Assignment: World Civilizations, 1453-1914
Provide answers to each of the following questions. Answers should be based upon your reading of the textbook (Chapters 23 and 25), Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton (Introduction and Chapter 2), and selections from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.Complete sentences are not necessary, but if you choose to use a bulleted outline format for your answers, be sure to be as specific as possible and reference/cite the source or document. Each question is worth 1 point for a total of 5 points. (this translates to 5% of your total course grade)
1. Most historians argue that the modern nation-state has its origins in the French Revolution. Based on your reading of the textbook (Chapter 23), why do you think this is true?
2. How did states nation-build in the nineteenth century? Support your answer using two examples from this list of five: Russia, the United States, Italy, Germany, or Japan.
3. What does Sven Beckert mean by the term war capitalism?
4. In the modern period, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels believe that society has been divided into two "hostile camps." They are
5. According to Marx and Engels, how is it that the bourgeoisie "produces...its own grave diggers?"
a. Because the bourgeoisie created industry, which in turn created a need for wage labor, and the sheer number of wage laborers whose interest is opposed to the bourgeoisie will eventually overwhelm and destroy them.
b. Because in their voracious appetite for profit, the bourgeoisie creates crises in industry, which in turn worsens the condition of the proletariat who are politicized in the process and eventually convinced that they must pursue revolutionary upheaval.
c. Because the bourgeoisie so brutally oppresses the proletariat that over time the proletariat realize their class plight (or "consciousness") and rise up against their bourgeoisie oppressors.
d. Because the bourgeoisie politicized the proletariat by using them against the aristocracy in their own quest for power and thus ignited in the proletariat a revolutionary fervor.
What does Fichte mean when he speaks of the unity that exists between Germans and how does the idea of race play a role in that unity?