it was extremely effective. The Nazis were able to roll over
Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and then all of France, all within about 9 months
between the fall of 1939 and the summer of 1940. So after knocking out most of central Europe,
the Nazis set their sights on Great Britain, but they didn't invade the island, choosing
instead to attack it with massive air strikes. I mean, you look at this poster and think,
"Man, the Queen wants me to finish my term paper, so I can do it," but when this poster
was first produced in 1939, it was to quell terror in the face of bombardment. The Battle of Britain was a duel between the
Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe, and while the RAF denied the Nazis total control of
British airspace, the Nazis were still able to bomb Great Britain over and over again
in what's known as the Blitz. STAN, NO. NO JOKES this time. Yes, the Blitz. Meanwhile, Europeans were also fighting each
other in North Africa. The Desert campaigns started in 1940 and lasted through 1942 – this
is where British general "Monty" Montgomery outfoxed German general Irwin "the Desert
Fox" Rommel. It's also the place where Americans first fought Nazis in large numbers.
But most importantly, it's where Indiana Jones discovered the Ark of the Covenant.
Okay, let's go to the Thought Bubble. 1941 was a big year for World War II. First,
the Nazis invaded Russia, breaking a non-aggression pact that the two powers had signed in 1939.
This hugely escalated the war, and also made allies of the most powerful capitalist countries
and the most powerful communist one, an alliance that would stand the test of time and never end… until
like three seconds after the defeat of the Nazis. The Nazi invasion of Russia opened the war
up on the so-called Eastern Front, although if you were Russian, it was the Western Front,
and it led to millions of deaths, mostly Russian. Also, 1941 saw a day that would "live in infamy"
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, hoping that such an audacious attack would frighten
the United States into staying neutral, which was a pretty stupid gamble because:
1. The U.S. was already giving massive aid to the Allies and was hardly neutral and
2. The United States is not exactly famed for its pacifism or political neutrality. 1941 also saw Japan invading much of Southeast
Asia, which made Australia and New Zealand understandably nervous. As part of the British
commonwealth, they were already involved in the war, but now they could fight the Japanese
closer to home. And shut up about how I never talk about you Australians. I just gave you
1.5 sentences. But by the time the Americans and Australians
started fighting the Japanese, it was already a World War. Sometimes this meant fighting
or starving or being bombed; other times, it meant production for the war – you don't
think of Argentina as being a World War II powerhouse, for instance, but they were vital
to the Allies, supplying 40% of British meat during World War II. Thanks, Thought Bubble. So, not to sound jingoistic, but the entry
of the U.S. into the war really did change everything, although I doubt the Nazis could've
taken Russia regardless. No one conquers Russia in the wintertime, unless you are – wait for
it – the Mongols. Okay, we're going to skip most of the big
battles of 1942 – like the Battle of Midway, which effectively ended Japan's chance of
winning the war – and focus on the Battle of Stalingrad. The German attack on Stalingrad,
now known as Volgograd because Stalin sucks, was one of the bloodiest battles in the history
of war, with more than two million dead. The Germans began by dropping more than 1,000
tons of bombs on Stalingrad, and then the Russians responded by "hugging" the Germans,
staying as close to their front lines as possible so that German air support would kill Germans
and Russians alike. This kind of worked, although the Germans
still took most of the city. But then, a Soviet counterattack left the sixth army of the Nazis
completely cut off. And after that, due partly to Hitler's overreaching megalomania and
partly to lots of people being scared of him, the sixth army slowly froze and starved to
death before finally surrendering. And of the 91,000 Axis POWs from Stalingrad, only
about 6,000 ever returned home. Stalingrad turned the war in Europe and by
1944, the American strategy of "island hopping" in the Pacific was taking GIs closer and closer
to Japan. Rome was liberated in June by Americans and Canadians; and the successful British,
Canadian, and American D-Day invasion of Normandy was the beginning of the end for the Nazis.
Oh, it's time for the Open Letter? An Open Letter to Canada. But first, let's
see what's in the secret compartment today. Oh, it's Canadian mittens. I wanna thank
the Canadian Crash Course fans, who sent us these mittens. Canadians are just so nice,
Stan. Like, all we ever do on this show is make fun of them, and they're just like, "It's so
kind of you to mention us. Here's some mittens!" Dear Canada, We're not always nice to you here on
Crash Course, but you are awesome. I'm pointing, but you can't tell because I'm wearing
mittens. 45,000 Canadians died fighting for the Allies in World War II, which means that, per capita,
Canada lost more people than the United States. You fought with the Royal Air Force to defend
Great Britain from the beginning of the war and you were there on D-Day, successfully
invading Juno Beach. And, as many of you have pointed out in comments, you defeated the
United States in the War of 1812, meaning that, arguably, Canada, you are the greater
military power. Plus, you have lumberjacks, and excellent
beer, and hockey, and universal healthcare, and Justin Bieber. I'm jealous! That's what
it is – I'm jealous! Best Wishes, John Green. So, by the end of 1944, the Allies were advancing
from the West and the Russian Red Army was advancing from the East and then, the last-ditch
German offensive at the battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-1945 failed. Mussolini
was executed in April of 1945. Hitler committed suicide at the end of that month. And, on
May 8, 1945 the Allies declared victory in Europe after Germany surrendered unconditionally. Three months later, the United States dropped
the only two nuclear weapons ever deployed in war, Japan surrendered, and World War II
was over. The war had a definite cause: unbridled military
expansion by Germany, Japan, and, to a small extent, Italy. Now, it's easy to claim that
Hitler was crazy or evil, and, in fact, he was certainly both, but that doesn't explain
the Nazis decision to invade Russia, and it sure doesn't explain Japan's decision
to bomb Pearl Harbor. And there are many possible explanations beyond
mere evil; but the most interesting one, to me, involves food. Hitler had a number of
reasons for wanting to expand Germany's territory, but he often talked about Lebensraum
or living space for the German people. German agriculture was really inefficiently organized
into lots of small farms, and that meant that Germany needed a lot of land in order to be
self-sufficient in food production. The plan was to take Poland, the Ukraine,
and Eastern Russia, and then resettle that land with lots of Germans, so that it could
feed German people. This was called the Hunger Plan because the plan called for 20 million
people to starve to death. Many would be the Poles, Ukrainians, and Russians who'd previously
lived on the land. The rest would be Europe's Jews, who would be worked to death. Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis,
many by starvation, but many through a chillingly planned effort of extermination in death camps.
These death camps can be distinguished from concentration camps or labor camps in that
their primary purpose was extermination of Jews, Roma people, communists, homosexuals,
disabled people, and others that the Nazis deemed unfit. Some historians believe that
the Nazis opened the death camps because the Jews weren't dying as fast as The Hunger
Plan had intended. This was a sickening plan, but it made a kind
of demented sense. Rather than becoming more involved in global trade, as the British had,
the Germans would feed themselves by taking land and killing the people who'd previously
lived there. Similarly, Japan, at the beginning of the
war, was suffering from an acute fear of food shortage because its agricultural sector was
having trouble keeping up with population growth. And the Japanese too, sought to expand
their agricultural holdings by, for instance, resettling farmers in Korea. So while it's tempting to say that World
War II was about the Allies fighting for democratic ideals against the totalitarian militaristic
imperialism of the fascist Axis powers, it just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. For instance,
a hugely important Allied power, Stalin's Soviet Union, was, like, the least democratic
place, ever. Stan just said that was hyperbole, but it's not. Stalin's Soviet Union is
tied with all of the other completely undemocratic countries for last place on the democracy
scale. It's a big community there, at last place, but they're definitely in there somewhere. And, by far, the biggest imperialists of the
war were the British. They couldn't have fed or clothed themselves – or resisted the
Nazis – without their colonies and commonwealth. So, why is World War II so important? Well
first, it proved the old Roman adage homo homini lupus: Man is a wolf to man. This is seen most clearly
in the Holocaust, but all the statistics are staggering. More than a million Indian British subjects
died, mainly due to famine that could have been avoided if the British had redistributed
food. And their failure to do so helped convince Indians that the so-called superior civilization
of the British was a sham. More than a million Vietnamese died, mainly due to famine. 418,000
Americans. More than a million noncombatants in both Germany and Japan. And 20 million
people in the Soviet Union, most of them civilians. These civilians were targeted because they
helped sustain the war, mostly through industrial and agricultural production. In a total war,
when a nation is at war, not just its army, there is no such thing as a non-military target.
From the firebombing of Dresden to Tokyo to Hiroshima, the line between soldier and civilian
blurred. And then, of course, there is the Holocaust,
which horrifies us because the elements of Western progress – record-keeping, industrial
production, technology – were used to slaughter millions. World War II saw modern industrial
nations, which represented the best of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution,
descend into once unimaginable cruelty. And what makes World War II such a historical
watershed is that in its wake, all of us – in the West or otherwise – were forced to question
whether Western dominance of this planet could, or should, be considered progress. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week. Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan
Muller. Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. Our associate producer is Danica Johnson.
The show is written by my high school history teacher, Raoul Meyer, and myself. And our
graphics team is Thought Bubble. Last week's phrase of the week was "an
end to history." If you want to guess at this week's phrase of the week or suggest
future ones, you can do so in comments, where you can also ask questions about today's
video that will be answered by our team of historians. If you enjoy Crash Course, make sure you're
subscribed. Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown, Don't Forget To Be Awesome.
Capitalism and the Dutch East India Company: Crash Course World History 229
Hi, I'm John Green, this is Crash Course World
History, and today we're going to talk about our old friend trade and also corporations. Oh great, another Marxist rant from my union-loving
public school teacher about how capitalism is destroying the world. You know, Me from the Past, all the capitalists
call me Marxist, all the Marxists call me capitalist, I–I can't win! Here's the thing, Me from the Past, I am grateful
that there is a market for people to, you know, sell books and make YouTube videos,
and capitalism does a pretty good job of making goods and services available to large groups
of people. Plus how else am I going to turn sweat of
the proletariat into delicious Diet Dr. Pepper? (Not a sponsor. I wish they were a sponsor.) I'll tell you what, Me from the Past, I've
enjoyed a cup or two of the sweat of the proletariat over the years and it just doesn't have that
carbonated "pop" of Diet Dr. Pepper. What were we talking about? Oh right, capitalism.
I like capitalism, what I don't like are monopolies and violence, and those are both aspects of
one of the first capitalist enterprises and the subject of today's episode, the Vereenigde
Oostindische Compagnie (and I will remind you that mispronouncing things is my thing). In English of course that's the Dutch East
India Company. I'd like to use the Dutch, though, but I can't pronounce it, so we're
just gonna compromise and call it the VOC. So you probably remember from our first series
that trade in the Indian Ocean had gone along swimmingly for hundreds of years until the
Portuguese tried and failed to dominate it in the 15th and 16th centuries. And you may also remember that in between
the Portuguese and the massively powerful British Empire there was another European
power: the Dutch. At the time, the Netherlands was a country
of 1.5 million people, about as many people as currently live in Greater Indianapolis.
Now, admittedly, they'd already accomplished some impressive things, for instance, they'd
dug most of their country out from the ocean, but how they came to thoroughly dominate world
trade for fifty years tells us a lot about capitalism, technology, and also, violence. I suppose we could start with the revolt of
the United Provinces in the union of Utrecht in 1579, which created the Netherlands, or
perhaps the decision by the Catholic Duke of Parma in 1585 to let Protestants leave
captured Antwerp and set up shop in Amsterdam, or we could start in 1595 with the creation
of the first Amsterdam-based investment syndicate, The Company for Far Lands, which is what I
call my Minecraft server. So the founder of The Company for Far Lands
published this report called the Itinerario that excited dreams of vast wealth and spices
from South-east Asia. There's a key passage in the report that explains the riches available
in the islands east of Malacca: "In this place of Sunda there is much pepper,
and it is better than that of India or Malabar, whereof there is so great quantity that they
could lade yearly from thence 500,000 pounds. It hath likewise much frankincense, camphor,
and diamonds, to which men might very well traffic without much impeachment, for that
the Portugals come not thither, because great numbers of Java come themselves unto Malacca
to sell their wares." You'll note there that the initial idea was
to break into this already existing trade system and displace the Portugals. So in the
same way that trade in the western Indian Ocean was flourishing before the arrival of
the Europeans, the South China Sea region and eastern Indian Ocean was a trade hot-bed,
perhaps even more valuable because of the riches of China. And it seems that the Dutch
originally planned to try to break into that existing trade network on equal terms, like,
according to Jacob Van Neck, the captain of the first successful expedition to Indonesia,
the plan was, quote, "not to rob anyone of their property, but to trade uprightly with
all foreign nations." But pretty soon that idea of free trade gave
way to the hard reality that competition meant, you know, lower prices, and by 1601 there
were enough successful trade companies that the cost of buying spices in Indonesia was
going up, and also there was suddenly tons of pepper in Amsterdam, which meant the price
that could be charged for that pepper was going down; clearly, something had to be done.
Ideally that something would have been lower prices for everyone, and an efficient marketplace, but
the something that happened instead was the VOC. Let's go to the Thought Bubble. In 1601, the United Provinces, aka the Netherlands,
were governed nationally by a representative body that met at the Hague, called the States
General, although each of the individual provinces was largely self-governing, and the leader
of the States General was able to convince all the provinces to accept a single entity to
monopolize the East Indies trade. This new company, the VOC, was run by a seventeen-member
board called the Heeren XVII, and these directors supposedly had control over a company that
was chartered with the power to hire its own people, and also to wage war. I say supposedly because, you know, it took
a year for communications from the Netherlands to reach the East Indies, and another year
for company officers to respond, so the VOC basically operated as its own sovereign nation,
with the power to use as much violence as it needed to build and maintain its trading
power, like according to author Stephen Bown, "The VOC would essentially operate as a state
within a state." And the VOC, together with its sister company
the West India Company, did use violence, attacking Portuguese and Spanish settlements
in Chile, Brazil, East and West Africa, the Persian Gulf, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia,
China and the Philippines between 1602 and 1663, in what you could think of as an early
world war. The VOC was also different from a lot of corporations
because it was initially funded with 6.5 million guilders, about 100 million dollars in today's
money. And that capital was expected to fund business ventures for a long time going forward
— not just for like one initial trade mission. And this long-term business thinking was unique,
especially compared to the funding strategies of the VOC's biggest competitor, the British
East India Company, and it reflected the advanced financial acumen of the Dutch model generally. Thanks, Thought Bubble. So, we've got this company that's basically
also a country. But it's not a particularly good country, because it doesn't have, like,
any of the responsibilities of government, nor does it have to answer to the people it's
governing. All it has to do is make money. And it was really good at making money, like
by 1648 the United Provinces were in better financial shape than every other nation in
Europe. You can tell this partly just by looking at
interest rates. Now admittedly, interest rates are only one measure of financial health and
power, but they're an important indicator, even today. So, Dutch businesses could borrow
at a rate of 4 percent annual interest, and that's pretty cheap compared to the 10 percent
it cost corporations to borrow money in England or the 24.99 percent it cost me to borrow
money on my credit card. And because Dutch debt was so much cheaper, they could invest
two and a half times as much in pretty much anything than the English could, including,
like, an army and a navy, and this gave the Dutch a huge head start over their rivals. So one reason the interest rates were low
is because the companies were healthy and they tended to pay people back. But another
is that normal Dutch people were already used to investing their money in bonds that had
been issued for land reclamation projects, the famous dykes and windmills that turned
land below sea level into fields where you could grow tulips, or maybe something else,
but all they ever grow is tulips. Like according to business historian William
Bernstein, the tradition of investing in bonds, quote "carried over into trade: after 1600
Dutch citizens would consider it just as natural to own a fractional share in a trading vessel
to the Baltic or the Spice Islands." And a fractional share is another really interesting
idea embraced by the Dutch, that allowed merchants to bear greater risks by purchasing smaller
percentage shares in business ventures. Like, it's much better to own a tenth of ten ships
than it is to own all of one ship, because the loss of a single trading ship won't, like, ruin you.
And Dutch business people also enthusiastically invested in futures markets, guessing what
the price of pepper would be six months or a year from now, and they created new financial
instruments that could be bought and sold, and merchants purchased maritime insurance,
which further lowered their risk. And lower risk means you could invest more of your capital
until eventually you have a completely efficient market and everything is perfect –until the 2008 crash. Wait, what were we talking about? The Dutch financial system and its corporations
were simply better than their competitors, and that's why they seized the lion's share
of the trading business — but that isn't the whole story. Like, one reason the VOC was so successful
was government sponsorship and centralization. The VOC had been chartered by the States General,
and it could count on the Dutch government to back it up with money and military support. There's another benefit to being sponsored
by your government, which is that it's very hard for competition to emerge, because it
isn't sponsored by your government. For instance, in Indonesia the VOC had a single governor
general managing operations, while the British East India Company was more of like a collection
of trading posts, each competing with each other for a share of the spices. Competition
may bring down prices for consumers, but it also brings down profits for businesses. In 1605, the VOC realized that if it really
wanted to maximize its profits, it would need a monopoly of the world's spice trade, and
to do that, they would need permanent bases in Indonesia. Initially, they got spices by
trading for them with the people who grew them, especially with the inhabitants of the
Banda Islands, which was the only place where nutmeg was grown. But again, like, trading
in a fair and equitable manner is no way to maximize profits. So at first the Bandinese welcomed the Dutch,
because they were much more laid-back in terms of religion than the Portuguese, but very
quickly the Dutch tricked them into signing exclusive trade agreements, which the Bandinese
were almost certain to violate, and then when they did violate them, ehh, it didn't go well. In 1609 the Bandinese were like, "No, you
don't understand, like, we need trade for food," and the Dutch were like, "But you promised!",
and the islanders killed 47 Dutch soldiers and officers in the ensuing fight. The Dutch killed far more Bandinese, who were
eventually subdued and agreed to a nutmeg monopoly with the Dutch, although they continued
to secretly trade with the English. And after all this, by 1612, Jan Pieterszoon
Coen became the dominant force in Dutch Indonesia. He was an accountant by training, but also
a ruthless military leader, who is largely responsible for the Dutch monopoly of the
spice trade, and also for its really terrible relations with the British, and also for,
like, you know, certain crimes against humanity. Coen brought about the shift in VOC policy,
away from straightforward trade and toward monopoly of both shipping and production of
spices. He also made it clear that this trade needed to be based on military force. He wrote, "Your Honors should know by experience
that trade in Asia must be driven and maintained under the protection and favor of your Honors'
own weapons, and that the weapons must be paid for by the profits from the trade, so
that we cannot carry on trade without war, nor war without trade." There is no trade without war, nor war without
trade — that's something to think about. Anyway, Coen did make a lot of war, mostly
on the English, despite the fact that the Netherlands and England were engaged in trade
negotiations between 1613 and 1619. And in fact fighting between the VOC and the
English continued even after an agreement was signed. By using force, which included
capturing and torturing English traders, Coen was able to run off the English and secure
the VOC monopoly over the spice trade. With the English out of the picture, Coen
could get down to the business of using violence to dominate not only the trade, but also the
production of spices. His initial plan, to quote Stephen Bown, was to depopulate the
island to replace their inhabitants with imported slave and indentured labor under VOC control,
and he proceeded to carry out what amounted to ethnic cleansing of the Banda Islands. In about 20 years, the Dutch managed to acquire
an almost complete monopoly on cloves, nutmeg, and mace. In 1658, they added cinnamon by
taking control of Sri Lanka. And, after 1638, they became the only Europeans allowed to
trade in Japan. Now, we tend to think that the heart of the spice trade was between Indonesia
and Europe, but it really wasn't. Like, the VOC capital at Batavia became the most important
port in all of Southeast Asia, where spices from Indonesia and gold and copper and silver
from Japan and tea and porcelain and silk from China all passed through to India, where
they were traded for cotton, which was used to buy more Asian goods. And that was the real money-maker for the
VOC. By the middle of the 17th century, only the highest-value luxury goods from the region
even made it to Europe, because that's where the margins were the highest. So the middle of the 17th century was the
golden age for the Dutch; it was the one the brought us Rembrandt and Ver Meer as well
as all the wealth and finery that was depicted in their paintings. When you go to Amsterdam,
which you should, and you walk along the canals and see the beautiful row houses, you'll note
that many of them were built in the 17th century. And much of that was based on the success
of the VOC and the commerce in spices, but eventually Europeans' tastes changed, and
the desire for nutmeg was supplanted by a hunger for sugar. Of course, the sugar trade would be known
for its righteousness and fair trade — just kidding, it would be known for slavery. Also the woolens
produced by the Dutch were being replaced by the market for cotton. Britain proved better positioned
to dominate the trade in production in these new and more profitable commodities, and they
eventually copied the centralized corporate governance and finance capitalism
that had helped make the VOC so successful. According to Stephen Bown, "Ultimately, maintaining
the monopoly cost more than the spices were worth," and the company went bankrupt in 1799. So the VOC were pioneers of finance and their
relentless pursuit of profits made them the richest company in the 17th century, but we
need to be careful about celebrating them as like a harbinger of modern capitalism.
For one thing, it wouldn't have succeeded without government support, especially if
it had engaged just in free trade. The VOC had an army and a navy that it used to attack
and intimidate, which is, you know, not free trade. I think there's a lot to take away from the
story of the VOC. One thing that I like to remember is that this was all about nutmeg.
We need to think carefully about what we value and why we value it and what we lose by valuing
it, in the same way that I kind of wish people in Europe had about nutmeg in the 17th century.
And the second thing is that the VOC did eventually disappear and its control over Indonesia changed
into Dutch colonization, the VOC provides a chilling example of what has happened in the past
when corporations become more powerful than states. Good governments fulfill their responsibilities
to the people they govern, and even bad governments, you know, are afraid of the people they govern,
and neither of those things happened in Indonesia when it was under the control of the Dutch
East India Company. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week. Hi, Crash Course is filmed here in the Chad
and Stacey Emigholz Studio in Indianapolis. It's made with the help of all of these nice
people, and we have a special announcement today that's very important — at least to
the future survival of Crash Course. Thousands of you have helped us to keep Crash
Course free for everyone forever through your support at Subbable, but now Subbable has
merged with Patreon. Patreon's an awesome company run by creators. It allows you to
be much more flexible in your support of Crash Course. So if you like Crash Course and you
want to join the incredibly generous people who make it possible, please click here, or
else check out the link in the doobly doo. You can get lots of great perks and we, in
turn, promise to use that money to make educational content online and not — we promise — to
control the spice trade in Indonesia. Thanks again for watching and as we say in
my hometown, don't forget to be awesome.
The Industrial Revolution: Crash Course European History #24
Hi I'm John Green and this is Crash Course
European History. So we're going to turn our attention now
to the Industrial Revolution, one of the most significant developments in human history. Like, imagine with me that it's 1820. I got this idea from the economist Robert
Gordon by the way. You live in, say, England. You probably work in agriculture. When you walk to town, you're either pulling
your own cart, or if you're lucky you have a horse. You have no running water or electricity. When you wash your few items of clothing,
you do so by hand. You cook over a fire. You think of time not primarily in minutes
and hours, but mostly in relationship to solar cycles–how close it is to night, or to morning,
or to midwinter. And in all these respects, your life in 1820
is basically identical to the lives of people in 1720, or 1520, or for that matter 1220. That's not to say life hasn't changed
in those hundreds of years–as we've explored in this series, lots has changed–but as Gregory
Clark observed, in terms of standard of living, Europeans in 1800 basically led lives similar
to those of Neandrathals. Now imagine that you close your eyes in 1820
and wake up in 1920. By now, most people in England do not work
in agriculture. They may work in shops, or transportation,
or mining, oe workshops, or in factories. They measure time in minutes. Cars exist. Some people have radios, which transmitted
information through thin air. A few people even have refrigerators, which
dramatically decrease food spoilage and the risk of foodborne illness. Occasionally you might even see an airplane
flying in the sky. Oh, and also, your country has just emerged
from an astonishingly deadly war fought with highly lethal weapons such as chlorine gas,
weapons that people of 1820 could not possibly have imagined. Welcome to the Industrial Revolution. [Intro]
In this series, we've already talked about revolutions in agriculture that increased
European productivity and revolutions in trade that increasingly distributed goods among
people in towns and cities instead of having each individual family produce everything
it needed. And these forces combined to help create more
division of labor: like, farmers could focus on farming, and textile workers could focus
on textile creation, which was more efficient than having each family do every kind of work. So let's begin in the eighteenth century,
when European industrial production is said to have begun. Europe's population was growing after centuries
of non-stop wars, plagues, and the worst of the little ice age. Meanwhile, products such as coffee, tea, and
chocolate made with heated water killed bacteria, while products from abroad expanded and varied
the pool of nutrients, with corn and potatoes, for instance, generally more calorie-dense
per acre than wheat. In short, lives were getting longer and populations
rising. This meant that on average people had a little
more time to learn, tinker, and experiment. Many different artisans invented small improvements
to existing mechanical devices. Perhaps most famously, John Kay's flying
shuttle increased the pace and productivity of weaving. Weavers then needed a greater amount of thread. So tinkerers made that happen by producing
inventions such as the spinning jenny, created around 1764 by craftsman James Hargreaves. The spinning jenny was a machine used by individual
women working at home. And it allowed a person, using just the power
of their hand, to spin not one bobbin of thread, but up to 120 at once. In England, Ellen Hacking and her husband
John were among those devising carding machines to straighten cotton and wool fibers for spinning. And at about the same time, Richard Arkwright
and his partners invented the water frame, another kind of spinning machine that used
water power. And when spinning machines could be linked
to a central power source such as water, many could be placed in a single building. So, the world's first factories arose in
part from the pressure to increase production of English cloth for global and domestic markets. Did the center of the world just open? Is one of my Polo shirts in there? This cost like $41. Twice a year I go to a Polo outlet in Southern
Indiana and just buy as many of these things as they'll sell to me. And look, I'm not here to advertise Polo
shirts, but this thing is incredibly comfortable, and also, it's like dyed a specific color. Everything about this was completely unimaginable
in the early nineteenth century. In fact, you know what? It's so soft to the touch, I think I'm
going to put it on. Is that weird. Oh yeah! I feel like I'm the bad guy in an 80s movie. How do I look, Stan? Oh, Stan says I look like Steve Bannon. OK. Thus ends that experiment, now back to the
show. Let's talk about porcelain. Another tinkerer was the alchemist Johann
Friedrich Böttger who promised the king of Saxony that he could figure out how to make
porcelain. Porcelain was such an obsession that wealthy
people collected it and even those with far less would try to buy a piece or two—a cup
or plate—as we see in many Dutch, French, and other paintings. Two things you see a lot in European paintings
of the affluent or those who aspired to affluence: porcelain and pineapples, which were also
quite rare and expensive and difficult to produce domestically. Porcelain was also practical, because Europeans
did not know other ways to make heat resistant dishware for their hot drinks. So Böttger was virtually imprisoned until
around 1708 when he figured out how to make porcelain, although not as beautifully as
the Chinese or Japanese did. What we're trying to get at here is that
while people love a great story of an inventor and their invention, the Industrial Revolution
was the story of lots and lots of people working together, making a series of incremental improvements,
rather than, like, geniuses from on high creating amazing things. The real genius of humans is collaboration,
and also spying. Like for instance, Industrial spies helped
with every development because other regions were far more advanced than Europe in manufacturing,
for instance, color fast dyes and heat-resistant dishware, fine weaving and spinning, or even
metallurgy. Arkwright, for example, mostly copied designs
from imported textiles. And it was those cotton textiles that caught
the imagination of consumers and filled pockets, first of the people who imported textiles
from India and China, and then of the daring manufacturers who were successful at copying
the lightweight, and colorful, and washable cotton clothing. But industrial production of cotton was really
risky—the rate of business failure during the Industrial Revolution was over 50 percent. Because of that, experimenting manufacturers
worked to keep labor costs as low as they could. One way was to use unpaid orphans from government,
religious or charitable institutions as labour. At a time when people didn't know a lot
about steam powered machinery and its dangers, industrial accidents happened all the time,
and children were often the victims. Children worked incredibly long hours and
deaths were common. Little Mary Richards was caught up in a machine
and six- and seven- year old orphans working alongside her witnessed the quote "bones
of her arms, legs, thighs, etc successively snap… her head appeared dashed to pieces…
her blood thrown about like water from a twirled mop."2
Now I know that's very graphic, but I think it's important to understand the extent
of industrial oppression, including the industrial oppression of children. Workers lost arms, eyes, breasts, and fingers
or were otherwise disfigured. Production and profits came first to avoid
financial ruin. And industry had other repercussions. It initially increased the demand for slaves
even more. Slaves produced food for workers who had left
farms for factories. Slaves also produced tropical crops such as
sugar, and tobacco, and coffee that boosted the energy of many types of workers. And slaves provided the palm and other tropical
oils to keep machinery running as well as the raw materials for industry, especially
cotton. It's important to understand that industry
thrived due to slave labor and inexpensive child labor, and also through the labor of
women, who were paid less than men. Over time, more and more people began working
in industrialized settings, or in economic sectors that supported industry due in part
to the development of the steam engine. In 1776, English inventor James Watt launched
a steam engine that improved earlier models. Now as far back as Roman Egypt and then Ottoman
Egypt and China, people had known about steam engines, But Watt's engine was more efficient,
which made it useful in replacing animal and water power, not just in mines but also powering
textile factories, and then other machinery. For millennia, almost all human power came
from our muscles. Then we harnessed some animal power, and eventually
some wind and water power. But steam power completely revolutionized
how much work could be done on behalf of humans, and also of course changed transportation
when it was attached to covered and uncovered wagons and ships to make trains and steamships
and eventually automobiles. And the train created another kind of demand:
as urbanization soared around railway hubs, small and grand train stations were built
along with all the other buildings to house the railway's primary and secondary employees. By secondary employees I mean, it wasn't
just station-masters, ticket-sellers, and conductors, there was a need for shopkeepers,
and pharmacists, and construction workers, and teachers, and doctors, and and drivers
of coaches, not to mention sanitation workers, police, and urban administrators. Industrialization had a snowball effect and
it wasn't gonna be turned back. And all this mean that everyday life also
transformed. Two classes became prominent alongside the
aristocracy and peasants in the social structure: the bourgeoisie and proletariat or working
class. The bourgeoisie initially referred to people
who lived in towns and cities or burgs/bourgs. But the term came to refer to those who owned
factories, banks, transportation networks, and large tracts of land for raising livestock
and crops. The proletariat comprise the many factory
and other workers who lacked tools or land to support themselves but instead rather labored
for factory owners and others who had the means to produce. In between were the rising professional groups,
called the middle class in Europe: the doctors, lawyers, teachers, and others with special
skills that serviced society as a whole. We will see this configuration change over
the next two centuries and watch tensions unfold among these groups, and at times boil
over. Women also experienced a transformation of
everyday life. In the preceding centuries, they had generally
worked on farms or in workshops alongside their artisan husbands or on their own as
hatmakers, and seamstresses, and weavers, and spinners. During the early days of industrialization,
women who had been spinning or weaving at home often switched to factories. And they did many other kinds of work; for
example, eighteen-year-old Ann Eggly with her younger sister worked twelve-hour days
in the coal mines pushing carriages filled with 800 pounds of coal (which was then used
to make steam power). She had done this kind of work since she was
seven. I don't know if you know any seven year
olds, but they should not be working in coal mines. Now you'll recall that the French and American
revolutions, with their emphasis on motherhood and laws stripping women of their property,
led to women being discouraged from work. But many continued to do so even when their
wages belonged to their husbands. Factories also created (and still create)
outwork done by women at home: polishing knives or painting porcelain buttons for example. But, ideology simultaneously shifted to say
that women were to be "angels in the household," providing comfort from the horrors of industrial
life, a cultural norm that discouraged work outside the home. In the meantime, the classes became aware
of their individual identities. The French had outlawed guilds during the
revolution. Industrial and other workers formed their
own clubs to protect their interests. They created singing, gymnastic, and sports
clubs–this is why early English football teams had names like Royal Engineers AFC and
Civil Service FC. These groups often had a lively cafe culture,
where they discussed politics and read newspapers, often allowed to their comrades because each
cafe usually only had one newspaper. Manufacturers and wealthy individuals in cities
likewise formed groups based on their common class position; they founded chambers of commerce
to protect their financial interests and museums to show off their city's achievements and
good taste. Let's go to the Thought Bubble. 1. Initially, the rise of factories saw those
left out of industrial work life, 2. such as artisans and small farmers, 3. protest by breaking machinery or threatening
to do so. 4. The "Swing riots" in Britain are one example
of what has been called "primitive" rebellion. 5. Instead of dealing with change by organizing
to benefit from and shape the change, 6. so-called primitive rebels went about breaking
things. 7. Wreckers of machinery were called Luddites 8. (as they still are today) 9. because menacing notes found alongside
sabotage were often signed Ned Ludd. 10. Ludd was an inspirational figure — a weaver
who allegedly smashed a textile machine in the 18th century. 11. But gradually, workers inside the factories
formed mutual aid societies 12. and eventually unions that negotiated
for better terms with owners. And when negotiations failed, 13. they went on strike as a group instead of
wrecking the machines with which they earned their living. 14. All in all, industrialization wreaked havoc
on people's lives even as it provided many with livelihoods. 15. Towns grew astronomically: like textile center
Manchester England went from 20,000 people in the 1750s to 400,000 a century later. 16. Conditions in Manchester were abominable,
including the development of slums, and the spread of disease. 17. They came to lack fresh and safe supplies
of water. 18. Garbage and sewage, not to mention animal
excrement, filled muddy streets, 19. creating, in the words of one commentator,
"a universal atmosphere of filth and stink."[1] 20. and Conditions in other industrial cities
hardly differed. Thanks Thought Bubble. So, Industrialization spread from England
and the low countries where it began thanks to the capital raised by worldwide trade,
and because that trade made possible successful imitation of foreign products. But industrialization then spread. It traveled the continent through the 19th
century, although industrialization was less dense in eastern Europe. There, many peasants continued to live hand-to-mouth,
but as we've seen, so did the poor in industrial cities. So was the Industrial Revolution a revolution? Well, if a revolution is an event full of
impact on people's lives, it certainly was. But often historians look at revolutions as,
like, ending, which the Industrial Revolution really hasn't. Unlike the comparatively brief English Revolution
or American Revolution, many see the Industrial Revolution as continuing to make dramatic
changes in our way of life today. Today, we expect technologies to change dramatically
in our lifetimes. We expect to use different tools to communicate
and work than our parents used. But that expectation is only a couple hundred
years old. It makes you wonder. If you closed your eyes in 2020, and woke
up in 2120, how weird is the world gonna be. Ugh. Thinking about that is stressing me out.Next
time, we'll look further at the cultural and political aspects of industrialization. I'll see you then. Thanks for watching. ________________
[1] Quoted in Lynn Hunt et al., The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures, 6th ed. (Boston: Bedford St. Martin's, 2019) 21.
WHAP Semester 2
Man, this is really hard.. Hey Zi Fong Dong, do you know how to do this? No, man, I don't know that stuff.. Man, i wish somebody could help me with this… Do you need help with WHAP?? Follow us!!! Come follow us little WHAP-ers, this is where we keep our time machine. Come on! Come on, let's go through time guys!!! I'm the Asian guy! Unit 1 here we come! I'm illegal! Sweater Weather by The Neighbourhood All I am is a man I want stone tools in my hands I love migrating, so here I stand In Mesopotamia the first civilized land Used Hammurabi's law
to arrest some criminals create new writings like cuneiform we build ships and create iron Just like the people in Egypt, oh The Xia, Shang, Zhou dynasties Create patriarchies
Poetry, history
Philo-so-phy Mandate of heaven
Agriculture youll find out, The Yangtze is what its all about, ohhh Cause you're not fit…. To live here in our lands So let me sacrifice…. All of you to our precious gods Well that as fun. Now let's go to Unit 2 No Interruption by Hoodie Allen Achaemenid empire in Persia
They migrated there from central Asia.
But it fell after Xerxes, Persian Wars Ionian Greeks couldn't take anymore.
Persia owned by Alexander the Great
Burned the city of Persepolis, lot of hate. Sadly, when Alex died, his empire split
Into the Parthian, Sasanid, uh, Seleucid In China there is the Period of
Warring States, helped the country to develop
All these philosophies which were Daoism, tell me what you know about the nature
Confucianism, best respect it.
Legalism, with codes that be strict Xiongnu, Yellow Turban Uprising, big conflicts
Now heading to India,
With chandragupta Maurya
and all about the Buddha. Chandragupta started the dynasty
All the way from Bactria to Ganges
Artha-shastra, ow Height of empire under Ashoka
Tightly organized bureaucracy
Revival of empire under Guptas. Sh-shut it up, sh-sh-shut it up
Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Ay Let's go to Unit 3 cuh You See Me by Childish Gambino I'm on the Silk Roads each and every day
corpses everywhere, bubonic plague, bubonic plague!
bubonic plague?
Corpses everywhere, bubonic plague I'm on my Issssslaaamic
Spreading Allah's faith to Eurasia and Africa
What is he wearing, somebody jack that fool's silk If you're a merchant do it right, I got some Mongol's by my side
Trader you're Islamic, he's Christian, that's Buddhist, I'mma spread ya'll
Ibn Battuta, Mansa Musa All these guys moving round cause trade networks
And I'm trading all this silk, have i gotten too rich?
I don't know who cares, I'll grow new cities And I'm helping these cities get richer and prosper
And unfortunately that means spreading the plague
The plague is spreading round
Fast as religion The Trans-Saharan, Indian Ocean, and Silk Roads trade
Forget these Ottomans
I need some Safavids
Unless of course, you seem to be Mughal Don't got a Mongol friend? Roll solo
Can we share the caravan? No hobo! Hashtag sorry not sorry for this
People are converting because they just want better lives Let's take a journey to the East, and go to Unit 4 Loaded by G Eazy 2,3,4,5
I'm too drunk to find India
I've been exploring my whole life Portugal wouldn't help but Spain would
I took 3 ships I spread disease, horses and guns
watching natives die as we get rich Magellan and Bartolomeu
Their voyages
Inspired my work This is not your land no more chief you must be mistook
I'm a very rich man
Im Columbus Got that cool exchange I'm trading horses for silver
Cause exploring here will get your homeland took when they show hospitality
In comes the area crook
Now we do what we want and take your land LaPointe kept saying Victor is her favorite WHAP-er Ay Unit 5 though.. how 'bout that? That Tree by Snoop Dogg Feat. KiD CuDi Revolution is what they say as if they knew me
Ideals all from the Enlightenment, my boy Voltaire,
That's my philosopher, Call Napoleon up and get National Assembly
What your sovereignty like mine is kinda popular
Ending the slave trade, same equal rights Industrial, factories urbanizing
Assembly line, steam engine, trains, boats, corporations
Women want some equal rights, Seneca Falls, aight Poor working conditions such freedom,
Work till im gone
Women and children work in the factories
for low wage Imperialism, Nationalism, yeah those emerged
You see the sides, all they want is their homeland Imperialists just want too much land, taking too much land
Deforestation, exploitation of land Ay, my little WHAP-er where do you wanna go now?? How about Unit 6? Wow, huh, thats a good one!!! Wicked Games by The Weeknd My country's capitalist
But I'm communist So I don't support their wars
I don't support their bourgeois wars
Can we end World War 2?
Look at all this death And I hate nuclear war too
Now I'm tryna start revolts Bring the weapons, fighters I'll organize
Bring the weapons, fighters I'll bring my books I got Marx right here
I got Lenin right here End oppression fighters we can free the people
Communism fighters end the profit motive Why should only some be rich?
Why are some people homeless?
Nuclear war, it'll destroy the earth -Bomb Landing- Leave Japan alone, look at all the deformed babies
Ohh no ohh Thanks guys, i really did learn a lot!! I'm definitely gonna get that 5 on the AP test! Hey, but, can you teach us how to play basketball? Yeah.. WERE PLAYING BASKETBALL!!!!!!!!!! -BLOOPERS- -door gets stuck- I'm illegal! My knees… (Like always…)
The Congress of Vienna: Crash Course European History #23
European History. So how did Europe restore order after the
social and political upheaval of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic regime? Well, European leaders got together and set
up a committee–or a "Congress"–that met in Vienna to set things straight. It's a great town, Vienna. Great sausages. I went there once. Lots of skeletons under the city. Freaked me out pretty bad. What are we talking about? Right, the Congress of Vienna. So, when Europe looked around at the previous
century with its endless wars, the reign of reason seemed disastrous, and so Europe turned
to its past, and a conservatism that embraced monarchies and romanticism. They believed that Enlightenment ideas, like
the support of individual rights, had caused too much turmoil and misery, and so they wanted
to go back to simpler times–when kings were kings, peasants were landless, and obedience
mattered more than thinking. [Intro]
So, even as Napoleon was on his way back to the continent in 1815 to retake his empire,
the Congress of Vienna had been meeting to restore stability. Its members included representatives from
Russia, the Habsburg Empire, Prussia, Britain, and France, which though defeated was central
to discussions of how to return to the old order. The first step was to bring back the French
royal family, starting with the executed king's brother, Louis XVIII, who was known as "the
desired" because presumably that was the only way to get him to take the job that killed
his brother. Like you're desired. We want you! We're not gonna guillotine you. The second step was to balance out great power
interests. This meant ensuring that France was no longer
a menace and that no state felt aggrieved enough to start another war. A major player at the Congress was, oddly
enough, a once-leading minister of Napoleon: Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord. Ga, that was great. In the bajillion years since I graduated high
school, my high school French teacher has died, and that is very sad. But at the same time, I'm glad she is not
here to hear me speak French. So, during Napoleon's reign, Talleyrand
had been a relentless womanizer and also a relentless seeker of bribes. Like a lot of people who succeed in politics,
he was mostly a moth that flew toward the lights of power and influence. With Napoleon's defeats, Talleyrand switched
sides to support Louis XVIII, and was just the kind of well-connected wheeler-dealer
the Congress needed. The Congress's initial ideas for a settlement
with France involved basically leaving France and its restored monarch alone to enjoy a
good number of the revolutionary conquests. But those moderate terms became harsh when
Napoleon returned to France in the spring of 1815 to much acclaim from many of his French
followers, including especially veterans of his army. After Napoleon and his forces were defeated
at Waterloo in June of 1815, the Allies imposed an indemnity, meaning France would be responsible
for some of the losses they caused. And the Allies decided that they would occupy
France until that indemnity was paid. The presiding spirit over the Congress and
its negotiations was the Austrian minister Prince Klemens von Metternich. Through his arch-conservative eyes, there
was a lot to worry about. One concern was the resurgence of revolution,
a possibility he worked to prevent through the use of secret police, spies, and censorship. But for him, stopping revolution also entailed
closing down student fraternities as breeding grounds for liberal ideas. Basically, attempts to restore rights, freedom,
or achieve any part of the liberal program of the revolutionaries were seen as criminal. Metternich was also concerned about Russia,
which was now the strongest continental power, and he wanted to prevent its further expansionism. He felt a strong monarchy in France would
help make France powerful enough to check the power of Russia, thereby bring Europe
into sociopolitical balance. Did the center of the world just open? Is there Jenga in there? So, you're gonna hear this phrase balance
of powers a lot in the next 200 years. The idea is that if we can just distribute
power among communities, the way that we distribute the load of Jenga pieces…even if something
goes wrong, the thing doesn't fall. It's worked great for 200 years. What's that? Oh gosh, Stan says that there's a World
War I coming. The Congress also divvied up available territories
and resources. Britain received some of France's territory
in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean for instance, while Prussia was allocated part
of Saxony and Austria was given Italian and other territory. There was also the leftover question of Poland;
so, remnants of the Duchy of Warsaw state fell to Russian control, with the remaining
pieces going to Prussia and Austria. Basically, the Congress of Vienna settlement
had something for everyone. Except for the Poles. We're beginning the "This was good news
for everyone except for the Poles" period of European history, which ends –when did
it end, Stan? in 1991. In terms of international politics, the Congress's
major achievements were twofold. First, the Congress aimed for a "balance
of power," which would guide European international developments for decades to come, and eventually
provide a model for 20th century geopolitics as well. We see this emphasis on "balance" in the
tradeoffs and parceling out of benefits, but also in the general attitudes of great power
leaders. So in addition to working toward the balance
of powers, the Congress established a "congress" system for arriving at agreements and enforcing
them. And this would become very important. For one thing, it helped change the way we
understand how people come into power. like, the Congress did not imagine kingship
as deriving from divine power but instead from the decision making of the combined "great
powers." And the group acted with one voice, arriving
at common policies, which was key to their strength. This system is often called the "Concert
of Europe," and in some ways it did presage the contemporary European Union. Besides establishing the conditions for peacetime,
thinkers across Europe were devising political theory for this post-revolutionary age. Leading politicians embraced Edmund Burke's
theory of conservatism, for instance, which emphasized tradition and the wisdom enshrined
in institutions from the past. Monarchy, according to conservatives, was
the primary institution because it had endured for centuries so it provided age-old political
stability. The aristocracy also claimed an acquired superiority
simply because of the long-lived leadership of its families. In other words, the middle-classes, who promoted
hard work and money-making skills, were no longer really models of capability. Instead, readers flocked to Sir Walter Scott's
tales of knights from the past as testimonial to aristocratic bravery—especially when
they were defeating the citizen-led armies of Napoleon. The chivalrous Middle Ages were reborn as
a golden age…despite all that black death, famine, and schism in the church. It is truly astonishing what humans can, with
time, nostaglicize. Religion emerged as another part of the old
regime that needed to be restored. In tandem with the other terms of the political
settlement, Russia, Prussia, and Austria agreed among themselves to a Holy Alliance
This alliance would promote religious values and support diverse Christian religions of
the three kingdoms, and also emphasize the importance of good old fashioned Christian
obedience to the church, no matter which church it is, just please be obedient to it. At the same time, religious activism renewed
focus on philanthropy. Aristocratic Catholics in France, for example,
called themselves "socialists" because they were concerned that the strong emphasis
on individualism had resulted in the deterioration of community and society. Now, they were unrelated to the Marxist "socialists"
who would later preach about revolution. These French "socialists" raised money
to aid the poor in their towns and city centers. In Protestant countries, religion made a comeback
as part of a second Great Awakening. Like the First, it emphasized religious feeling
instead of strict theological learning. In Britain, Methodist churches sprang up,
shunning the fancy ceremonials and religious hierarchies of Anglicanism. Instead of bowing to archbishops and British
aristocrats, they worshipped among their own kind in a spirit of democracy. Another result of conservatism was a new rationale
for allegiance to a kingdom or state. Conservatives didn't promote constitutions
and the rule of law, like the French and U.S. revolutionaries did with their Enlightenment-inspired
governing structures. Instead, they saw nations as stemming from
historical evolution of noble families, a common language, and common heritage. They collected folk tales and artefacts from
the past, considered to be central to a kingdom's heritage. The way things had always been done was the
way they should be done in the present and future. These ideas brought about clashes within nations
between the agrarian interests of the landed aristocracy and the budding wealth of urban
industrialists and financiers. Industrialists often wanted progressive change,
such as infrastructure that would support their businesses, while landed aristocrats
wanted to ensure that traditional hierarchies would not be disturbed, on account of how
they benefited from them. Let's go to the Thought Bubble. 1. There was another new idea dominating the
post-revolutionary era: 2. the culture of Romanticism, which replaced
the culture of Enlightenment. 3. Romanticism held that the world of feeling
was far superior to the regime of reason; 4. that nature was superior to manufacturing; 5. and that the past was better than the present. 6. Mary Shelley was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. 7. And you'll recall, in A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft emphasized the need for knowledge and reason in people's
lives. 8. But her daughter's novel Frankenstein took
the opposite stance, in some ways. 9. It's a story, in part about what can be
wrought by reason run amok. 10. Although the monster had many abilities, it
lacked human love and warmth, 11. so it ended up killing those who had loved
and been kind to him. 10. For Shelley, the lack of feeling—not the
lack of reason– lay at the heart of social problems. 11. And unchecked reason, like that of Dr. Frankenstein,
created monstrosities. 12. Meanwhile Russian poet Alexander Pushkin wrote
the novel Eugene Onegin in the kind of romantic, flowery verse 13. that stands in stark contrast to the cold
and rational exposition of Enlightenment novelists like Voltaire. 14. Eugene Onegin tells the story of a tragically
ill-timed romance between Onegin and Tatyana 15. as the two attempt to navigate paths between
strong emotion and the traditions of Russian courtship. 16. It's remembered today in part because it
explores the paradoxes of romantic thinking without dismissing any perspective. 17. Indeed, Pushkin himself followed at least
one of the conventions of traditional male honor in his own life: 18. He died in a duel with his wife's purported
lover. Thanks Thought Bubble. Not only did Romantic poets write about nature,
they also invoked foreign lands and exoticism—an exoticism that was earlier expressed in material
goods like textiles, porcelain, umbrellas, and coffee. Painters depicted nude women in harems (even
though none had ever entered a harem much less seen a nude woman in one). And Samuel Coleridge wrote in "Kubla Khan"
of an opium dream in which he is mystically transported to another time and place. Percy Bysshe Shelly, husband of Mary Shelley,
wrote of distant Asia. Still others, escaping harsh reality, composed
odes to poppies, from which opium is derived. Sir Walter Scott, like other novelists, wrote
about the Middle Ages, but he too reached romantic intensity in part because of his
opium addiction. The highs and lows of existence, raging storms,
extreme suffering, foreboding moods, all characterized the desire to turn Enlightenment rationality
upside down with intense emotion—or even to personally escape from that hyper-reasoned
reality. Musicians also conveyed romantic highs and
lows. They did this by juxtaposing thundering choruses
with more tender passages. Composer Ludwig von Beethoven, the extremely
intense fellow behind me, excelled at creating these types of musical contrasts. The crisp and disciplined compositions of
Enlightenment musicians were gone. Individualism, which had not really entered
the eighteenth century Enlightenment world until Rousseau wrote of his individual emotions,
also figured in post-revolutionary thought. Romantic individualism emphasized poetic or
other forms of genius. Like, during the Enlightenment and revolutionary
years, individual rights and liberties for everyone dominated debates. But in the post-revolutionary era, both history
and fiction began to look at–and in a way worship–the individual Great Man. These great individuals–who tended to be
cleaned up military stars–were seen to be the central drivers of historical change and
the individuals at the center of every great tale, whether fiction or not. And this still shapes our way of looking at
history and other stories–while almost all inventions, for instance, are the result of
broad and complex networks of collaborators, we still tend to put individuals at the center
of those stories, whether it's Edison and his light bulb or Napoleon and his army. But try as they might, leaders at the Congress
of Vienna and a cultural emphasis on conservatism could not quash the revolutionary spirit,
especially the spirit embodied by the idea that people were citizens of a community,
rather than subjects of a king. And amid all these political changes, a different
revolution was shaking the economic status quo so dramatically that old ways of thinking
about peasants and land and aristocrats would soon prove untenable. The nature of work and life were profoundly
reshaped by the Industrial Revolution. In France in 1780, somewhere around 60% of
people worked in agriculture. 200 years later, in 1980, only 8% did. The Industrial Revolution will change how
we spend our days, how we relate to one another and to the world, what we value, and in some
ways, who we are. That's next time. I'll see you then.
Eastern Europe Consolidates: Crash Course European History #16
European History. So we've talked a lot about shifting perspectives
in this series; being able to see from more than one angle helps us to be empathetic,
but it also reminds us that there is no single correct way to look at human history. Zooming in to understand the individual choices
of individual historical figures is important, but so is zooming out to understand larger
forces. And if we can zoom way, way out for a moment,
two of the big questions of European history (and world history) are how centralized should
government power be, and who should decide who wields that power? We've seen attempts to centralize government
power over large communities in western Europe, and fights over constitutionalism or absolutism. But now we're going to turn east, to see
how another region of Europe was governing and growing in the 17th century. INTRO
In 1618, Poland-Lithuania was the largest kingdom fully located in Europe. It enjoyed a consensus form of government. When a monarch died, a successor king was
elected. Representatives from dozens of smaller political
units across the kingdom were summoned to meet and determine who would be king. Consensus was reached through negotiations
among uppercrust aristocrats and candidates for king. The Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania formally
came into being in 1569, but in reality it had been established with the fourteenth century
marriage of a Polish queen to a Lithuanian Grand Duke. During the religious turmoil of the sixteenth
century, Poland remained Catholic. Also, and unusually, the consensus-style government
gave freedom to individual princes who wanted to follow Luther, Calvin, or any of the other
gajillion religious reformers. Now of course freedom for princes isn't
freedom for peasants, but still… Candidates for king even had to commit themselves
to religious pluralism. That toleration drew Jewish people from Spanish
and other intolerant regimes eastward into the kingdom. It was a very diverse place — both in terms
of religion and ethnicity. The creation of Poland-Lithuania also meant
that present-day Ukraine was now part of Poland's holdings. The Commonwealth's ambitions sent its people
and its government southward into Ukraine where there were fertile lands available for
settlement–not the last time that Ukraine's abundant farmland would make it a center of
expansionist attention. And the Polish nobility followed as the kings
awarded them vast Ukrainian estates, which their new owners ruled with an iron hand—alienating
both former inhabitants and new migrants. So, at this point, Eastern Europe as a whole
was complicated and competitive, as all theses kingdoms struggled to acquire more territory
for farmland and better access to resources. To Poland-Lithuania's north, Sweden had
a united Lutheran population and an excellent fighting force; it too wanted to expand into
the continent's Baltic territories. The Ottoman empire, which was more powerful
and controlled most of Hungary by the middle of the seventeenth century, was primarily
Muslim. But because of its more westerly and northerly
conquests, it had large pockets of Orthodox Christians. And hundreds of thousands of Ottoman families
had moved to the Balkans and other Ottoman possessions in southeastern Europe. And many Jews had migrated to the Ottoman
Empire because of Habsburg persecution. In fact, compared to most other European rulers,
Muslims were tolerant: they did not persecute religious minorities by seeking them out and
burning them at the stake in great numbers as Christians did. Instead, they were taxed at a higher rate
than Muslims were. Which…you know, compared to being burned
alive…I would take . Let's go to the Thought Bubble. 1. The Ottoman Empire had developed politically
through the efforts of some spectacularly successful leaders. 2. One was Mehmet I who in 1453 took Constantinople
from the Byzantine Empire. 3. Then there was Selim I who conquered Egypt
in 1517, 4. followed by Suleyman the Magnificent's series
of triumphs across the Middle East 5. and further expansion into southwestern
Europe, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. 6. The Ottomans had a far from constitutional
process for succession. 7. The sultan often had many concubines who lived
together in the harem, 8. which was not, as is often depicted, a
kind of brothel, 9. but instead the seat of government. 10. It was a place for state business, policy
decision-making, and other important matters. 11. But after any one of the sultan's partners
gave birth to a son, 12. she and her son usually moved to the provinces, 13. where the boy learned rulership skills
while also developing a network of followers. 14. And then when the sultan died, the oldest
son usually succeeded him, 15. but not always. 16. Factions, often developed by an aspiring son's
mother, struggled for a place in the empire. 17. Unsurprisingly, murder was often involved. 18. A new sultan's brothers were usually murdered
on his accession to the throne so they couldn't plot coups. 19. All in all, they could have used some good
family therapy. 20. But on the other hand, you know, kingmaking
is kind of an inherently dirty business. Thanks Thought Bubble. Despite that not-very-secure-sounding system,
the absolutist Ottoman state was among the longest lived empires in history, lasting
until 1922, at which point Constantinople became Istanbul, clearing the way for They
Might Be Giants to record their third best song. In any conquered region, the Ottoman government
drafted young Christian boys into its army and bureaucracy, educating them, and converting
them to Islam. Taken from their parents, they became part
of the janissary corps, in which they could and did rise to the highest reaches of government
alongside advisors and bureaucrats from influential families. The rulers and nobility also developed a different
household type, including multiple wives and large numbers of offspring. Given Ottoman men's service as ghazis, or
warriors, and given the immense slaughter across the entire European population at the
time, having many wives seemed like the prudent thing to do. because there just weren't
that many men. Women in these households were often wealthy
and empowered to purchase warehouses and manufacturing establishments, whereas women to the west
often did not have inheritance or property rights. And when men were off fighting, women served
as unofficial replacements in the Ottoman Empire—Hurrem, the sole wife of Suleyman
being a prime example. And in communities where many girls and women
were left in seclusion, other women had opportunities to serve as their lawyers, accountants, and
scribes, and doctors, and teachers, and other professionals. So the Ottomans had developed different social
structures and state structures.I know it's tempting to view all of this through a modern
lens, and think about this is good, this is bad, this is modern, and this is not modern. I don't think that's the right lens through
which to view all of this. We're talking about the 17th Century, so
we should compare it to the rest of the 17th Century. And in many ways, the 17th Century Ottoman
Empire had big advantages over other European communities, but after their failure to capture
Vienna in 1683, which we'll get to in a minute, the Empire's competitive edge did
dull. Nearby, Russia was also expanding thanks to
Ivan IV, aka Ivan the Terrible, who did have vicious outbursts of temper and, also, did
kill his own son during a quarrel, which to be fair is kind of terrible. Ivan's grandfather Ivan III had begun growing
the Russian empire as well as creating a modern state structure, complete with administrative
departments and functionaries. He also oversaw extensive building at the
Kremlin complex. The first part of Ivan IV's rule continued
Russia's institutional development with the creation of an improved code of laws and
better tax collection. Ivan also summoned distinguished representatives
of the orthodox church and the nobility along with wealthy townspeople to an assembly (zemskii
sobor), which continued to meet. And for these accomplishments, as well as
Ivan's expansionist ambitions, many historians have restored the word groznyi—once interpreted
to mean "terrible"—to the meaning held by Russians of his day: Ivan the "formidable,"
or "fearsome," or even "awesome." Meanwhile high churchmen were working to make
Ivan literally awesome by creating imagery in churches of a tsar connected to the divine. They also depicted the connection between
the tsar and people along a divine continuum. At the time, the head of the Orthodox church
claimed that the Russian ruler was, quote, "everywhere under the vault of heaven the
one Christian Tsar, mounted on the holy throne of God of the holy apostolic church, in place
of the Roman and Constantinopolitan [thrones] in the God-saved city of Moscow." So, not God Himself or anything–just mounted
on the holy throne of God. Rather like Louis XIV over in France. Did the center of the world just open? Is Jesus in there? It's a crucifix. You might be thinking, "did you just shoehorn
in this center of the world bit?" Yeah, I did. And it's not the first time Jesus has been
shoehorned in where he doesn't fit well. If you ever read the accounts of Jesus's
life, one thing that you'll note is that, uh, he was never a political leader, nor did
he ever choose political leaders, nor did he ever express much interest in choosing
political leaders. But just as every religion has to adapt to
the culture in which it finds itself, cultures have to adapt to religions. It's this endless, very complicated dance. And that's how you end up with one guy mounted
on the holy throne of God in Russia, and a different guy mounted on the holy throne of
God in France. But back to Russia. As it bureaucratized along the lines of the
western European kingdoms, Russia developed the rituals of a top-down autocratic state,
which lasted into the twentieth-century. Serfs—that is, laborers bound to the land
and unfree in their movements–groveled before their lords, who often saw these workers as
not even deserving of the word "human." However, the nobility also groveled in front
of the tsar, displaying abject submission akin to what serfs showed their lords. But it's important to understand that it
wasn't as simple as people considering themselves, and others, purely inferior or superior. Instead, the belief was that everyone had
a role to play within the system. Now, to be clear, within that system, most
people had very little freedom or what we would now call "human rights." But still, throughout history, people have
found ways to express human agency no matter the rigidity or oppressiveness of the system
in which they are living. Ivan IV was energetic, especially in the first
half of his reign. He took Russia's borders eastward, capturing
among other conquests the Muslim stronghold of Kazan. Russian settlers headed for new farmland right
up to the Pacific Ocean. And helping Ivan in this conquest, even as
absolutist tendencies developed in Russia, was another group of ordinary people who were
neither serfs nor noble grovellers but free individuals. Called Cossacks (from the word Kazak, meaning
free), they survived through plunder and trade and through selling their military services
to rulers and nobility who needed their fighting skills. Until late in the seventeenth century, the
Cossacks generally looked down on farming. They led nomadic lives, capturing people to
sell or robbing ships on the Caspian Sea. Located along the Ukrainian, Russian, and
Ottoman borderlands, they were more democratic than the rulers to whom they often sold their
services, including the Russian tsars whose defeat of Kazan in 1552 they helped facilitate. After that, the Cossack Yermak Timofeyevich
led Russian advances deeper into Siberia with its lucrative fur trade and became a Russian
hero. Ivan IV died in 1584 of a stroke while playing
chess, and his heir Fyodor died in 1598, and after that, claimants to the leaderless Russian
throne abounded. Poland-Lithuania spotted an opening for establishing
a Polish prince as Russian tsar. The sense was that Moscow was so disorganized
and the monarchy was so weak that it could easily fall. This resulted in the "Time of Troubles,"
which was so named because of the famine of 1601-3, as well as Poland-Lithuanian and Swedish
attacks on Russia, and the general devastation caused by that warfare. These finally ended with Russia's victory
in 1613 and the ascension to the throne of Michael Romanov—chosen by an "Assembly
of the Land" of nobles and, as the new tsar put it, also chosen by God and the voice of
the people. But mostly by the nobles. Cossack troops and units from the nobility
drove back the enemy, knocking Poland-Lithuania and Sweden out temporarily from the competition
for control of the region. And for their efforts, the new tsar thanked
his saviors by raising taxes, cutting back on privileges, and otherwise behaving as if
the tsar himself, not his military, had won the day. But don't worry the nobility will get back
at the Romanovs in just 300 short years. The Cossacks, supported by an increasingly
oppressed Ukrainian peasantry, went on to reduce Polish power through war that slaughtered
tens of thousands of Jewish estate managers, Protestant minorities, and their supporters
living in Ukrainian territory. In 1654, Russia joined what became known as
the Russo-Polish war, at the end of which in 1667 the eastern part of Ukraine including
Kiev became part of the Russian empire, while the western part remained part of Poland-Lithuania. Fortunately, arguments over Ukrainian land
had at last been resolved. What's that, Stan? Oh. Still? Stan, is he behind me? Because we had a deal that he wasn't going
to come out this whole series…GAH…putin. Right. Meanwhile, the Polish kingdom, while on a
downward path because of these defeats, would live to fight a fair few more battles. The most famous and consequential of these
battles for the continent was the battle for Vienna in 1683 when elected Polish king Jan
Sobieski joined forces with the Habsburg monarchy to drive out the invading Ottoman forces. We previewed this earlier because it's a
big deal. This led to Habsburg rule being solidified
around Austria, and Hungary, and other east-central European territories. And it also meant that Europe was gaining
some of the political contours that would shape its modern history. I mean, there wasn't yet a Germany as such,
or even an Austrohungarian Empire, but the scene was being set. I know we covered A LOT of power and territory
struggles today. There was a lot of war in Europe in the 17th
Century. But if we zoom out, we see generations-long
disagreements over how centralized communities should be, and where the right to rule comes
from. These changes were happening in the long run,
which is important, but of course no human life is lived in the long run, including yours. Each of us–whether a Jewish person escaping
religious persecution or a woman becoming a lawyer during a time of war–is profoundly
shaped by the short run we happen to inhabit. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.
The Modern Revolution: Crash Course Big History #8
Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to Crash Course Big
History. Today, we're going to look at the Modern Revolution. Mr. Green! Mr. Green! But, what does modern
even mean. I mean, I know that fax machines and Super Nintendo are modern, but like people
used to think that toilets that flushed were modern. That's actually a pretty perceptive question,
Me From the Past, so if we are going to talk about modernity, we should probably define
modernity. But first, I have great news. There is a future, me from the past, where
video games are so much better than Super Nintendo. In fact, this machine plays 24,000
games, and it is in the office of future you. What were we talking about? Oh right, modernity.
So some historians date the beginning of the Modern Era with the beginnings of The
Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. Some date it to the French Revolution in 1789.
Some push it further back to 16th and 17th century European colonialism. And, some date modernity
with the European Renaissance and call anything past the year 1500 "early modern." But through a Big History Lens, all of these
are just signs of acceleration in human collective learning, which was already underway and took
its first tiny steps in East Africa 250,000 years ago. Then again, it would be silly to call the
first human foragers "Early-Early-Early Modern." So for the purposes of today, let's say the
"Early Modern" period began around 1500, and the "Modern Modern" period around 1750, with an
acknowledgement that it's all a little bit arbitrary. And I know what you're wondering, but no, 1750 was
several decades before the first flushing toilets. [Theme Music] So, last week we looked at how Collective
Learning, which relies on population numbers and connectivity to produce new ideas, grew by leaps
and bounds with the introduction of agriculture. By the year 1400, the human population had
advanced magnificently, but the world was still divided into four isolated world zones: The
Americas, Australasia, the Pacific, and Afro-Eurasia. From a Big History perspective, what makes
the European explorations worthy of a place in an episode called "Modern Revolution" is
that they eventually united all four world zones into a global system. An increasingly
connected network of potential innovators was great for collective learning. But why did the Europeans feel so motivated
to expand? Well, a lot of reasons. One, Ottoman dominance of overland trade routes with Asia,
particularly after the conquests of Constantinople in 1453, made Europeans seek alternative routes
to the populous and rich lands of the East. Two, European states were fairly small compared
to some of the vast empires of Asia, and needed to compete for more resources to fuel their
almost constant wars. And three, the fruits of exploration undoubtedly had
positive effects. Whether it be the many advanced inventions and consumer goods imported from China, or the spices
of India and Indonesia, or crops from the Americas. That last one should not be underestimated.
Crops like the potato, which earned the nickname "Ready Made Bread" because it was easy to
prepare combined with maize, and squashes, and tomatoes, and various yams allowed farms
in Europe to support more people. This was also good for Asia where these crops
were introduced in the 17th century. And, let us not forget about the vast amounts of
silver that the Spanish "acquired" from the Americas, or the many cotton, tobacco, and sugar
farms that Europeans bolstered their economies with. The unification of world zones also had many,
many negative effects. For instance, it was terrible for people who worked on those cotton,
and tobacco, and sugar farms. Europeans increasingly relied on African slaves,
the first of whom were granted to the Portuguese by African rulers, and then you know, several
centuries of horror ensued with an incomprehensible number of African slaves dying in the appalling
conditions of the Atlantic crossing. Life was also pretty miserable for the slaves
that survived the journey, and generations of their descendants. Also, because Afro-Eurasia
was a modestly connected, thriving cesspool of disease, Europeans had developed many immunities. When they started arriving in the previously
isolated Americas in the late 1400's and 1500's, the indigenous inhabitants had no immunity
to those diseases. This resulted in one of the most horrific events in human history. A cocktail of
various European diseases — most notably smallpox — killed off an estimated 50 million
people in the Americas in little over a century. A similar tragedy played itself out in Australia when
Europeans started arriving there in the 18th century. Now, along with all this horrific stuff, the
unification of the world zones was, nevertheless, a good thing for collective learning — which
would eventually prove our salvation in many ways. And this global system continues to increase
in complexity and connectivity today. Which is why people can now look at THIS on their
smartphone. Anyway, the unification of the world zones
did not in itself lead to a breakthrough in the way humans harvested matter and energy. The last major shift happened with the arrival of
agriculture ten thousand years prior. The colonizing European societies of the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth centuries remained agrarian. But the explorations did allow for a network
of exchange that eventually did lead to a major breakthrough in how humans harnessed
more energy and produced more and more cultural complexity, The Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain,
as they'll be happy to tell you, in the 18th century, but it was a global revolution involving
collective learning shared across the global system. But a number of innovations that kick-started
industry originated in Britain, like the more intensified use of steam engines, or the use
of coke to refine metals. Not that Coke, yeah, that coke. Also, they invented many textile
machines, and Britain had lots of coal and it was relatively easy to mine. Thank you
trees that died hundreds of millions of years ago, we're going to turn you into industry,
and smog. But all those British breakthroughs wouldn't
have been possible without a huge global network of trade that supplied raw materials, like
cotton, and that opened new markets where Britain could sell its goods. And it wouldn't have possible to expand that
network of trade in the first place without gunpowder, and the compass, which both came
from China. The methods of porcelain manufacture that were important to the industrial revolution
in Britain also came from China via Germany, and the improved methods of farming which
freed up many British farm workers for industrial wage labour in the cities came from Flanders,
in the Netherlands. Early designs for steam engines came from 18th century France, and
much of the designs for these machines depended on mathematics preserved and transmitted by
Islamic and Hindu civilizations. So up until the end of the 18th century virtually
all production in human history was propelled by human or animal muscle power, or else,
by wind and water power. But it turned out that coal and oil had stored energy from the
sun that had built up over hundreds of millions of years, and using those resources dramatically
increased the energy that humans could harness. Huge numbers of goods could be produced by
factories at relatively low prices which meant that over many decades goods that had previously
been seen as luxuries by common people, were suddenly viewed as necessities. By the 1900s
most Europeans enjoyed a standard of living higher than the kings of the middle ages.
Coal and oil also allowed mechanization of agriculture, which raised the carrying capacity,
increasing the population. And new modes of connectivity beginning with the telegraph
and then later the telephone increasingly bound the human species together allowing for swift
and rapid exchange of ideas. For 250,000 years, if I wanted to tell someone who lived a hundred miles
away from me something, it took me days to do so. For the last hundred years, it's
taken me seconds. Because a slight tweak in modes of production
in the 18th century and the adoption of fossil fuels led to an explosion of productivity
and invention in the 1800's and 1900's, people often compare The Industrial Revolution to the
Cambrian Explosion about 540,000,000 years ago. Remember, when a new skill or trait open
up new ways or 'niches' to extract energy from the environment, evolutionary change can proceed
very quickly. In the Cambrian Explosion that evolutionary change was biological. In The Industrial
Revolution that increased pace of change was cultural. Consider bike design. In the 1800's there
were many many different designs for bikes. Some of which look amazingly terrifyingly
unsafe. In the beginning of innovations for bicycles a huge number of designs filled all
of the available niches. Eventually those designs started competing with each other
and a few forms won out. You got the road bike and the mountain bike and the BMX bike. Just a
little bit different variations of the same thing. Another example is the adaptive radiation
of electronics. Take a look at all the stuff you needed in the 1980's to do what your average
cellphone can do today. And that was only a few decades ago. Many new ideas sparked
an increase in the human standard of living, in the complexity of societies, in tons of
different ways. The explosion of cultural evolution that started 200 years ago has yet
to cease. The Cambrian Explosion went on for millions
of years. The Agricultural Revolution proceeded for thousands of years. We're still right
in the middle of the Modern Revolution; maybe only at the beginning. The huge shift in human
activity and a rise in complexity may continue long after our grandchildren's lifetimes.
That is, so long as we don't do something stupid, which, you know with homo sapiens
is always a distinct possibility. And let's not forget about the rise in complexity
that's been happening since the beginning of the universe 13.8 billion years ago. A
star is essentially a pile of hydrogen and helium. It's extremely simple. By comparison,
a brain that arose via biological evolution is an intricate network of billions of connections
and building blocks. Industrial society is an immense whirring global network of millions
upon millions of brains, more closely connected than ever before. The products of this society
raised complexity even further. Bottom line is this: if the first part of
this series, which looked at the vastness of the universe, made you feel insignificant,
just remember that now at the tremendous heights of technological progress humanity is, in
terms of networks and building blocks, the most complex system that we know of in the
universe. And there's currently no end to the potential
for rising complexity in sight. This brings us to a longstanding historical question:
"Why did The Industrial Revolution happen in Britain?" Great Britain was certainly uncommonly
well-positioned. That said, so was China. So why didn't The Industrial Revolution happen in,
say, Song Dynasty China, between the 10th and 13th centuries? So we know the two main drivers of collective
learning are population numbers and connectivity, and China has had both for a long time. The medieval
Chinese had much more advanced agricultural methods than Europe; they paid attention to
weeding and growing crops in rows, and frequently used tools like the seed drill. And they were doing it all
centuries before that stuff was even heard of in Europe. In the 900's, the spread of wet rice farming
in Southern China raised the carrying capacity even further because rice fields simply produce
more food. They are more efficient. Also, rice is easier to prepare than the laborious
European process of turning wheat into bread. So, during the 10th and 11th centuries, the Chinese
population increased from about 50 or 60 million to about 120 million. That's a lot of new
innovators. So many, in fact, that Song China came close to having a modern revolution of
its own. I mean, coal was used to manufacture iron, production increased from 19,000 metric
tons per year around 900 CE to 113,000 metric tons by 1200 CE. The Song Dynasty was the
first to invent and harness the power of gunpowder, and then later, in the 15th century, Zheng
He conducted overseas explorations decades before Columbus. Textile production showed
the first ever signs of mechanization in ways similar to the European Spinning Jenny. But. China had dry coal, while the British
needed to pump water out of their coal mines in order to mine coal, which led the British
to build steam engines. So, why didn't the modern revolution start
in China around 1000 CE? Well, it might have been the cultural and political climate, and
a shift away from innovation and commerce at the end of Song China in 1279. Possibly
because they hadn't united the world zones in a network of trade and unified collective
learning. And possibly because the right combination of cultural innovations required to launch a Cambrian
style explosion of growth just didn't happen. The point is that collective learning is such
a powerful force that from the explosion of the world population from only 6 million people
10,000 years ago to 954 million by the end of the Agrarian era, the right combination
of ideas that led to the industrial explosion might have happened almost anywhere. So long as there are brains to think and exchange
ideas, so long as there are energy flows on the earth, humanity has a tremendous potential
for rising complexity. The modern revolution was accompanied by explosive
growth in human population. It took 250,000 years for humanity to achieve its first billion
people. By 1900, the world's population was 1.6 billion. Today, there are over 7 billion
potential innovators who are now connected by the lightning speed of the internet, and
collective learning is more powerful than ever. Humans now have unprecedented control and
power over the Earth's biosphere, which has prompted some scientists and scholars to claim
that the Holocene is over and we now stand on the threshold of a new era: the Anthropocene. During this age, we may continue to raise
complexity in our little pocket of the universe to wondrous new levels, hopefully to the growing
benefit of all humans rather than just a privileged few. Thanks to collective learning, our potential
is awesome. Unless, that is, we hit a wall like agrarian societies did every few centuries
when their population growth outstripped their rates of agricultural innovation. We are now in an era of immense danger, where
the modern global system of humanity might exhaust the resources of the Earth, in the
same way that agricultural societies often exhausted the resources of the field. More
on that next time.
Capitalism and Socialism: Crash Course World History #33
History, and today we're going to talk about capitalism. Yeah, Mr. Green, capitalism just turns men
into wolves. Your purportedly free markets only makes slave of us all.. Oh god Stan, it's me from college. Me from
the past has become me from college. This is a disaster! The reason he's so unbearable,
Stan, is that he refuses to recognize the legitimacy of other people's narratives. And
that means that he will never ever be able to have a productive conversation with another
human in his entire life. So listen, me from the past. I'm gonna disappoint
you by being too capitalist. And I'm gonna disappoint a lot of other people by not being
capitalist enough. And I'm gonna disappoint the historians by not using enough jargon.
But what can I do? We only have twelve minutes! Fortunately, capitalism is all about efficiency. So let's do this, me from college: Randy [Ransom]
Riggs becomes a best-selling author, Josh Radnor stars in a great sitcom, it is NOT
going to work out with Emily, and do NOT go to Alaska with a girl you've known for ten
days. Okay, let's talk capitalism. So capitalism is an economic system, but it's
also a cultural system. It's characterized by innovation and investment to increase wealth.
But today, we're going to focus on production and how industrial capitalism changed it.
Stan, I can't wear these emblems of the bourgeoisie while Karl Marx himself is looking at me,
it's ridiculous. I'm changing! Very hard to take off a shirt
dramatically. So let's say it's 1200 CE and you're a rug
merchant. Just like merchants today, you sometimes need to borrow money in order to buy the rugs
you want to resell at a profit, and then you pay that money back, often with interest,
once you've resold the rugs. This is called mercantile capitalism, and it was a global
phenomenon, from the Chinese, to the Indian Ocean trade network, to Muslim merchants who
would sponsor trade caravans across the Sahara. But by the 17th century, merchants in the
Netherlands and in Britain had expanded upon this idea to create joint stock companies.
Those companies could finance bigger trade missions and also spread the risk of international
trade. But the thing about international trade is that sometimes boats sink or they get taken
by pirates, and while that's bad if you're a sailor because, you know, you lose your
life, it's really bad if you're a mercantile capitalist because you lost all your money.
But if you own one-tenth of ten boats, your risk is much better managed. That kind of
investment definitely increased wealth, but it only affected a sliver of the population
and it didn't create a culture of capitalism. Industrial capitalism was something altogether
different, both in scale and in practice. Let's use Joyce Appleby's definition of industrial
capitalism: "An economic system that relies on investment of capital in machines and technology that
are used to increase production of marketable goods." So imagine that someone made a Stan machine
(by the way Stan, this is a remarkable likeness) and that Stan machine could produce and direct
10 times more episodes of Crash Course than a human Stan. Well, of course, even if there
are upfront costs I'm going to invest in a Stan machine so I can start cranking out 10
times the knowledge – Stan, are you focusing on the robot instead of me? I AM THE STAR
OF THE SHOW. Stanbot, you're going behind the globe. So when most of us think about capitalism,
especially when we think about its downsides – long hours, low wages, miserable working
conditions, child labor, unemployed Stans – that's what we're thinking about. Now admittedly,
this is just one definition of industrial capitalism among many, but it's the definition
we're going with. All right, let's go to the Thought Bubble.
Industrial capitalism developed first in Britain in the 19th century. Britain had a bunch of
advantages – it was the dominant power on the seas, and it was making good money off
its trade with its colonies, including the slave trade; also, the growth of capitalism
was helped by the half-century of civil unrest that resulted from the 17th century English
Civil War. Now, I'm not advocating for civil wars or
anything but in this particular case it was useful because before the war, the British
crown had put a lot of regulations on the economy: complicated licenses, royal monopolies,
etc. But during the turmoil it couldn't enforce them, which made for freer markets. Another factor was a remarkable increase in
agricultural productivity in the 16th century. As food prices started to rise, it became
profitable for farmers, both large and small, to invest in agricultural technologies that
would improve crop yields. Those higher prices for grain probably resulted from population
growth, which in turn was encouraged by increased production of food crops. A number of these agricultural improvements
came from the Dutch, who had chronic problems feeding themselves, and discovered that planting
different kinds of crops, like clover, that added nitrogen to the soil and could be used
to feed livestock at the same time, meant that more fields could be used at once. This
increased productivity, eventually brought down prices, and this encouraged further innovation in
order to increase yield to make up for the drop in prices. Lower food prices had an added benefit: since
food cost less and wages in England remained high, workers would have more disposable income,
which meant that if there were consumer goods available, they would be consumed, which incentivized
people to make consumer goods more efficiently, and therefore more cheaply. You can see how
this positive feedback loop leads to more food, and more stuff, culminating in a world
where people have so much stuff that we must rent space to store it, and so much food that
obesity has become a bigger killer than starvation. Thanks, Thought Bubble. So this increased productivity also meant
that fewer people needed to work in agriculture in order to feed the population. To put this
in perspective, in 1520, 80% of the English population worked the land. By 1800, only
36% of adult male laborers were working in agriculture, and by 1850, that percentage
had dropped to 25. This meant that when the factories started
humming, there were plenty of workers to hum along with them. Especially child laborers.
So far all this sounds pretty good, right? I mean, except for the child labor – who wouldn't
want more, cheaper food? Yeah, well, not so fast. One of the ways the British achieved all this
agricultural productivity was through the process of enclosure, whereby landlords would
reclaim and privatize fields that for centuries had been held in common by multiple tenants.
This increased agricultural productivity, but it also impoverished many tenant farmers,
many of whom lost their livelihoods. Okay, for our purposes capitalism is also
a cultural system, rooted in the need of private investors to turn a profit. So the real change
needed here was a change of mind. People had to develop the capitalist values of taking
risks and appreciating innovation. And they had to come to believe that making an upfront
investment in something like a Stan Machine could pay for itself and then some. One of the reasons that these values developed
in Britain was that the people who initially held them were really good at publicizing
them. Writers like Thomas Mun, who worked for the English East India Company, exposed
people to the idea that the economy was controlled by markets. And other writers popularized
the idea that it was human nature for individuals to participate in markets as rational actors. Even our language changed: the word "individuals"
did not apply to persons until the 17th century. And in the 18th century, a "career" still
referred only to horses' racing lives. Perhaps the most important idea that was popularized
in England was that men and women were consumers as well as producers and that this was actually
a good thing because the desire to consume manufactured goods could spur economic growth.
"The main spur to trade, or rather to industry and ingenuity, is the exorbitant appetite
of men, which they will take pain to gratify," so wrote John Cary, one of capitalism's cheerleaders,
in 1695, and in talking about our appetite, he wasn't just talking about food. That doesn't
seem radical now, but it sure did back then. So here in the 21st century it's clear that
industrial capitalism – at least for now – has won. [Aside to Marx] Sorry buddy, but you know,
you gave it a good run. You didn't know about Stalin. But capitalism isn't without its problems,
or its critics, and there were certainly lots of shortcomings to industrial capitalism in
the 19th century. Working conditions were awful. Days were long, arduous, and monotonous.
Workers lived in conditions that people living in the developed world today would associate
with abject poverty. One way that workers responded to these conditions was by organizing
into labor unions. Another response was in many cases purely theoretical: socialism,
most famously Marxian socialism. I should probably point out here that socialism
is an imperfect opposite to capitalism, even though the two are often juxtaposed. Capitalism's
defenders like to point out that it's "natural," meaning that if left to our own devices, humans
would construct economic relationships that resemble capitalism. Socialism, at least in
its modern incarnations, makes fewer pretenses towards being an expression of human nature;
it's the result of human choice and human planning. So, socialism, as an intellectual construct,
began in France. How'd I do, Stan? Mm, in the border between Egypt and Libya. There were two branches of socialism in France,
Utopian and revolutionary. Utopian socialism is often associated with Comte de Saint Simon
and Charles Fourier, both of whom rejected revolutionary action after having seen the
disaster of the French Revolution. Both were critical of capitalism and while
Fourier is usually a punchline in history classes because he believed that, in his ideal
socialist world, the seas would turn to lemonade, he was right that human beings have desires
that go beyond basic self interest, and that we aren't always economically rational actors. The other French socialists were the revolutionaries,
and they saw the French Revolution, even its violence, in a much more positive light. The
most important of these revolutionaries was Auguste Blanqui, and we associate a lot of
his ideas with communism, which is a term that he used. Like the Utopians, he criticized
capitalism, but he believed that it could only be overthrown through violent revolution
by the working classes. However, while Blanqui thought that the workers
would come to dominate a communist world, he was an elitist. And he believed that workers
on their own could never, on their own, overcome their superstitions and their prejudices in
order to throw off bourgeois oppression. And that brings us to Karl Marx, whose ideas
and beard cast a shadow over most of the 20th century. Oh, it's time for the Open Letter?
An Open Letter to Karl Marx's Beard. But, first, let's see what's in the secret
compartment today. Oh, robots. Stan Bots! Two Stan Bots, one of them female! Now I own
all the means of production. You're officially useless to me, Stan. Now, turn the camera
off. Turn the ca– I'm going to have to get up and turn the camera off? Stan Bot,
go turn the camera off. Hey there, Karl Marx's beard. Wow, you are intense. Karl Marx, these days
there are a lot of young men who think beards are cool. Beard lovers, if you will. Those
aren't beards, those are glorified milk mustaches. I mean, I haven't shaved for
a couple weeks, Karl Marx, but I'm not claiming a beard. You don't get a beard by being lazy, you
get a beard by being a committed revolutionary. That's why hardcore Marxists are literally
known as "Bearded Marxists." These days, that's an insult. But you know what, Karl
Marx, when I look back at history, I prefer the bearded communists. Let's talk about
some communists who didn't have beards: Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-il, Joseph freakin'
Stalin with his face caterpillar. So, yeah, Karl Marx's beard, it's my great
regret to inform you that there are some paltry beards trying to take up the class struggle
these days. Best Wishes, John Green Although he's often considered the father
of communism, because he co-wrote The Communist Manifesto, Marx was above all a philosopher
and a historian. It's just that, unlike many philosophers and historians, he advocated
for revolution. His greatest work, Das Kapital, sets out to
explain the world of the 19th century in historical and philosophical terms. Marx's thinking
is deep and dense and we're low on time, but I want to introduce one of his ideas,
that of class struggle. So, for Marx, the focus isn't on the class,
it's on the struggle. Basically Marx believed that classes don't only struggle to make
history, but that the struggle is what makes classes into themselves. The idea is that
through conflict, classes develop a sense of themselves, and without conflict, there
is no such thing as class consciousness. So, Marx was writing in 19th century England
and there were two classes that mattered: the workers and the capitalists. The capitalists
owned most of the factors of production (in this case, land and the capital to invest
in factories). The workers just had their labor. So, the class struggle here is between
capitalists, who want labor at the lowest possible price, and the workers who want to
be paid as much as possible for their work. There are two key ideas that underlie this
theory of class struggle. First, Marx believed that "production," or work, was the thing
that gave life material meaning. Second, is that we are by nature social animals. We work
together, we collaborate, we are more efficient when we share resources. Marx's criticism of capitalism is that capitalism
replaces this egalitarian collaboration with conflict. And that means that it isn't a
natural system after all. And by arguing that capitalism actually isn't consistent with
human nature, Marx sought to empower the workers. That's a lot more attractive than Blanqui's
elitist socialism, and while purportedly Marxist states like the USSR usually abandon worker
empowerment pretty quickly, the idea of protecting our collective interest remains powerful.
That's where we'll have to leave it for now, lest I start reading from The Communist
Manifesto. But, ultimately socialism has not succeeded
in supplanting capitalism, as its proponents had hoped. In the United States, at least,
"socialism" has become something of a dirty word. So, industrial capitalism certainly seems
to have won out, and in terms of material well-being and access to goods and services for
people around the world, that's probably a good thing. Ugh, you keep falling over. You're a great
bit, but a very flimsy one. Actually, come to think of it, you're more of an 8-bit. But how and to what extent we use socialist
principles to regulate free markets remains an open question, and one that is answered
very differently in, say, Sweden than in the United States. And this, I would argue, is
where Marx still matters. Is capitalist competition natural and good,
or should there be systems in place to check it for the sake of our collective well-being?
Should we band together to provide health care for the sick, or pensions for the old?
Should government run businesses, and if so, which ones? The mail delivery business? The
airport security business? The education business? Those are the places where industrial capitalism
and socialism are still competing. And in that sense, at least, the struggle continues.
Thanks for watching, I'll see you next week. Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan
Muller. Our script supervisor is Danica Johnson. The show is written by my high school history
teacher, Raoul Meyer and myself. We're ably interned by Meredith Danko. And our graphics
team is Thought Bubble. Last week's phrase of the week was "the
TARDIS," so you can stop suggesting that now! If you want to suggest future phrases
of the week or guess at this week's, you can do so in comments, where you can also
ask questions about today's video that will be answered by our team of historians. Thanks for watching Crash Course, and as we
say in my hometown, Don't Forget To Be Awesome. All right, Stan, bring the movie magic…
Globalization I – The Upside: Crash Course World History #41
World History and today is the penultimate episode of Crash Course. We're gonna talk
about globalization. This was going to be the last episode, but
I just can't quit you, World Historians. So, today we're going to talk about globalization,
and in doing so, we're going to talk about why we study history at all. Ooh ooh, Mr. Green! Yes, Me from the Past? We study history to get a good
grade to go to a good college to get a good job — –so you can make more money
than you would otherwise make and be a slightly larger cog among the seven billion gears that
turn the planet's economic engine, right? And that's fine, but if that's why you
really study history, then you need to understand all the ways that the t-shirt you're wearing
is both the cause and result of your ambition. This t-shirt contains the global economy:
its efficiency, its massive surplus, its hyperconnectedness, and its unsustainability. This t-shirt tells
one story of globalization. So let's follow it. [Theme Music] So, globalization is a cultural phenomenon.
It's reflected in contemporary artwork and population migration and linguistic changes,
but we're going to focus, as we so often have during Crash Course, on trade. So the world today, as symbolized by our international
felt melange, experiences widespread global economic interdependence. Now, of course economic
interdependence and the accompanying cultural borrowing are nothing new. You'll remember
that we found trade documents from the Indus Valley civilization all the way in Mesopotamia. But for a few reasons, the scale of this trade
has increased dramatically: 1. Multinational corporations have global
reach and increasing power. 2. Travel and shipping are cheap and safe.
It took about two months to cross the Atlantic in 1800. Today it takes about five hours by
plane, and less than a week by ship. 3. Governments have decreased tariffs and
regulations on international trade, leading to what is sometimes called euphemistically
"free trade." To which I say, if this trade is so free, how come BBC America is
in the premium tier of my cable package? To understand the role that governments play
in international trade, let's look again at this t-shirt. This t-shirt, like most t-shirts
made in the world, contains 100% American cotton. And that's not because the U.S.
makes the best cotton or the most efficient cotton, it's because the U.S. government
subsidizes cotton production. And that's what makes this cotton cheaper than cotton
of similar quality from Brazil or India. But in the last 30 years, the US's share of
cotton exports has gone down as Brazil, India, and Africa's cotton exports go up. And that
trend will likely continue as the US moves away from its expensive cotton subsidies.
In fact, these days it's already possible to find t-shirts with Brazilian, Indian, or Ugandan cotton,
or a mixture of cottons from all around the world. But because the American government doesn't
subsidize industry in the way it does agricultural production, the actual spinning and weaving
of the cotton takes place in lower wage countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Vietnam, China, India,
China, China, sometimes even China. And then the finished shirts, called blanks, are usually sent to Europe
or the United States for screen printing, and then sold. You would think the most expensive part of
this process is the part where we ship this across the Pacific Ocean, turn it into this,
and then ship it back across the Pacific Ocean, but you'd be wrong. Wholesale t-shirt blanks
can cost as little as $3; the expense is in the printing, the retail side of things, and
paying the designer at Thought Bubble who was tasked with the difficult job of creating
a Mongol who is at once cute and terrifying. So contemporary global trade is pretty anarchic
and unregulated, at least by international institutions and national governments. Much
of this has to do with academic economists, mostly in the U.S. and Europe who have argued
with great success that governmental regulation diminishes prosperity by limiting growth.
Now, some nations– in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa– haven't been particularly
keen to pursue free trade but they've been bullied into it by larger economies with whom
they desperately need to trade. So in the past 30 years, we've seen all
these emerging markets lowering their tariffs, getting rid of regulation, and privatizing
formerly state-run businesses. And they often do that to appease the International Monetary
Fund, which offers low interest loans to developing world economies with the motto: Many Strings
Attached. Now, whether these decreased regulations have
been a net positive for these developing world economies is a subject of much debate, and
we will wade into it but not until next week. First, we need to understand more about the
nature of this trade. So you'll remember from the Industrial Revolution episode that
industrial western powers produced most of the manufactured goods, which were then sold
in international markets, but you'll also remember that domestic consumption was extremely
important. I mean, almost all early Model T's were built by Americans, and bought
by Americans. But since the 1960s, and especially today,
former non-industrialized parts of the world had been manufacturing consumer goods– for
domestic markets, yes, but primarily for foreign ones. This t-shirt, made in China and the
Dominican Republic before being imported to Mexico and then to the United States, is a
primary example of what I'm talking about, but so is the computer that you're watching
me on. Your computer was probably manufactured in China, but with parts from all over the
world, especially Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. And this international manufacturing is always
finding, like, new markets too. Like, Brazil, for instance, has a huge technology sector.
They make iPads there, actually. Sorry, I'm trying to play Angry Birds. But, what all
these countries have in common is that while there is a domestic market for things like
iPads and t-shirts, the foreign markets are much, much bigger. Oh, it's time for the
Open Letter? An open letter to Cookie Monster. But first,
let's see what's in the secret compartment today. Oh, it's a cookie dough flavored
Balance Bar. For people who love cookies and pretending to be healthy. Dear Cookie Monster, Here's the thing, man.
You don't have a stomach. That's why when you put a cookie in your mouth, it crumbles
up and then it just falls out of your mouth. But here's what fascinates me, Cookie Monster.
I believe you when you say you love cookies. It doesn't matter that you can't actually
eat cookies because where you would have a stomach, you instead have someone's arm.
And that, Cookie Monster, is what makes you a beautiful symbol for contemporary consumption.
You just keep eating. Even though you can't eat. Cookie Monster, you are the best and
the worst of us. Best wishes, John Green So, although die-hard Marxists might still
resist this, by 2012 it's become pretty obvious that global capitalism has been good
for a lot of people. It's certainly increased worldwide economic output. And while American
autoworkers may suffer job loss, moving manufacturing jobs from high wage to lower wage countries
allows a greater number of people to live better than they did when the First and Second
Worlds monopolized manufacturing. And while I don't want to conflate correlation and
causation, some 600 million people have emerged from poverty in the last 30 years, at least
according to the World Bank's definition of poverty, which is living on less than $1.25
a day. Americans can argue about whether absurdly
inexpensive clothes, shoes and televisions are worth the domestic economic and social
dislocation, but for the Vietnamese worker stitching a pair of sneakers, that job represents
an opportunity for a longer, healthier and more secure life than she would have had if
those shoes were made in the U.S.A. But, before we jump on the celebratory globalization
bandwagon, let's acknowledge that this brave new world has some side effects. For instance,
it maybe hasn't been so good for families, it definitely has not been good for the environment,
and also there's a chance that globalization will spark, like, the end of the human species.
But, we're gonna talk about all that next week. For today, let's bring on the bandwagon
and ride straight for the Thought Bubble. So these days, people move more than they
ever have. 21% of people living in Canada were born somewhere else, as was an astonishing
69% of Kuwait's current population. Migration has become easier because: 1. Air travel is pretty cheap, especially if
you only take a few plane trips in your life, and 2. It's relatively easy and inexpensive
to stay in touch with relatives living far away thanks to Skype, mobile phones, and inexpensive
calling cards. Also 3. Even with increased industrialization in
the developing world, economic opportunities are often much better in wealthy countries.
Remittances– money sent home by people working abroad– are now a huge driver of economic
growth in the developing world. Like, in Tajikistan, for instance, remittances are 35% of the country's
total gross domestic product. With all these people moving around the world,
it's not surprising that globalization also means cultural blending. When people move,
they don't just give up their literary, culinary, artistic, and musical traditions.
Globalized culture is a bit of a paradox, though, because some people see culture today
as increasingly Americanized, right? Like, FRIENDS is currently broadcast in over 100
countries; you can find Diet Coke for sale deep in the jungles of Madagascar; the NBA
is huge in China. There are fewer languages spoken today, and probably less cultural diversity. But on the other hand, an individual's access
to diverse cultural experience has never been greater. Bollywood movies, Swedish hip hop,
Brazilian soap operas, highlights from Congolese football matches, these are all available
to us. Culinary cultural fusion is all the rage; more novels are translated from languages
than ever before, although few are actually read; and in the surest sign of cultural globalization,
football, the world's game, has finally reached America, where broadcasts of the greatest
collective enterprise humanity has ever known, Liverpool Football Club, got record ratings
in 2012. Thanks, Thought Bubble. Hey, one last request: Could you put me in
a Liverpool jersey? On the pitch at Anfield? Raising the premier league trophy? WITH STEVEN
GERRARD HUGGING ME? YES, JUST LIKE THAT. OH, THOUGHT BUBBLE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. Okay, so this all brings us to how globalization
has changed us, and whether it's for the better. Assuming you make the minimum wage
here in the United States, this t-shirt, purchased at your friendly neighborhood e-tailer dftba.com,
will cost you about three hours' worth of work– and yes, that does include shipping.
By the time it arrives at your door, the cotton within that t-shirt will have traveled by
truck, train, ship, possibly even airplane if you opt for priority shipping. And it will
probably have travelled further than Magellan did during his famous circumnavigation of
the globe. You get all that for THREE HOURS of work; by contrast, a far less comfortable
garment several hundred years ago would have cost you ten times as much work. But these improvements have been accompanied
by change so radical that we struggle to contextualize it. Like, the human population of our planet
over time looks like this. Dang. Like, in 1800, there were a billion human beings on this planet.
And that was more than had ever been seen before. And we live more than twice as long on average
as humans did just two centuries ago, largely due to improved health care for women in childbirth
and their infants, but also thanks to antibiotics and the second agricultural revolution that
began in the 1950s, the so-called "green revolution" that saw increased use of chemical
fertilizers lead to dramatically higher crop yields. Of course, these gains haven't been evenly
distributed around the world, but chances are if you're watching this, you A. survived
childbirth and B. feel reasonably confident that your children will as well. That's
a new feeling for humans. And as a parent, I can assure you, it's a miracle, and one
to be celebrated. We study history so that we can understand
these changes, and so that we can remember both what we've gained and lost in getting
to where we are. Next week, our last week, we'll look at the many facets of globalization
that aren't causes for celebration. But for today, let's just pause to consider
how we got from here to here, how the relentless and unquenchable ambition of humans led to
a world where the entire contents of the Library of Alexandria would fit on my iPhone along
with recordings of everything Mozart ever composed. In such a world, it's easy to
feel that we are big and powerful, maybe even invincible. It's easy to feel that… and also dangerous.
Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week. Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan
Muller. Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. Associate producer, Danica Johnson.
And the show is written by my high school history teacher, Raoul Meyer, and myself.
Our graphics team is Thought Bubble. Last week's phrase of the week was "Crush
Those Rebels." If you want to suggest future phrases of the week or guess at this week's,
you can do so in comments where you can also ask questions about today's video that will
be answered by our team of historians. Thanks for watching Crash Course and as we
say in my hometown, Don't Forget To Be Awesome.
Globalization II – Good or Bad?: Crash Course World History #42
Hi, I'm John Green and this is the final
episode of Crash Course: World History, not because we've reached the end of history
but because we've reached the particular middle where I happen to be living. Today
we'll be considering whether globalization is a good thing, and along the way we'll
try to do something that you may not be used to doing in history classes: imagining the
future. Past John: Mr. Green, Mr. Green! In the future,
I'm gonna get to second base with Molly Brown. Present John: No you won't, Me from the
Past, but the fact that when asked to imagine THE future, you imagine YOUR future says a
lot about the contemporary world. And listen, Me From the Past, while there's no question
that your solipsistic individualism is bad both for you and for our species, the broader implications
of individualism in general are a lot more complex. [Theme Music] Man, I'm gonna miss you, Intro. So last week (ta-da) we discussed how global
economic interdependence has led, on average, to longer, healthier, more prosperous lives
for humans–not to mention an astonishing change in the overall human population. In
the West, globalization has also led to the rise of a service economy. In the US and Europe,
most people now work not in agriculture or manufacturing but in some kind of service
sector: healthcare, retail, education, entertainment, information technology, Internet videos about
world history, etc. And that switch has really changed our psychology, especially the psychology
of upper classes living in the industrialized world. I mean, to quote Fredric Jameson, "we are…so
far removed from the realities of production and work that we inhabit a dream world of
artificial stimuli and televised experience." Think of it this way: if you had to kill a
chicken every time you visited KFC, you would probably eat fewer chickens. Another change
of psychology: many historians-of-the-now note that globalization has also led to a
celebration of individualism, particularly in the wake of the failures of the Marxist
collectivist utopias. The generation that lived through the Depression
and World War II saw large-scale collectivist responses to both those crises. And they were
responses that limited freedom. Like, the military draft, for instance, which limited
your freedom, you know, not to be a soldier. Or the collectivization of health insurance
seen in most of the post-war West, which limited your freedom to go bankrupt from health care
costs. Or also government programs like social security, which limit your freedom not to
pay for old people's retirement. But since the 1960s, the ascendant idea of
personal freedom minimally limited by government intervention has become very powerful. Even
the Catholic church was part of this new search for individual freedom, as the Second Vatican
Council relaxed church rules in ways that weakened central authority, made concessions
to individual styles of worship, even said that people of different religions could go
to heaven. What good is heaven if it's gonna be full of Protestants? It's just gonna
be like Minnesota. So here in the last episode of Crash Course
World History, in the last thirty seconds, I have offended, uh, 5/6ths of the world's
population in the form of non-Catholics and, uh, all Republicans, and probably some political
moderates. Who are confused about what Obama's healthcare law will and will not do. Stan,
maybe I should just make this episode just an extended rant where I reveal all of my
political biases. And also my personal biases. Look, you're never gonna meet a historian
who doesn't have biases. But good historians try to acknowledge their biases and I am biased
toward Canada and its awesome healthcare system. I can't lie. I'm very jealous of you guys. But perhaps the greatest effect of the victory
of individualism was on sex and the family. We haven't talked much about sex because
my brother's teaching Biology, which is basically just sex, but sex is pretty important
historically because it's how we keep happening. But, in the 20th century, greater variety
and availability of contraception made it possible for people to experiment with multiple
sexual partners and helped to uncouple sex from child bearing, which was awesome, but
individualism also had a destabilizing effect on families. As the great Leo Tolstoy put it, all happy
families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. But when your individual
fulfillment trumps all, you needn't live amid your uniquely unhappy family, you can
just leave! So, divorce rates have skyrocketed in the past few decades, and not just in the
US. By the turn of the 21st century, divorce rates in China reached nearly 25%, with 70%
of those divorces initiated by women. Technology has also driven families apart,
as parents and children spend increasing time alone in front of their individual screens,
sharing fewer experiences. That's individualism, too, but not of a kind that we usually celebrate. But probably the biggest consequence of globalization
and the ensuing rise in human population has been humanity's effect on the environment.
While populations have increased partly thanks to better yields from existing farmland, much
more land has also been brought under cultivation in the past half-century. Often this meant
cutting down trees in valuable rainforests– the best known example of this is what's
going on in the Amazon, but it happens worldwide. And we're losing land not just for food, but
also to grow the global economy. Oh, it's time for the open letter? An Open Letter to Flowers. But first, let's
see what's in the secret compartment today. Oh, it's fake flowers. Thank you, Stan.
One for behind each ear. Dear Flowers, You capture the best and the
worst of the globalized economy. You're so pretty. Even the fake ones are pretty.
But the real one are constantly dying. They've got to be harvested, and shipped, and cut
very efficiently. And it's a global phenomenon. Like there are flowers in my corner market
from Africa. These are from China, but because they are plastic, they could just be shipped
in a shipping container. More people can afford to apologize by giving
their romantic partners professionally cut and arranged roses than in any time in human
history, but in that we have lost something, which is that the whole idea of flowers is
that you had to go out into the field and, like, cut them and arrange them yourself to
apologize. It's not supposed to be, "I'm sorry I forgot your birthday. Here's $8
worth of work that was done in Kenya." It's supposed to be, "I'm sorry I forgot your
birthday, so I went into the frakking forest and got you some frakking flowers." Anyway, flowers, Best wishes, John Green Aww… you guys got me flowers for my last
episode of World History. Okay, let's go to the Thought Bubble. As worldwide production and consumption increases,
we use more resources, especially water and fossil fuels. Globalization has made the average
human richer, and rich people tend to use more of everything but especially energy.
This has already resulted in climate change, which will likely accelerate. The global economy isn't a zero-sum game.
Like, I don't need to become more poor in order for someone else to become more rich.
But growth, at least so far, has been dependent upon unsustainable use of the planet's resources.
The planet can't sustain seven billion automobiles, for instance, or seven billion frequent flyers,
although most of us who can afford to drive or fly feel entitled to do so. You'll remember that when we talked about
the Industrial Revolution, we discussed the virtuous cycle of more efficiency making things
cheaper, which in turn made them easier to buy, which increased demand, which increased
efficiency. But from the perspective of the planet, each turn in that cycle takes something:
More land under cultivation, more carbon emissions, more resource extraction. That can't go
on forever, but worryingly, our current models of economic growth don't allow for any other
way. Thanks, Thought Bubble. And then there is our astonishingly robust
health. Although much of the world has been ravaged by HIV/AIDS for the past three decades,
there's been a relative lack of global pandemics since the 1918 flu. And that's particularly
surprising given increased population density and more travel between population centers.
China has seen 150 million people leave the countryside for cities in the last 20 years.
This was Shanghai in 1990; and this is Shanghai in 2010. The population of Lagos was 41,000
in 1900; today, it's almost 8 million. Of course, people have been moving from country
to city for a long time; remember Gilgamesh? But the pace of that change has dramatically
accelerated. Similarly, there's nothing new about international
trade, but its pace has also increased dramatically: In 1960, trade accounted for 24% of the world's
GDP; today, it's more than double that. Almost no human being alive today lives with
stuff only manufactured in their home country, but a thousand years ago, only the richest
of the rich could benefit from the Silk Road. Still, trade isn't new. And while it's
tempting to say that the types of goods being traded-– pharmaceuticals, computers, software,
financial services– represent something wholly new, you could just as easily see this as
part of the evolution of trade itself. At some point silk was seen as a new trade good.
As tastes change and consumers become more affluent, the things that they want to buy
change. So is anything really different, or is it
all just accelerated? Well, some historians argue that an economically interdependent
world is much less likely to go to war. And that may be true, but increasing global, cultural,
and economic integration hasn't led to an end to violence. I mean, we've seen large
scale ethnic and nationalistic violence from Rwanda to the former Yugoslavia to the Democratic
Republic of Congo to Afghanistan. Globalization has not rid the world of violence. But there is an ideological shift in the age
of globalization that does seem pretty new, and that's the turn to democracy. Now this
isn't the limited democracy of the ancient Greeks, or the quirky republican system originally
developed in the U.S.; there are almost as many kinds of democracies as there are nations
experiencing democracy. The fact is, however, that democracy and political
freedom, especially the freedom to participate in and influence the government, have been
on the rise all over the world since the 1980s and especially since 1990. For instance, if
you looked at the governments of most Latin American countries during most of the 20th
centuries, you would usually find them ruled by military strongmen. Now, with a couple
of exceptions (Fidel, Hugo)… Stan, are they behind me right now? Because if they're
behind me, I am in favor of collectivizing oil revenue and distributing it to the poor.
If they're not behind me, that's a terrible idea. Right, but anyway, democracy is now
flourishing in most of Latin America. Probably the most famous democratic success
story is South Africa, which jettisoned decades of Apartheid in the 1990s and elected former
dissident Nelson Mandela as its first black president in 1994. It also adopted one of
the most progressive constitutions in the world. But it's worth remembering that democracy
and economic success don't always go hand in hand, as much as some Americans wish they
would. Many new African democracies continue to struggle, the same is true in some Latin
American countries, and China has shown that you don't need democracy in order to experience
economic growth. But for a few countries, especially Brazil and India, the combination
of democracy and economic liberalism has unleashed impressive growth that has lifted millions
out of poverty. So can we say that it's good, then? Can we
celebrate globalization, in spite of its destabilizing effects on families and the environment? Well,
here's where we have to imagine the future, because if some superbug shows up tomorrow
and it travels through all these global trade routes and kills every living human, then
globalization will have been very bad for human history: specifically, by ending it.
If climate change continues to accelerate and displaces billions of people and causes
widespread famines and flooding, then we will remember this period of human history as short-sighted,
self-indulgent, and tremendously destructive. On the other hand, if we discover an asteroid
hurdling toward earth and mobilize global industry and technology in such a way that
we lose Bruce Willis but save the world, then globalization will be celebrated for millennia.
I mean, assuming we have millennia and can convince Bruce Willis to go. In short, to understand the present, we have
to imagine the future. That's the thing about history, it depends on where you're standing.
From where I'm standing, globalization has been a net positive, but then again, it's
been a pretty good run for heterosexual males of European descent. Critics of globalization
point out that billions haven't benefited much if at all from all this economic prosperity,
and that the polarization of wealth is growing both within and across nations. And those
criticisms are valid and they are troubling, but they aren't new. Disparities between
those who have more and those who have less have existed pretty much from the moment agriculture
enabled us to accumulate a surplus. At some times this inequality has been a big concern,
as it was with Jesus and Muhammad, at other times not so much. Inequalities are as old
as human history, and almost as old is the debate about them. One thing that is new,
however, is our ability to learn about them, to discuss them, and hopefully to find solutions
for them together as a global community that is better integrated and more connected than
it has ever been before. Because here's the other thing about history:
you are making it. That old idea that history is the deeds of great men? That was wrong.
Celebrated individuals do shape history, but so do the rest of us. And while it's true
that many historical forces– malaria, meteors from space– aren't human, it's also true
that every human is a historical force. You are changing the world every day. And it is
our hope that by looking at the history that was made before us, we can see our own crucial
decisions in a broader context. And I believe that context can help us make better choices,
and better changes. Thanks for watching. But, there's no need
to despair, Crash Course fans, I'll see you next week for the beginning of our mini
series on literature. Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan
Muller. Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. The associate producer is Danica Johnson.
graphics team is Thought Bubble. Last week's phrase of the week was "Cookie
Monster". This week's phrase of the week was "Bruce Willis," which I am telling you because
we are retiring the idea of the phrase of the week. Thank you so much for watching Crash Course:
World History. It has been super fun to try to tell the history of the world in 42 twelve-minute
videos. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you'll hang around for literature. Thanks for watching, and as
we say in my hometown, Don't Forget To Be Awesome.