8.5.2 Video在线视频

8.5 West in the 19th and 20^th century

1. In the 19th century European imperialism colonized much of Asia and almost all of Africa but slavery was abolished. The Second Industrial Revolution led to massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit and prosperity in the western world. The decline of Spain and the collapse of the Napoleonic French Empire and the Holy Roman empire paved the way for the growing influence of the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the United States and the German Empire. The British empires became the world's leading power. The Russian Empire expanded in central and far eastern Asia, annexed huge land from China. By the end of the century, the British Empire controlled a fifth of the world's land and one quarter of the world's population.

2. France

Napoleon 1769 – 1821, was born in Corsica to a family of Italian origin nobility; he seized control of the Republic in 1799 becoming First Consul and later Emperor of the French Empire from 1804 to 1814 and again in 1815 during the Hundred Days. As one of the greatest commanders in history, he led France against the coalitions of the European monarchies in the Napoleonic Wars and conquered most of continental Europe. At the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 he defeated Russian and Austrian army, led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in the next year. The Invasion of Russia in 1812 was disastrous, most of his army of 500,000 was killed by Russians or the cold winter, only 100,000 came back. I suggest you read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and listen to 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky. British-led allied army defeated Napoleon at The Battle of Waterloo in 1814; this marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

3. After the Waterloo the Bourbon dynasty was restored until the July Revolution of 1830 established the July Monarchy. The 1848 Revolution established the Second Republic which was overthrew by the 1851 coup, Napoleon’s nephew Emperor Napoleon III established the Second Empire. After the defeat of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 the Empire was replaced by the Third Republic. After France's defeat by Germany in 1940 the Third Republic was replaced by the Vichy government which collaborates with Germany. After the liberation of France, led by Charles de Gaulle the Fourth Republic was founded in 1946. Algiers crisis of 1958 triggered the collapse of the Fourth Republic, the already retired Charles de Gaulle again led France built a new Republic and he became the first president. This is today’ Republic.

4. Today’s Germany, in German Deutschland, officially the Federal Republic of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor. It is the world's fourth-largest economy and the most populous state in Europe with a population of 83 million, its capital is Berlin, Frankfurt is the financial capital, other major cities are Hamburg, Bremen, Hannover, Düsseldorf, Leipzig, Dresden, Cologne, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, and Munich.

5. German Empire During the Roman time this land was called Germania, The Kingdom of the Franks was the direct ancestor of both modern France and Germany. From 800 it became the Holy Roman Empire and Charlemagne became the first Holy Roman Emperor. In 843 the empire was divided. In the future the West Franks became France, the east became Germany. Otto the Great 912 – 973, was the first German king from 936 and Holy Roman Emperor from 962. The Ottonian dynasty ruled Germany and the later Holy Roman Empire from 919 until 1024, Germany was the center of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the center of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the German Confederation was formed in 1815 to replace the Holy Roman Empire; this Confederation excluded the German-speaking Kingdom of Prussia. In 1871, Germany became a nation state, unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. Wilhelm I, King of Prussia from the House of Hohenzollern became the first emperor, and Otto von Bismarck was the Chancellor, the head of government. German Empire soon became a new economic and military power; by 1900 Germany was the largest economy in Europe, surpassing the United Kingdom.

6. Marxism

Maxim is the guideline of all the proletariat revolutions in the 19^th and 20^th century and it is the guideline of the Chinese communist Party today. Marxism originated from the works of German philosophers and communist Karl Marx 1818 – 1883 and Friedrich Engels 1820 – 1895.

Marxist Historical Materialism stated the union of technological and productive capacity and social relations of production fundamentally determine society's organization and development. Marx identified society's relations of production as the economic base of society, on this base there arise certain political institutions, laws, customs, culture, ways of thinking, morality and these constitute the political and ideological superstructure of society.

7. There are six stages in the human history: Primitive Communism, Slave Society, Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism and finally the statelessness classlessness Communism. In Capital, Das Kapital in German, Marx pointed the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labor, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value. He proclaimed the future: the class of the propertyless proletariat will destroy the capitalism and replace it by Socialism and finally Communism.

Let’ read the opening sentence of The Communist Manifesto: A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies…Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power...

9. The first big event in the 20^th century was World War I 1914-1918, was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, nine million combatants and seven million civilians died. It was sparked by the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist. The two countries soon started fighting, Russia joined on the side of Serbia. The great powers of Europe were divided into two coalitions: the Triple Entente consisting of France, Russia and Britain and the Triple Alliance consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. The Triple Alliance was defeated, and The Treaty of Versailles required Germany to disarm, make ample territorial concessions, and pay reparations to the victors.

The October Revolution was a revolution in Russia led by Vladimir Lenin in Petrograd in 1917. In 1922 the first socialist country the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics simply the Soviet Union was established, after the death of Lenin in 1924, Joseph Stalin became new leader until his death in 1953. The Soviet Union lasted until 1991.

9. World War II 1939- 1945. In Europe the war sparked by Nazi Germany's invasions of its neighbors in 1939. Chinese people’s War of Resistance against Japan was part of the World War II, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident or the Lugou Bridge Incident of July 7, 1937 marked its beginning. Germany, Italy and Japan formed the fascism Axis powers. The antifascism Allies were led by the "Big Three", the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The United Stated didn’t join the fighting from the beginning, the surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 led to its entry into the war. World War II was the deadliest war in human history, 50 to 85 million people died; most of them were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. In Nanjing Massacre Japanese army killed 300,000 Chinese, in the Holocaust Nazi Germany murdered 1.3 million Jews, nuclear bombs dropped by US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed 200,000 Japanese.

10. This is the photo of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin during the Yalta Conference in 1945, and the horrible Adolf Hitler 

11. Cold War 1946-1991 was a period of geopolitical tension between the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union and the Western Bloc led by the United States. It was cold because there was no real large-scale fighting directly between the two sides. The end of the Cold War was marked by the fall of Berlin War, the reunification of Germany and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. There were two military alliances during the Cold War, one led by the United States called NATO, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Another one led the Soviet Union called The Warsaw Pact which disbanded in 1991.

Francis Fukuyama: The End of History

In 1992 in his book The End of History and the Last Man, American scholar Francis Fukuyama proclaimed: What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. There is only one way for all the country that is the Western democracy because it is universal. This idea denied the right of every country to choose its own way, it sounds like romantic and arrogant.

12. Samuel Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations

In response to his former student Francis Fukuyama’ idea, Samuel Huntington published an article The Clash of Civilizations? In the Foreign Affairs magazine in 1993 and in 1996 polished a book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. He stated there are seven possibly eight major contemporary civilizations. In the emerging era, clashes of civilizations are the greatest threat to world peace, and an international order based on civilizations is the surest safeguard against world war. He predicted there will be two major Clashes: West vs Islamic and West vs Sinic. He also talked about the China threat: the rise of China and the increasing assertiveness of this "biggest player in the history of man" will place tremendous stress on international stability in the early twenty-first century. He imagined the Third World War would start between China and Vietnam on the South China Sea, the United States join on the side of Vietnam, and later all world powers would join the war. If this really happened it will be horrible.

13. This map showed seven possibly eight civilizations: Sinic which means Chinese, Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox, Western, Latin American and possibly African.

14. Dialogue among Civilizations

Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami introduced the idea of Dialogue among Civilizations as a response to Huntington’s theory of the Clash of Civilizations. 2001 was announced as United Nations year of dialogue among civilizations. General Secretary Kofi Annan said: dialogue as a chance for people of different cultures and traditions to get to know each other better, whether they live on opposite sides of the world or on the same street.

15. Oswald Spengler: The Decline of the West

In 1922 German historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler published The Decline of the West. He rejected the Eurocentric view of history, and recognizes at least eight high cultures: Babylonian, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, Mesoamerican (Mayan/Aztec), Classical (Greek/Roman), Arabian, and Western or "European-American". Spengler claimed the Western world is ending and witnessing the last season "winter time", about the year of 2000, Western civilization would enter the period of pre‑death emergency. Western Man is a proud but tragic figure because, while he strives and creates, he secretly knows the actual goal will never be reached.

16. An International Community with Shared Fortune

President Xi’s initiative of Building an International Community with Shared Fortune has been broadly accepted by the international community and it was written into a United Nations security resolution for the first time in 2017. An International Community with Shared Fortune and a New Type of International Relations of Win-Win Cooperation are the two pillars of China’s foreign policy.

17. Key words: Napoleon, German Empire, Marxism, The End of History, The Decline of the West, An International Community with Shared Fortune

18. Questions: What are the basic ideas of the Marxist Historical Materialism? How do you comment the Decline of the West and the Clash of Civilizations? Why we should build an International Community with Shared Fortune?

19. Attitude toward of other civilizations

Confucius said: The true gentleman seeks harmony but not uniformity. There is a Chinese idiom: The ocean is vast because it admits hundreds of rivers. We are in the 21th century. We love and have confidence in our civilization but should also respect and learn from others. The Western Civilization is declining but not dying, it is still very strong. Nearly all developed countries are western country. The Western Civilization is great but not superior over other civilization. It has a glorious history and it also has a cruel or ugly dark side. I believe the Western Civilization is worth learning. This is the purpose of this class. Now I have to say this is the end of this class. Thank you for taking the class and hope you like my teaching. I know my teaching is not good enough, any comment or suggestion you can e-mail me: [email protected]. Good bye, good luck and again thank you all.