Global History: Late Imperialism to WW2 Flashcards

This set covers vocabulary terms from lecture notes spanning Late Imperialism (1880-1916), WWI and its aftermath (1914-1924), and the Interwar and WWII period (1920-1945).

Planetary Consciousness

• Lecture: This concept was introduced using the Octopus mascot to represent a "flexibility of methods" and a departure from human-centric thinking. It suggests that human intelligence is just one part of a larger, interconnected Earth system.

• Reading: In the Mbembe reading, the author argues that we must move toward a planetary awareness that prioritizes le vivant (the living), where global crises like climate change or pandemics are treated as biological realities rather than just political border disputes.

• Theme: Environmentalism — it repositions humans as one member of a larger, global biotic community.

Otium

• Lecture: Relates to the practice of "fruitful leisure" or intentional silence, exemplified by Justin McDaniel’s class at Penn where students are required to disconnect from all technology for 12 hours to cultivate deep focus.

• Reading: This connects to Habermas and his theory of the Public Sphere. Habermas suggests that for a public sphere to function, private individuals must first have the mental space (Otium) to reflect and form rational opinions before entering into debate.

• Theme: Human Rights — specifically the right to intellectual autonomy and freedom from the constant "hypnosis" of mass media.

Land Ethic

• Lecture: Based on Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and his realization of the "green fire" in the wolf's eyes, signaling that nature has an intrinsic value beyond human use.

• Reading: Guha cites this as a foundational idea for environmentalism, arguing that humans must stop acting as "conquerors" of the land and instead become "plain members and citizens" of the ecological community.

• Theme: Environmentalism — shifting from a view of nature as property to a view of nature as a community.

Cultural Relativism

• Lecture: Discussed in terms of how different societies, such as those following Sharia Law, have their own internal logic for justice and rights that may not align with Western views.

• Reading: Donnelly explores this concept by questioning if human rights are truly universal or if they are "relative" to the specific traditions and cultural histories of different regions.

• Theme: Human Rights — the debate over whether rights should be a single global standard or adapted to local cultures.

Universal Human Right

• Lecture: Exemplified by the 80% global consensus that now exists against practices like Slavery and Human Trafficking, showing that certain values have become globally accepted.

• Reading: Donnelly argues that there is a "universal" core of rights that serves as a necessary check against state cruelty, regardless of a country’s specific cultural background.

• Theme: Human Rights — the creation of a global moral minimum to protect individual dignity.

Global Imaginary

• Lecture: Contrasted Aboriginal Dreamtime (spiritual connection to space) with European secular mapping. It is the mental map people use to understand their place in the world.

• Reading: Steger defines this as a "deeply seated sense of connectivity" that makes people start to see themselves as part of a global whole rather than just a local tribe or nation.

• Theme: Globalization — the psychological and mental dimension of how the world becomes interconnected.

Disembodied Globalization

• Lecture: Relates to the spread of ideas through AI, social media, and viral content where influence moves without the physical movement of people.

• Reading: Steger identifies this as the movement of "immaterial" things—images, words, and data—across the planet at high speed, making it the most "accelerated" form of globalization.

• Theme: Globalization — the rapid expansion of informational and digital regimes across borders.

Scrambles

• Lecture: Specifically refers to the Berlin Conference of 1884, where European leaders literally used a paper map to "scramble" for and divide the continent of Africa among themselves.

• Reading: Lenin argues in Imperialism that this was the inevitable result of "Monopoly Capitalism," where empires were forced to seize new territories to find raw materials and new markets to exploit.

• Theme: Globalization — the violent, militarized expansion of European economic systems across the globe.

Standardization

• Lecture: Visible in the "McDonaldization" of cities, such as Glocalization where malls in Dubai or Shanghai are designed to look and function exactly like those in the United States.

• Reading: Steger discusses how the standardization of tools, languages (English), and legal codes was essential for the "acceleration" of global trade and industrial efficiency.

• Theme: Globalization — the economic pressure to make the world’s systems uniform and predictable.

Cultural Genocide

• Lecture: The primary example is the Sherman Indian School in Riverside, where the policy of "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" was used to systematically erase Indigenous culture through education.

• Reading: Guha notes how imperial "scientific" policies were used to destroy the spirit and traditions of local people to make them more manageable for the state.

• Theme: Human Rights — the total violation of a group's right to their own language, history, and spiritual identity.

Ecocide

• Lecture: Represented by the state-sponsored slaughter of the American Buffalo (Bison), which was done specifically to destroy the food source and culture of Indigenous tribes on the frontier.

• Reading: Guha describes this as the use of environmental destruction as a military strategy to force "rebellious" populations into submission and reservation life.

• Theme: Environmentalism — the use of nature as a target and a casualty of political and imperial warfare.

Cultural Hegemony

• Lecture: Seen in US "Big Stick" Diplomacy in the Philippines, where American educational and political systems were imposed as the "superior" standard for the local population.

• Reading: Steger explains this as the process where one dominant culture’s "imaginary" (values/tastes) becomes the global standard, making other cultures feel "backwards."

• Theme: Globalization — the mental and cultural dominance that accompanies political and economic power.

Monroe Doctrine

• Lecture: Used by Teddy Roosevelt to justify the building of the Panama Canal and to warn European powers that the Western Hemisphere was a private American "sphere of influence."

• Reading: Lenin identifies this as a hallmark of the "Monopoly" stage of capitalism, where powerful nations carve out exclusive zones for resource extraction.

• Theme: Globalization — the division of the world into competing imperial and economic territories.

Glocalization

• Lecture: Exemplified by Raicho Hiratsuka, a Japanese feminist who took Western "Human Rights" concepts and adapted them to fit Japanese social and familial structures.

• Reading: Steger defines this as the way local actors "tune" or adapt global ideas to make them work within their own specific cultural context.

• Theme: Globalization — the active role of local cultures in reshaping global influences.

Normal School

• Lecture: State-run teacher training schools in the Colonial Philippines that were used to ensure all teachers taught the same "standardized" imperial curriculum.

• Reading: Habermas views these as tools used by the state to control the Public Sphere from the top down, ensuring that the next generation’s "imaginary" was shaped by the government.

• Theme: Human Rights — the state’s attempt to monopolize education and control the freedom of thought.

Pan-Islam

• Lecture: Discussed as a "global imaginary" that sought to unite the Muslim world against Western colonial encroachment, moving beyond individual nation-states.

• Reading: This relates to Steger’s idea of competing imaginaries, where a religious identity serves as a "spiny point" of resistance against Western standardization.

• Theme: Globalization — the use of transnational religious identity to challenge imperial power.

Civilizing Mission

• Lecture: The ideological justification for imperialism (e.g., the "White Man's Burden"), claiming that Europeans had a duty to "uplift" and "modernize" colonized peoples.

• Reading: Guha shows how this mission often resulted in the destruction of local land ethics and the imposition of European industrial systems.

• Theme: Human Rights — the irony of using "rights" and "civilization" as a justification for the removal of autonomy.

Total War

• Lecture: Highlighted by the role of women in munitions factories during WWI, where the line between the "soldier" and the "civilian" disappeared as the entire society was mobilized.

• Reading: McNeill describes this as the "militarization" of all resources—industrial, biological, and environmental—to feed the state’s massive war machine.

• Theme: Globalization — the expansion of industrial conflict to a planetary scale that affects every citizen.

Western Front

• Lecture: Characterized by the Battle of Verdun and trench warfare, where millions died in a machine-driven stalemate of mud, gas, and heavy artillery.

• Reading: Roberts argues that the horror of the Western Front destroyed the 19th-century belief in "Western Progress" and European moral superiority.

• Theme: Globalization — the catastrophic failure of European "Standardization" and industrial power during the Great War.

Armenian Genocide

• Lecture: Documented through the work of the American Committee for Relief in the Near East, which marked the first major global humanitarian aid response.

• Reading: McNeill analyzes this as a consequence of the "Nationalist" desire to create a standardized, purified state by eliminating a minority group that didn't "fit."

• Theme: Human Rights — the mass violation of the right to life and bodily autonomy in the pursuit of national uniformity.

Gavrilo Princeps

• Lecture: The young man who performed the Assassination in Sarajevo in June 1914, which served as the "spark" for the First World War.

• Reading: Roberts uses this to demonstrate how a single "Spiny Point" (an individual local act) can trigger a planetary explosion due to interconnected global alliances.

• Theme: Globalization — how local events in an interconnected world can have immediate, global consequences.

War Nurses & Widows

• Lecture: Millions of women served as nurses or became widows, forced to enter the workforce and the public sphere as men were killed on the Western Front.

• Reading: This connects to Habermas and the transformation of the Public Sphere, as women demanded political inclusion after proving their necessity to the state.

• Theme: Human Rights — the shift in gender roles and the expansion of the right to public participation.

Westphalian System

• Lecture: The traditional global order based on the absolute sovereignty of nation-states over their own territory and people.

• Reading: Steger and Donnelly argue that this system began to crack as "Universal Human Rights" began to supersede the state’s right to do whatever it wanted to its citizens.

• Theme: Globalization — the tension between state borders and global human standards.

Ataturk

• Lecture: The leader who modernized Turkey by force, replacing Islamic law with Western legal codes and the Latin alphabet.

• Reading: An example of Standardization and Glocalization; Ataturk "tuned" Western nationalism to create a new Turkish state.

• Theme: Globalization — the forceful adoption of Western "modernity" in the Middle East.

Territorial Sovereignty

• Definition: The principle that a state has absolute authority within its physical borders.

• Lecture/Reading: The creation of Iraq/Syria borders. Lenin argues this allows monopolies to control specific resource zones.

• Theme: Globalization — the legal framework of the nation-state.

Mandates

• Lecture: Used to create the British Mandate in Iraq after WWI, allowing Britain to legally control Middle Eastern oil under the guise of "tutoring" a new nation.

• Reading: Lenin and Gelvin view the mandate system as "Imperialism with a New Face," where the goal remained resource extraction despite the rhetoric of helping nations develop.

• Theme: Environmentalism — the global race to secure fossil fuel energy regimes (oil) for industrial power.

Political Globalization

• Definition: The intensification and expansion of political interrelations across the globe.

• Lecture/Reading: The creation of the League of Nations. Steger defines this as the spread of political systems beyond the nation-state.

• Theme: Globalization — the creation of international governance.

Satyagraha

• Lecture: Gandhi's strategy of non-violent resistance, most famously shown during the Salt March to challenge the British government’s monopoly on a basic human necessity.

• Reading: In his newspaper "Young India," Gandhi defines this as "Soul Force," arguing that it is more powerful than any weapon because it seeks to convert the opponent through "Truth."

• Theme: Human Rights — a militant, non-violent model for challenging state oppression and securing decolonization.

Hind Swaraj

• Definition: "Indian Home Rule"—Gandhi’s book arguing that true independence isn't just kicking the British out, but rejecting Western industrial "civilization."

• Lecture: Gandhi’s critique of the "Machine Age" and his promotion of the spinning wheel.

• Reading: Gandhi argues that Western modernity is a "disease" and that India must return to a simpler, moral land ethic.

• Theme: Environmentalism — the rejection of fossil-fuel-driven industrialism in favor of local, somatic life.

Bolshevik

• Lecture: The revolutionary party led by Lenin that seized power during the 1917 Russian Revolution, creating the world’s first communist state.

• Reading: Lenin argues for a "Vanguard Party" composed of professional revolutionaries who must lead the masses and force a total transformation of the global political order.

• Theme: Globalization — the start of a planetary ideological conflict between capitalism and communism.

Monopoly

• Definition: When a single company or state has total control over a specific resource or market, eliminating competition.

• Lecture: The British monopoly on Salt in India or the Edison Trust in film.

• Reading: Lenin argues that "Monopoly Capitalism" is the final stage of capitalism that leads directly to war and imperialism.

• Theme: Globalization — the economic drive toward total control of global resources.laced by imperial division. Theme: Globalization.

Comintern

• Lecture: An international communist organization that supported anti-colonial groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Ho Chi Minh’s movement to undermine Western empires.

• Reading: Steger identifies this as the first attempt at Political Globalization, creating a trans-national network to spread a single "Global Imaginary."

• Theme: Globalization — the creation of global networks to challenge the dominance of imperial states.

Energy Regime

• Lecture: The shift from the Somatic era (human/animal power) to the Paleotechnic era (coal/steam), which decided the outcome of the US Civil War.

• Reading: Lewis Mumford argues that the type of fuel a society uses—whether wood, coal, or oil—determines its political structure, its freedom, and its relationship to the earth.

• Theme: Environmentalism — the way energy extraction and consumption dictate the limits of human society.

Paleotechnic

• Definition: The era of "Black Earth" and "Coal," where steam and iron replaced muscle and wood.

• Lecture: Discussed as the "machine era" that led to Total War and environmental degradation.

• Reading: Mumford identifies this as the period where human life became "standardized" and dictated by the rhythm of the machine.

• Theme: Environmentalism — the first major human-caused shift in the planet's energy cycle.

Fordson

• Lecture: The mass-produced tractor by Henry Ford, which brought industrial "Standardization" to the farm and revolutionized global food production.

• Reading: An example of the "Great Acceleration" mentioned by McNeill, where industrial machines replaced somatic animal labor on a planetary scale.

• Theme: Environmentalism — the industrialization of nature and the move toward fossil-fuel-dependent agriculture.

Mussolini

• Lecture: The founder of Fascism in Italy, who used mass media to create a cult of personality and a "Totalitarian" state.

• Reading: Connects to Habermas and the destruction of the Public Sphere; Mussolini replaced debate with state propaganda and the "Aestheticization of Politics."

• Theme: Human Rights — the total subordination of individual rights to the state.

Gulag

• Lecture: The system of forced labor camps used during Stalin’s 5-Year Plans to build the mines, railroads, and factories of the Soviet Union at the cost of millions of lives.

• Reading: Mumford defines this as the ultimate expression of "Carboniferous Capitalism," where human beings are treated as "fuel" and "spare parts" for the state’s industrial machine.

• Theme: Human Rights — the extreme violation of bodily rights in the service of rapid, state-led industrialization.

“Modern Times”

• Lecture: The Charlie Chaplin film that satirized the "Paleotechnic" era, showing a worker literally being eaten by the gears of a giant machine.

• Reading: Relates to Walter Benjamin's ideas on film and Mumford’s critique of the machine; it shows the loss of human "Aura" in an industrial world.

• Theme: Globalization — a global media critique of the standardized, industrial lifestyle.

Propaganda (Agit-prop)

• Definition: "Agitation Propaganda"—media designed to provoke an emotional response and mobilize the masses for a political cause.

• Lecture: The Soviet use of posters, trains, and film to spread the Bolshevik "imaginary" to the illiterate masses.

• Reading: O'Connor and Habermas view this as the weaponization of information to destroy independent public debate.

• Theme: Globalization — the use of media to spread a single, global political ideology.

Public Sphere

• Lecture: Historically linked to Ottoman Coffeehouses, where people from different walks of life gathered to talk, drink coffee, and debate politics outside of state control.

• Reading: Habermas defines this as a realm of social life where "Private people assemble to form Public opinion" through rational and free debate.

• Theme: Human Rights — the right of citizens to participate in the political life of their society through free speech and assembly.

Psychological Warfare

• Lecture: Exemplified by Iva Toguri (Tokyo Rose), who used radio broadcasts to attack the morale of American troops by making them feel homesick or defeated.

• Reading: O'Connor describes this as the use of "Information Regimes" (Radio) to target the enemy’s mind and emotions rather than their physical body.

• Theme: Globalization — the expansion of war into a planetary "disembodied" space through media and propaganda.

Triumph of the Will (1934)

• Lecture: The 1935 Nazi propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl, which used innovative camera techniques to make Hitler appear like a god-like figure to the German masses.

• Reading: Benjamin uses this as an example of the "Aestheticization of Politics," where media is used to create a "fake aura" around a leader to distract and control the public.

• Theme: Globalization — the use of mass media and film technology to create powerful, dangerous global imaginaries.

Iva Toguri

• Lecture: A UCLA graduate (known as Tokyo Rose) who was forced to broadcast propaganda for Japan during WWII.

• Reading: O'Connor uses her as an example of White Propaganda—where the source is known, but the message is designed to manipulate the "Planetary Mind."

• Theme: Globalization — the use of global media figures to influence the outcome of Total War.

Nuremberg Laws

• Lecture: The 1935 Nazi laws that stripped Jews of their citizenship and "standardized" racism into the legal code of the state.

• Reading: Donnelly would view this as the total rejection of Universal Human Rights in favor of a racist, state-defined imaginary.

• Theme: Human Rights — the use of the law to systematically remove the rights and dignity of a minority group.

Lebensraum

• Definition: "Living Space"—the Nazi "Global Imaginary" that argued Germany needed to expand East and displace "inferior" peoples to survive.

• Lecture: The driver for the invasion of Poland and the Soviet Union, turning WWII into a war of extermination for land.

• Reading: Lenin’s theory of "Scrambles" for territory updated into a racial, genocidal "Ecocide" of the East.

• Theme: Environmentalism — the belief that a nation’s survival depends on the violent seizure of biological "space."

Atlantic Charter

• Lecture: The 1941 agreement between FDR and Churchill that set the "Planetary" goals for the post-war world, including self-determination and the end of empires.

• Reading: Steger views this as the blueprint for Political Globalization and the creation of the United Nations.

• Theme: Human Rights — the declaration that all people have a right to choose their own government.

Holocaust

• Lecture: The industrial mass murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others, using the "Standardization" and "Machine" logic of the factory for human killing.

• Reading: McNeill and Mumford might see this as the darkest peak of the "Machine Age," where humans are treated as industrial waste.

• Theme: Human Rights — the ultimate "watershed" moment that forced the world to create Universal Human Rights.

Guernica

• Lecture: The Spanish town that was carpet-bombed by the Nazis in 1937, and the Picasso painting that turned this local "Ecocide" into a global symbol of the horror of Total War.

• Reading: Benjamin would argue the painting has an "Aura" that captures the truth of suffering in a way a propaganda film cannot.

• Theme: Globalization – how a local event of violence becomes a global symbol of the struggle for human rights.