(SYL153)
SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
SPRING 2007 – 2008
HISTORY 153 [SECTIONS 04 & 10] MATAMBANADZO
20th Century World 212N Spotts WC Bldg.
Exts: Instructor -2411
Room 206 SWC Bldg. Department: 2053
SECTION 04, DAYS and PERIOD: MWF, 12:00 - 12:50 p.m.
SECTION 10, DAYS and PERIOD: T, 5:00 - 7:30 P.M.
Office Hours: MWF, 11:00-11:50
TR, 11:00-12:15
R, 2:00- 3:00
[AND BY APPOINTMENT]
Statement of purpose and Content of the Course:
History is not merely something to be read. And it
Does not refer merely, or even principally, to the
Past. On the contrary, the great force of history
Comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are
Unconsciously controlled by it in many ways and
History is literally present in all that we do.
James Baldwin, Selected Writings, 722-723
[Modern Western] Europe is literally the creation of
the Third World.
Frantz Fanon,
The Wretched of the Earth.
Racism is an expression of permanent social war.
Michael Foucault,
Paraphrased in Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery:
From the Baroque to the Modern 1492-1800.
Although the earthly ideal of Socialism-Communism
has collapsed, the problems it purported to solve
remain: the brazen use of social advantage and the
inordinate power of money, which often direct the
very course of events. And if the global lesson
of the twentieth century does not serve as a
healing inoculation, then the vast red whirlwind
may repeat itself in entirety.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in New York
Times, 28 November 1993.
We shall neither die out, nor be driven
Out, but shall go with this people,
Either as a testimony against them, or
As an evidence in their favor throughout
Their generations.
Frederick Douglass,
Quoted in There is a River, by Vincent Harding.
I still think today as yesterday that the color line
is the problem of this century. But today I see more
clearly than yesterday that back of the problem of
race and color, lies a greater problem which both
obscures and implements it: and that is the fact that
so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort
even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance and
disease of the majority of their fellow men; that to
maintain this privilege men have waged war until today
war tends to become universal and continuous, and the
excuse for this war continues largely to be color and
race.
-W.E.B.DuBois
The Souls of Black Folk, "Fifty Years After", 1952.
[He/She] Who controls the past controls the future...
[he/she] who controls the present controls the past.
-George Orwell, 1984
"...I must confess that I am not afraid of the word
tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against
violent tension, but there is the type of constructive
nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just
as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a
tension in the mind so that the individual could
rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to
the unfettered realm of creative analysis and
objective appraisal, we must see the need of having
nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in
society that will help [people] to rise from the dark
depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights
of understanding and brotherhood.
Martin Luther King, Jr.,
“Letter from Birmingham City Jail”,
James M. Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings
Of Martin Luther King Jr.,
Our history has neither fitted us for nor warned
us of the international role that now we play. In
this restricted, if important sense, our history
is a burden to us and irrelevant to the future of
others.
Carl N. Degler,
“The American Past: An Unsuspected Obstacle in Foreign
Affairs,” The American Scholar, Spring 1963.
The seven excerpts quoted above capture and summarize both the
historical vastness of the twentieth century world and the
complexities and problems one is sure to encounter in studying
it. Our task is even made more difficult by the dramatic events
which have just occurred in the past ten years and have almost
succeeded in distracting our focus from the global relationship
of longer duration and more painful experiences. Many are also
lost in the celebration of the dawn of a new century as the
twentieth century reluctantly yields to the twenty-first century.
Since the 20th century did not develop in a vacuum in terms of ideologies, chronology, power, material relationships, and
technology, an attempt will be made to establish a plethora of
factors, forces and dialectics underpinning its Socio-economic-
political formations. Emphasis will be on the history of the power relationships, the social, economic, and political encounters and
the resultant material disparities which have contributed to the complexities and problems of the 20th century. The record of the
century is a mixed bag of good and evil. And if it is judged on the
basis of the plight of the vast majority of the globe it is a record
of betrayal, failure and unfulfilled promises. In the words of Eduardo Galeano, “The twentieth century…die[d] marked by despair”.
And yet we hear reassuring words about "The Triumph of the West"
and indeed the lack of any alternative system to neoliberal
democracy and the capitalistic system. The "revolutions" of 1989
are celebrated not only for ushering in the "New World Order" but
more so for marking the "End of History" and the "End of Ideology".
While there were some important ideological changes in the wake
of the 1989 "revolutions" those events did not bring us any
closer to any utopias the "End of History" and the "End of
Ideology" suggest.
As a product and a continuation of the post-Colombian world the 20th Century world is world born out of global violence unparalleled in the annals of Human history. It is a world mired in so many conflicts sustained by facile schizophrenic contradictions which justify Fukuyamian utterance of the “End of History”. The socio-economic dynamics of the 20th century have their roots and origins in the past four hundred years of the post-Colombian world. If it is characterized by the culture and politics of “defensive Monopoly Capitalism” it means that the supposedly economic system of choice does not necessarily have a universal appeal in spite of what we hear from the likes of Sergei Khrushchev, Francis Fukuyama, Boris Yeltsin, among others. The 20th Century world did not lessen the pain and the suffering the post-Colombian enterprise ushered into the modern world! Rather it intensified the pain and truly globalized it.
The 20th century world, therefore, coincided with the rise of
"Monopoly Capitalism" on a global scale which was at once on the
"offensive" and "defensive". These "offensive" and "defensive"
components of "Monopoly Capitalism" would continue the
"offensive" aspect of, what Eqbal Ahmad called, the "long war"
against the indigenous peoples of Africa, the Americas, Asia and
other lands beyond. This uninterrupted global warfare inaugurated
by the bloody adventures of Antam Goncalves and Christopher Columbus
in the 15th century C.E. has continued unabated to this very day.
The African and American carnage initiated by the exploits of Antam Goncalves and Columbus therefore were not only essential steps towards the process of the Europeanization of the world but they were also instrumental in launching globally what Eqbal Ahmad again calls "The
Ages of Unrecorded Holocausts". And these holocausts go on
uninterrupted to this very day albeit in less dramatic fashion.
The post-Colombian World leading up to the last decade of the
20th century has been largely a world of Euro-American domination through military and colonial conquests of the indigenous peoples followed by debilitating economic denationalization. This has
guaranteed the continued immiseration of what Fanon called “The
Wretched of the Earth”. The nationalistic effort of the colonized
people to extricate themselves from the grip of Euro-American
colonial and imperialistic domination has been the leitmotif of the revolutions and military struggles going on in Africa, Asia, Latin American land masses, the Caribbean region and so forth. Such is the political cauldron of the 20th century world and what passes for a conundrum of our times.
Therefore, the western euphoria over the supposed consequences
of the “1989 revolutions”, as exhibited by George H.W. Bush,
Margaret Thatcher, or even a Francis Fukuyama, is rooted in
self-deception. These “revolutions” did not, for all humanity, spell
the triumphant passing of an era. It never was the aim of these "revolutions" to ease the pain of the vast majority of the world. Nor was the economic hemorrhaging in Yeltsin’s Russia, the interminable bloodshed in dismembered Yugoslavia and especially the latest NATO-inspired destabilizing activities and the ethnic-cleansing in Kosovo, give any former Stalinist states, let alone Third World peoples, any reason to cheer.
The all too familiar Old World Order, with its murderous and
impoverishing colonial, imperialistic, and neocolonial
relationships, endures under George W. Bush despite Bush I's claims of the rise of "New World Order". The familiar Old World Order survived the first post-Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II presidential elections up to 2004. Expect the cold realities of the "Old World Order" to survive the Presidential and Congressional elections in the United States of the year 2008 and beyond.
As the recent alleged nuclear bomb “threats” from Iran and North Korea attest, the “old arms race” is alive and well in the new millennia. This arms race is not only rooted in the irrepressible forces of modern
nationalism but it is uniquely 20th Century in its characteristics. It
is nuclear in nature, omnicidal in impact, and a curse for the modern age.
If the collapse of the Stalinist regimes ushered in a "Brave New
World Order" many are still waiting for the manna to fall from the skies! For the world which succeeded the old bi-polar era is truly neither a "brave" nor does it offer for the vast majority of the
Planet earth anything particularly “new”. It reflects some of its classical repressive and oppressive institutions and instrumentalities. Militarily it is mono-polar but diverse culturally and nationally. As the broadened North-South tensions intensify and remain unresolved the west is absorbing through E.U. what was ideologically and geographically eastern Europe. Shall the proposed “Baltic-Atlantic Treaty Organization” replace NATO or should the two co-exist? Meanwhile the IMF and its sister institutions are running amok sowing in their wake the seeds of grinding poverty, hyper-inflation and scandalous unemployment situations throughout the periphery-including the former socialists nations. In the Commonwealth of Independent States “Neoliberalism” has left in its trail economies ruined beyond belief, social, cultural and political dislocation only neocolonialism can generate and a citizenry increasingly bewildered, confused, suicidal and drowned in incidences of alcoholism unknown even in the last days of Stalinism.
As of December 2007, the United Nations had 192 member nations. This figure excludes some entities which do not have nation-state status. The Vatican and Taiwan are some of the excluded protectorates. According to the Foreign Affairs Quarterly global studies and classification the world’s 177 nations fall into FOUR categories according to the 2007 Failed States Index. The categories are (i) those on “Alert”; (ii) those on a “Warning” status; (ii) those on the moderate level and (iv) those which enjoy a “sustainable” status. In its “Failed States Index 2007” the Quarterly states that:
“A state that is failing has several attributes. One of the
most common is the loss of physical control of its
territory or a monompoly on the legitimate use of force.
Other attributes of state failure include the erosion of
Legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an
Inability to interact with other states as a full member
Of the international community. The 12 indicators cover
A wide range of elements of the risk of the state failure,
such as extensive corruption and criminal behavior, inability
to collect taxes or otherwise draw on citizen support, large
-scale involuntary dislocation of the population, sharp
economic decline, group-based inequality, institutionalized
persecution or discrimination, severe demographic pressures,
brain drain etc.”
What should be researched is the history behind the history of the contemporary Failed States Index. The Failed States are where they are for a variety of historical reasons including those aspects and characteristics shaped by various phases, events, and personalities. How did the phases of the modern world contribute to this failed states status? How did these realities survive decolonization and the collapse of the “Evil Empire”?
The “Post-Communistic” regions as well as the rest of the post-Colombian world are nowhere near the security and the prosperity promised as a result of the dismantling of the "evil empire". The annual Group-8 summit met amid pomp and circumstance in Heiligendamm, Germany, on June 6-8, 2007, but the meeting was a farce which largely ignored or overlooked the intractable social, political, capitalistic problems and the tensions of the modern world. This summit met literally under the “mushroom” clouds of NATO and USA air raids and strikes in Afghanistan and Iraq. The press and anti-summit demonstrators raised the issue of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Middle East but nothing was done about it or said about USA proxy-occupation of Haiti apart from Iraq and Afghanistan. And the summit’s lame and passive response to the explosions not only underscores the inherent hypocrisy of the powerful and their self-serving powerlessness to rein in the jinnee of modern nationalism. And while the powerful are sticking their heads in the sand, other major problems of the 20th century world fester on unsolved.
It is distressful to note that the nuclear debates are still concerned with selective arms reductions as opposed to TOTAL disarmament. More distressful has been the reluctance of the North to respond to the modest supplications of the South at the UNCTAD negotiations. This means
the economic global status quo with all its proven and predictable social ills will go on unchecked. And as the global south is burning and its fires threaten the supposedly secure North the powerful in the North are literally and figuratively playing their fiddles. The collapse of the stalinist empire did nothing to ameliorate the troubled relationship between the North and the South. The oldest of all modern wars, the organized ruthless wars by the "rich" and the powerful North against the divided and defenseless poor South continue uninterrupted. The coldest of the cold wars and the hottest of the hot wars go unchecked against “The Wretched of the Earth”. The latest UN Reports confirm the deepening crisis among the wretched of the earth.
As Rabelais observed a long time ago: "...one half of the world does
not know how the other half lives.” Of course in the 16th Century, the world of Rabelais, one half of the world may have not known how the other half lived. Today the rich and powerful half of the world does not only know how the other half lives it also contributes to how that other half dies and is dying. As a consequence of all that “The Wretched of the Earth” is paying dearly for the well-being of the rich and the powerful..
In today's more complexly interdependent and interrelated worlds,
the worlds which are not only diverse in their cultures, resources,
and capabilities, but more importantly profoundly unequal in their
development, the exigencies for a global vision in a global
village can hardly be exaggerated. If as Stavrianos tells us that
there is no such thing as an "American" car but a "world car" does
it not follow therefore that there is a world worker who belongs
to a supposed "global union"? The need for something more than superficial cooperation between South Africa's COSATU and the United States's UNITED MINE WORKERS' UNION needs no special pleading. NAFTA and
GATT, WTO, among many global mega conglomerates' unions, are cases
in point. The "Bretton Woods" philosophy has not only squeezed and
tried the South to the limit it has left in its wake in the North
a trail of decayed rust-belts of the US heartland and industrial
ghost towns like the British Midlands with its economically margina-lized communities amid abandoned factories. Yet one half of the world
in the early part of the twenty-first century is ignorant of not only HOW the other half lives but more seriously it is ignorant of HOW and
WHY the other half DIES and is DYING!
The 20th century world and the new millennia are today’s contemporary world dominated by the dynamics of the era of Defensive Monopoly Capitalism. All major 20th century wars and those of the new millennia, like the current wars against Iraq and Afghanistan are all wedged in “defense” of Monopoly Capitalism. So was the Cold War so was the Vietnam War. The War in Iraq is historically a continuation of the wars of the Voyages of Conquest and the 20th century wars by western powers like the invasion and occupation of Haiti, 1915-1932, or that against Argentina in 1982. The rise of NATO and the formation of European Union were all inspired, in part, by the Western need to defend “Monopoly Capitalism” of the day.
So implicit and explicit in our discourse will be an attempt to present
a global perspective of the contemporary issue and the historical
events and diversities as they affect the processes of change. The
Euro-North Americo-centric baises which informs most of western
scholarship will be challenged head-on, compared and contrasted with
competing international visions of other peoples and other worlds.
The instructor's biases will be evident and these biases will be
expressed openly so that participants will be exposed to how others
perceive the world. Besides we see nothing particularly wrong in
taking biased positions in defense of manifest universal truths.
The broad objectives of this course, therefore, are:
1. To try to make sense of the many competing global agendas and
interests.
2. To enable students to develop knowledge, skills, and affective
appreciation of the historical events in a global setting. This
should include valid generalizations on how and why certain
international behaviors, values, and attitudes are questioned and
challenged..
3. To present other views outside of the general Eurocentric and
North American biases on approach to and the teaching of local,
national, and global histories.
The study will be selective rather than sweeping. Emphasis will
be on the contemporary and its historical antecedent-for example
the historical genesis of today's monocultures and their painful
consequences today. Efforts will be made not simply to enable
students to see how others live but also to show, if possible,
their role in and connection to the life-styles of distant people
in cultures, geography, and history.
What now follows are (1) general policies for the course, (2)
required and recommended text books and other reading materials,
(3) calendar [tentative] of scheduled major examinations, and (4)
the chronology of lectures/discussions.
ALL ASSIGNMENTS OUTSIDE OF THE CLASS WHICH REQUIRE SOME WRITING
MUST BE NEATLY TYPE-WRITTEN-NO EXCEPTIONS.
STUDENTS MUST TAKE NOTE OF WHEN AND WHAT EXAMINATION(S) ARE GOING
TO TAKE PLACE AND BE PRESENT FOR ALL SCHEDULED MAJOR TESTS.
SHOULD ANYONE FEEL COMPELLED TO MISS A SCHEDULED TEST CONTACT
[WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS BEFORE or AFTER THE TEST IS ADMINISTERED] THE
INSTRUCTOR OR THE DEPARTMENT SECRETARY ABOUT YOUR SITUATION.
YOUR CHANCES OF GETTING A MAKE-UP TEST WILL LARGELY DEPEND ON THE
SOUNDNESS [IF MEDICAL REASONS HAVE THE INFIRMARY VERIFY YOUR
SITUATION] OF YOUR EXCUSE AND HOW PROMPTLY YOU INFORMED THE
INSTRUCTOR.
ATTENDANCE: a maximum of THREE cuts without excuse. After that additional absences require written excuses.
N.B.. All outside class assignments, minor or major will have to be
Typewritten/printed. All assignment have to be handed in on time. Failure to comply with these requirements will result in the loss of points.
Documentaries: Pertinent documentary will be shown and they will
be part of the tests.
Extra-curricular activities: While the classroom is the designated primary setting for your formal educational activities, education and learning, however, are on-going processes beyond the confinement of a classroom. Some extracurricular activities will be assigned in an effort to complement the class discussions and readings. These special extra-curricular activities may take place outside of the Slippery Rock
University environment or they may simply involve watching a relevant documentary on television. You will be alerted of such happenings-be on
The look out!
The Spring semester potentially offers a lot of topics ideally
suited for extra-curricular activities. From MLK’s Birthday Day through anniversaries of Gulf War I and Gulf War II to Black and Women’s History Months etc. However, other issues centered on the “Chains of Emancipation” and the “Chains of Decolonization” may give us some opportunity to analyze the problems of race relations in USA and its relationships to the global “neocolonialism”. We should examine how the current crises in Pakistan and Kenya owe their origins to neocolonialism and how the USA is involved in those crises, etc… [Other activities will be announced in due course.]
One of the first thing we will do is to try to put the annual
commemoration of the "Fourth of July" into its historical
perspective and find its meaning and significance historically
and politically at home and abroad and in the 20th century world. The year 2008 may not exactly be a replica socially, politically, and otherwise of the year 1852 in United States of [Anglo] America. But in some important ways involving social, political and economic power relationships across racial, class and gender divide, the substance of paternalism, patriarchy, racial dominance and hypocrisy evident in 1852 have not changed that much. We will use (i) Frederick Douglass’ speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July"; (ii) an article by Jack Nelson Pall-meyer, “The Brave New World Order”; (iii) the fiftieth anniversary of the Taft-Hartley Act [the “salve” labor law] and (iv) the Haymarket Affairs, the Homestead Strike and the crisis of Workers at Home and Abroad and (v) “Introduction” to To Serve the Devil or an “Adamant ‘No’” in order to gain some historical insights into some aspects of the the 20th Century World issues and problems. Note that pertinent pre-20th and 20th Century happenings and events will also constitute our point(s) of departure. Efforts will be made to establish the relevancy of these particular events and others to this class. Topics for the second homework will include but are not limited to researching the historical and global significance and 20th Century relevancy of USA invasion and occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti with the 1915 USA invasion of Haiti. The economic and military motives behind Bush’s War on Iraq..etc
Text books:
(1) Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky,
(2) M.L. Rossi, What Every AMERICAN Should Know About the Rest of THE
WORLD,
(3) John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,
READINGS: Additional reading materials, from “Assigned Readings” list, will be presented later.
COURSE OUTLINE-LECTURES/DISCUSSIONS: Some topics outlined below may
not be covered in that order or at all. Regularly scheduled lectures/
discussions may be preemted in order to discuss some relevant
breaking news events.
Scheduled Tests:* [Some initial assignments and tests may for
some understandable reasons not be credited toward your interim
or final grade. Exams may be given in two parts, viz., one in-class
and the other part may be taken at home]. All in all we will have
tentatively THREE scheduled quizzes and THREE scheduled Major examinations including the FINAL. This does not of course rule out
pop quizzes. ALL tests are to be presented in an ESSAY form.
First Homework is due, in type-written form, on January 22, 2008 or during the week of January 22, 2008.
The First Homework readings are:
(i) “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July”
(ii) “White Man’s Guilt”
(iii) “Standing on the right side of History”
(iv) “To Serve the Devil” or “An Adamant ‘No’”
Second Homework will involve three readings and a quiz in week of January 29, 2008.
The three readings are:
(i) “Like Cancer, Terrorism has its Origins”
(ii) “The Paradox of Slavery”
(iii) “A Social Glacier Roars”.
These readings for: (i) the “First Homework” readings and (ii) “Second Homework” readings and (iii) the “First Scheduled Quiz” readings can be found on my page on of SRU website of the Faculty Web pages.
This is how you can get access to the readings:
(A) First, the long way:
Start with “Internet Explorer” then it either brings you directly to the SRU Website or/and if not you come to a page where in the “address” section you enter http://www.sru.edu and click on “GO” this should bring you to the SRU Website.
On the Website you will have a list of SRU Departments and Sectors/sections.
Click on “Faculty & Staff”, this brings you to another list of faculty sub-sectors, one of which is “Faculty Department pages”.
Then click on “Faculty Department Pages”.
There appears a list of SRU faculty and their faculty Pages.
Click on “Matambanadzo, Chiseko”
This brings you to my page.
There appears the three courses I teach [including Hist. 153, 20th Century World] and “Assigned Readings”. Click on “Assigned Readings”.
This brings you to a page where you have to enter the “pass word”.
The pass word will be given in class/or call the instructor through his extension [ext. 2411]. After entering the “pass word” the computer shows a list of readings and you select and down load the assigned article/reading…and that is it.
(B) Second, the short-cut:
Enter the link: http://srufaculty.sru.edu/m.matambanadzo.htm and click on “GO”
This should bring you to my page which spells out the courses I teach and the “Assigned Readings”. [Check with the above instructions to get to the readings.]
EXAMINATIONS (Do not rule out pop quizzes):
(Scheduled)Quiz #1, is tentatively scheduled for the week of February 4, 2008. It will be based on the following readings:
(i), “Introduction” to Global Rift, pp. 31-43,
(ii) “Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold”,
(iii) Eqbal Ahmad, "The Murder of History"
(Major)Examination #1, week of 2/25/08 material to be given later.
(i) Class discussions, some of the topics to be discussed…etc.,
Historical and economic differences between First and Third
Worlds
How and why the First World became “modern” while the Third World
Has yet to fully enter and acquire the 20th Century World features
and characteristics of the First World Countries
The Four phases of the modern World and the dominant feature of
the 20th Century World
Europeanization, “Westernization” and Globalization of the Modern
World …Capitalism vs. Plantation Capitalism….
National and Peoples’ Groupings in the pre-20th Century and in the
20th century…
How the USA History and revolution contrast with that of Haiti
and how the two historically helped to define the global
relationships between The First World countries and the Third
World countries,
The “Chains of Emancipation” and the “Chains of Decolonization”
and where we are today…
(ii) readings from the text books:
(a) Rossi, p. 3-26, the History of the Middle East conflict:
(b) Perkins, p.3-54, Iran and Indonesia
Iraq, Israel, Palestine etc.
(c) Chomsky, 4-10, 37-69.
(iii) Assigned Readings:
(a) “Defining Terrorism”
(b) “Tragedy of Haiti
Scheduled Quiz #2, week of 3/17/08 mtbgl.
Major Examination #2, week of 4/07/08 mtbgl.
Scheduled Quiz #3, week of 4/21/08 mtbgl.
FINAL EXAMINATION: (i) Section 04, May 5, 2008, 2:00 – 4:00 pm.
(ii) Section 10. May 6, 2008, 6:00 – 8:00 pm..
1. A. INTRODUCTION I: (i) Philosophical approach and Ground rules, what
To expect from the course etc.
(ii) Global and national topics in the News
derived from “Democracy Now” and the “BBC”:
(a) Iraq and Afghanistan and the USA,
(b) Bush and the “Middle East”; (c) USA
and Iran and lessons from the “Tonkin
Gulf” incident; (d) Forty-ninth anniversary
of the Cuban Revolution; (e) Benazir
Bhutto and Pakistan; (f) Kenya under
Kibaki and USA.. etc.
B. 20th Century World SAINTS enshrined in Westminster Abbey on
July 9. 1998-What is truly 20th century and Eurocentric about the
significance and implications of those 20th century personalities
So honored?
C. Documentary: (i) “Hidden in Plain Sight: The School of the
Americas and the SOA Watch”; (ii) “The Fourth of July
And Frederick Douglass…” (iii) “Lumumba[Patrice]”,
(iv)“The Business of Hunger”, (v) “Slavery’s Buried
Past”, “Last Grave at Dimbaza”, “Global Africa”,
“Mahatma Gandhi” Etc. “Lynching and ‘crucifixion’ of
African Americans in the USA”
INTRODUCTION II: BACKGROUND TO PRE-20th Century World
The History of the History of the 20th Century World.
PART I THE EUROPEANIZATION, “WESTERNIZATION” AND THE
GLOBALIZATION OF THE WORLD AND THE RISE OF TODAY’S
GLOBAL RIFT through MODERN COLONIALISM AND IMPERIALISM
Characteristics of the Pre- and Post-Colombian World, the
“Western” Eurocentric world, and therefore, the
modern/Contemporary World, Historical sources and foundations:
(i) The geography of [western] Europe as an factor in shaping and directing the trajectories of European
territorial Expansions: From temperate to the tropical
climate…internationalization of racial slavery
(ii) The economic developments in [western] Europe, Third
Worldism and primitive capitalism within Europe are
“globalized” as PLANTATION CAPITALISM…
(iii) Humanism, ancient wisdom, Oriental Heritage, and
scientific revolutions as they were adopted and adapted
to European materialistic needs, e.g. gun powder,
(iv) From European ethnocentrism and classism to
nationalism and global racism-the Voyages of Discovery
become the Voyages of conquest, genocidal wars and
impoverishment of the indigenous peoples and the
devaluation of African, Asian, American, and other
peoples of color-genocide, slavery, and colonialism-Old
Imperialism of the modern world
(v) Massive transfer of wealth and capital from the tropics
to the temperate climes-the genesis of the development
of underdevelopment…unprecedented mass migrations-forced
removals of indigenous peoples and massive demographic
expatriation of Africans and other peoples of color
PART II THE RISE OF THE ERA OF MONOPOLY CAPITALISM AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF “PLANTATION CAPITALISM”:
D. Pre-20th Century World, and the INTERNATIONALIZATION of a truly global warfare, civil wars, wars of hegemony and wars of conquests.
The Establishment of [Western] European Global hegemony: 1800
-1914: Africa and Asia enter the Third World
(i) European dominated and Eurocentric World
(ii) Monopolar-Capitalistic and capitalistic dominated
(iii) Science, technology are monopolized and
Dominated by Euro-American [Europeans and Neo
-Europeans] people-eras of the 1st and 2nd
Industrial Revolutions
(iv) Subjected to New and Old Imperialism-the
Direct-through colonization-and Indirect-
Through imperialism-domination of the Africans
and the indigenous peoples of the Americas and
Asia-the Colonization of Africa and Asia, 1830
-1900
(v) The rise of the Bourgeoisie and the “Bourgeois”
Revolutions.
(vi) The rise of Britain as a “Great Power” and the
Division of global societies and nation into
“Great Powers”, “Intermediate Powers”, and the
“Powerless” peoples-the “denationalization” of
indigenous nations in the Americas, Africa, Asia and beyond.
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, 3-193.
Stavrianos, Global Rift, 197-332
E. THE “NON-BOURGEOIS” REVOLUTIONS:
(i) The Haitian Revolution
(ii) Simon Bolivar and Latin American anti-colonial Wars and Revolutions
(iii) The Pro-Colonial and anti-Colonial Anglo-Boer Wars
(iv) Franco-Prussian War and the Rise
(v) Chinese revolutions
(vi) The Bolshevik Revolution
F. THE COLONIZATION OF AFRICA:
(i) The end of Transatlantic Slavery and the “Chains of
Emancipation”
(ii) The Scramble for Africa, 1800-1884
(iii) The Berlin Conference of West Africa and the Partitioning of Africa
(iv) The Pacification and Massacres of African Peoples
(v) The Components of Colonialism and the Underdevelopment of Africa
PART III THE ERA OF DEFENSIVE MONOPOLY CAPITALISM
A. Internal Factors.
(i) The Cuban-Spanish-American War 1898-1900
(ii) USA Invasion and Occupation of Haiti 1915-1934
(iii) The Anglo-Boer Wars
(iii) The Rise of Germany and World War I and World War
II.
B. External Factors (i)
(i) Anglo-Boer Wars I & II
(ii) The Rise of Japan and China
(iii) The Bolshevik Revolution
(iv) The Chinese Revolution
(v) Japan and Meiji Restoration
External Factors (ii)
(i) Haiti and Latin American Countries
(ii) Egypt and the Arab World
(iii) Mahatma Gandhi and India
(iv) Africa and the Wind of Change
2. Characteristics of the 20th Century World.
(i) History and Stages of Modern Development and Underdevelopment:
Theories of Development and Underdevelopment: Myths and Realities, “Dependency Theory” and the histories of the
modern economic developments.
Walt Whitman Rostow v. Andre Gunder Frank
“Introduction”, Global Rift, pp.31-43.
Daniel A. Offiong, “A Critique of Moderniztion”, Imperialism and Dependency: Obstacles to African Development, 23-50.
Mike Mason, Development and Disorder: A History of the Third
World since 1945, 1-41.
Kennedy, 194-341.
(ii) Changing Global Patterns: Social, Political, and Economic
Formations of the Modern World: The West and its historical
advantages and “Documents of Barbarity”; the genesis of
social, political, economic and technological inequalities
-the dehumanization of the “Anthropologically Others” and
the holocausts and genocidal violence of the Eurocentric
World; the development of early modern and modern racism,
and the rise of “racialized modernity”.
From Terra nullius[1419] through Dum Diversas[1450], Romanus
Pontifex[1455], Inter Caeterae Divinae[1493], Sublimis
Deus[1537] and the Dred Scott case [1857] to the Berlin
Conference on West Africa 1884-85 and Mandate System of the
League of Nations [1920] – the Humanity, human rights, value
systems and cultures of “people of Color” were sacrificed
for the development, enrichment and betterment of most
European countries and their ruling classes…
Pre-20th social, political, and economic revolutions in
Europe and the making of a Euro-centric World:
The Voyages of Conquests: the Europeanization and the
Globalization of the World.
The Reformation, European Nationalism, Bourgeois Revolutions
and the Enlightenment and the European clean break with
ancient and medieval past…
The pre-colonial societies and Colonialism genocidal Wars.
The disruption, suspension and distortion of the historical
Developments in the global periphery and the European
exploitation of the peoples labor and resources in the
global periphery…
USA history vs. Haitian history as definitions of the
historical, economic, global political and social
relationships of the modern world…
Bartolomeo de las Casas, The Tears of the Indian.
Robert Lochead, Bourgeois Revolutions,
Paul Harrison, Inside the Third World, “Winner Takes All:
Pre-Colonial Societies and Colonialism”
Patricia E. Chu, Race, Nationalism and the State in British
and American Modernism
Y.V. Mudhimbe, The Idea of Africa,
James Baldwin, “The American Dream Is at the Expense of the
[African American]”, Contemporary Moral Issues (ed.
Harry K. Girvetz), 396-400.
W.E.B. DuBois, The World and Africa.
c.v. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 Howard 393 (1857).
Alex Callinicos, The Revenge of History.
Sven Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes: One man’s
Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of
European Genocide.
E.D. Morel, The Black Man’s Burden
(iii) Atlantic Slavery and the Colonization of the Americas
The Development of Europe, the extermination of the
Indigenous peoples, and the genesis of the Underdevelopment of Africa and the Third World.
Development of Underdevelopment: Slavery, Colonialism and Imperialism
Changing Global Patterns.
1492 and 1800, 1800 and 1900, and 1900 and 1925, and
1900 and 1965, 1947 and 1997.
Chinweizu, The West and the Rest of Us: White Predators,
Black Slavers, and the African Elite,
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery,
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Steve Brouwer, Conquest and capitalism, 1492-1992
Norman Davies, Europe: A History, 1003-1055.
Steve Brouwer, Conquest and Capitalism 1492-1992
(iv) Industrialization of the Euro-American World and
the de-industrialization and immiseration of the Third
World, 1-25.
A New Global Political Economy, Establishing the Euro-
American Global Hegemony 1860-1945: Creating a World
Economy and intensifying the global Development of
Underdevelopment:
Neocolonialism I and Colonialism II – Latin America, the
Caribbean, Asia and Africa enter the Third World, 1800
-1930,
L.S. Stavrianos, Global Rift, 205-277, 325-252, 278-308
W.E.B. DuBois, Africa and The World, 44-80.
Offiong, op.cit.,
Eric Williams, op.cit.
Kennedy, op. Cit., 194-343
Davies, op.cit., 1003-1055.
3. 1870-1925 As the defining phase Politically, Economically and
Technologically of the 20th Century World:
The near-total Europeanization of the World:
The era of Monopoly Capitalism gives way to the era of
“Defensive” Monopoly Capitalism:
(i) 19th Century Power politics and New nationalism and
the two Great Wars of the 20th Century
(ii) the second Industrial Revolution and the rise of USA
and Germany and the Weimer Republic: New Capitalism
and the Great Depression,
(iii) Old and New Imperialism: Colonization of Africa and
Asia,- Modern [European]Colonialism I (1492-1850)and
Modern [European] Colonialism II (1850-1970)
(iv) And the continuing eras of “unrecorded holocausts”
(v) Russia and the Contemporary World I: The Crimean War
and the “crisis” of “feudal” Russia: Alexander II and
the “Revolution from above” 1860-1905,
(vi) Russia and the Contemporary World II: Political and
crisis in 20th Century Russia and the rise of the
Soviet Union, 1905-1921. Russia escapes the Third
World and re-enters the world stage as a 20th Century
World power.
Stavrianos, 336-348, 484-512
Kennedy, op. cit., 17-343
Alex Callinicos, The Revenge of History: Marxism and the
the East European Revolutions, 21-40.
4. The rise of the USA and the beginning of “The American Century”:
“1898-1998: US’s Imperialism Centenary”
GLOBALIZATION (ii)
(i) The American Civil War as a manifestation of internal political, social, and economic crises;
(ii) The American Civil War as a “revolution” in more than one sense.
(iii) The Industrialization and urbanization of the USA and its rise as an intermediate and regional Power- The “Cuba-Spanish War, 1898-1900
(iv) USA’s colonization of the Philippines
(v) USA’s invasion and occupation of Haiti, 1915-1932
(vi)
Kennedy, op. cit.,
Stavrianos, 375-385.
C.L.R. James, On the “Negro Question”, 17-47, and 90-113.
5. Organized Laborers and the rise of Unions 1811-1948:
(i) European Leadership-Why Western Europe had a
headstart, From Luddites to “unions of craft” 1824-25
from the 1832 Reforms to the Chartists through to the First
International of 1863,
(ii) From ethnocentricism through racism to nationalism,
(iii)From the Knights of Columbus through the Haymarket Strike to
the Wagner Act
(iv) From the Taft-Hartley Act to the destruction of
PATCO(1981).
Howard Zinn, Peoples History of the United States,
Zinn, History of Twenty Century America
6. The Great Wars and the Great Depression:
(i) The end of European hegemony and the rise of USA and USSR and eras of Cold War,
(ii) The Other “global” Wars and its “Cold Wars”: Dimensions
of 20th century Nationalism and the revolts and
revolutions of the 20th Century Peasants,
(iii) The Colonial Revolts and the Great Wars,
(iv) Autonomy without total decolonization: the Anatomy of
Neocolonialism,
Daniel Offiong, op. cit., pp. 119-197.
Stavrianos, 589-790,
Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro, How Far We Slaves
Have Come! (1991).
Eric R. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century.
7. “Cold War”: Internationalized and Institutionalized, 1947 to
the present: From Potsdam to Ban me To It:
Winston Churchill and the “Iron Curtain” Speech
The Truman Doctrine and the “Containment Policy
The Berlin Crisis
Eastern Europe
The Chinese Revolution and the rise of the PRC
The Korean War
8. “Cold War” and the Wars of Liberation I:
(i) Vietnam and Indochina 1946-1993
(ii) Egypt and Algeria
(iii) Southern Africa 1951-1990-Cuito Cuanavale(1988)
(iv) Central America 1979-1992 (Nicaragua and the Sandinistas)
(v) Cuba,1898-1998, Hundred Years of Yankee Imperialism,
(vi) From the Platt Amendment to the Helms-Burton Act.
Altered States, 419-440.
Stavrianos, op. cit.
Mandela and Castro, Ibid.
Wolf, Ibid.
Mike Mason, Development and Disorder: A History of the Third
World since 1945, 103-146.
9. 20th Century Power Politics:
The Euro-centric World becomes the Euro-American World: Era of
Defensive Monopoly Capitalism and the American hegemony
The Great Depression and the rise of “International Socialism”
Death of Old Empires.
The European and African Asian Challenge
The Rise of Political Zionism
Anti-colonial Struggles
Chomsky, 140-176
Stavrianos, pp.540-556, 645-665, 765-790.
Cold War and Wars of Liberation II
(a) Vietnam and Southeast Asia in the Age of Cold War
(b) South Africa and Southern Africa in the Age of Cold
War
Special Problems of Decolonization in Africa and Asia case
Studies of (i) The Republic of South Africa; (ii) Vietnam;
(vii) The Portuguese Colonies of Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau; (iv) Namibia; and (v) Zimbabwe.
Chomsky, 37-105
10. (I) From "Desert Storm" (1991) to “Operation Desert Fox” (1998-99)
and the Oslo Accords as metaphors for both the
post-Colombian World and global dominance of the United States
of [Anglo] America and the enduring "American Century". Andre
Gunder Frank and Sala Jaber, "The Gulf War and the New World
Order”. Notebooks for Study and Research, Number 14 (on reserve
In the SRU Library). Altered States, 60-92.
(ii) The Nuclear Bomb as a symbol and metaphor of the 20th century
”achievement” and the “Curse” of the Modern Age
(iii) The World in 1999:
its Euro-American characteristics
and its nineteenth century historical sources and components
and characteristics.
Its pre-19th century and pre-20th Century characteristics,
Brouwer, 1-25,
Its 19th and 20th century characteristics
Altered States, 1-37.
Chomsky, 165-170.
(iv) Multiculturalisms in Antiquity and Multiculturalism in the
Modern and contemporary world:
The "western" world and its debt to antiquity: similarities
and differences-"The Barbarian West".
Michael Wood, The Search for Ancient Cultures, 186-213.
Patricia E.Chu, Race, Nationalism and the State in British and
American Modernism… 1-20, 55-78.
11. The West (western world) and the Rest of Us: 20th
Century world as an extension and manifestation, politically,
culturally, technologically and economically of the European global
revolutions.
* Documentary "The [western] Legacy"
Wallerstein, The Modern World-System,
What Made the Modern Western World (the North)
and the other [dependent] world possible?
Geography and Global Interdependency.
12. Imperialism/Colonialism: Old and New-Case Study-Apartheid
South Africa and the USA: Historical perspectives,
the Concept(s) of “Imperialism”, “colonialism”, and their
variants are defined and analyzed,
Stavrianos, pp.556-573, 758-765.
William Langer, Colonialism and Imperialism
Karl Marx and Lenin, Modern Colonialism, Imperialism and
Capitalism,
Daniel Offiong, Imperialism and dependency
colonialism and Colonial capitalism.
The violence and poverty of Imperialism, colonialism and other
related variants of modern forms of capitalistic domination-
assimilado, apartheid, “international capitalism”, etc.
Development of Underdevelopment”.
Stavrianos, 167-176, 231-308, 758-765.
Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism.
Mason, 407-461.
Michel Moushabeck and Phyllis Bennis, Altered States, 107-116,
And 299-331.
documentary: "Last Grave at Dimbaza"
Brouwer, 27-68.
Denoon, Settler capitalism.
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped
Africa,
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery,
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography of
Nelson Mandela,
Paul Harrison, Inside the Third World, 261-355.
13. colonialism and the deindustrialization of the periphery.
The Myth of Free Trade and Comparative Advantage
The deindustrialization of India
The abuse and mismanagement of Asian and African
resources.
Stavrianos,
Vallely, 85-125.
14. a. Isolation and Resistence to the Process of Europeanization,
The Japanese Exception
The Rise of Russia and the USSR
The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey
Alex Callinicos, The Revenge of History, Marxism and the
East European Revolutions, 21-40.
Stavrianos, 349-366, 483-512, and 568-573.
14. b. White Settler State and anti-colonialism
[White] Commonwealth Nations
Canada, Australia and New Zealand
Republic of South Africa,
[White] Latin American Countries.
Stavrianos, 573-588.
15. Decolonization and recolonization
a. West Asia
"The Palestinian Triangle"
Stavrianos, 540-556.
b. West and East Africa
Stavrianos, 556-568,
c. Africa, USA, and the Caribbean.
Anti-colonial movements in Africa
and the African American Struggle
in USA-Martin and Malcolm and Africa.
The Feminist Movement at home and abroad
Vietnam War and the Sixties in America.
Earth Day and Environmental issues.
Altered States, 299-331, 332-361,
documentary, "Global Africa".
Stavrianos, pp. 589-630, and 741-755, 711-730., 730-740.
documentary: "Uncompromising Revolution".
16. Americanization of the World. 1945-1979
Cold War I
The Grand Area and new American Foreign Policy-The Atlantic
Charter, 1941
USA and USSR 1945-1979
The Rise of Labor in USA
USA and Cuba and Chile
USA and Vietnam
Documentary: A Noam Chomsky Lecture: The [USA] New World Order (1945 to
Present).
17. Vietnam Syndrome-USA in Africa and Central America and the rise
Of the “Low-intensity Conflict Strategy”.
Nixon and the policy of Vietnamization-a variation of
The “Nixon Doctrine”
“Ban Mi To It
USA in Angola and Southern Africa
The Dominican Republic
The “Reagan Doctrine” and the Santa Fe Report
Low Intensity Conflict Strategy
The Sandinistas, El Salvador and USA
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, War Aagainst the Poor: Low
-Intensity Conflict and the Christian Faith, Chapters 1 and
3.
Altered State, 107-136,
18. Cold War II 1979-1991 and the rise of the “New World Order”
The Americanization and the recolonization of the World
(i) The Alliance of Progress
(ii) The Vietnamization of the World
Paul Harrison, Inside the Third World, 77-192,
211-260.
Stavrianos, 680-741.
19. Sweat-shops and the economic exploitation of Women: A Global
Perspective;
Annette Fuentes Barbara Ehrenreich, Women in the
Global Factory,
documentary: "Controlling Interest".
Mother Jones, Jan/Feb 1999, 44-49, 50-57.
20. The Soviet Union: From Stalinist Russia to Gorbachev;
Perestroika and Glasnost, Reforms in USSR under Gorbachev
and the Dissolution of Eastern European alliances, Ethnic
crisis and cleansing and the Dissolution of Yugoslavia,
Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, etc.
Altered States, 141-185.
Alex Callinicos, The Revenge of History: Marxism and the
East European Revolutions, 40-66.
20. The Fall of Gorbachev and the rise of Yeltsin,
The Coup of 1991 and the rise of CIS,
“Shock Therapy” crisis or the crisis of International Capitalism or are the market reforms “too radical”?
IMF and Russia-Russia becomes a Third World,
Altered States, 465-492.
Alex Callinicos, The Revenge of History: Marxism and the
East European Revolutions, 40-66.
21. EEC, “1992” and the CSCE,
Unification of Germany,
NATO in the NOW-Why NATO?
WTO, Helms-Burton and the Western Alliance
The rise of the NWO
Indonesia and the crisis of the “Nics”,
The Asian Tigers and other “miracle” Nations.
European Ethnic and Nationalistic Conflict in the New World
Order,
Altered States, 141-185, 465-492.
documentary: "The Panama Invasion".
22. Africa in the New World Order: The Marginalization of the
Continent-Sub-Saharan Africa
Crisis of neocolonialsm in the Horn of Africa, Ruwanda,
Zaire, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Angola, and Mozambique.
The decolonization of Namibia and the birth of a non-racial
democratic South Africa.
23. The Maghreb-Africa North of the Sahara:
Libya and Egypt and the Palestinian Crisis
The Algerian and Western Sahara Crises etc.
24. Miscellaneous-Hunger, Labor, Sexism, Class and Racism:
A Global Perspective.
A LUTA CONTINUA…VICTORIA E CERTA!