Chapter 18 Documents

The visual sources consisted of images that showed what was going on at this time. More specifically what places were being take over, who was fighting, and who lost power, and who gained control, who were mutually friends, and who were enemies.
The one picture I liked was the visual source of the Ethiopian Exception. It caught my interest because it was the one and only exception to the general European takeover of Africa during the scramble. The painting replicated the celebrations of the victory at Adowa. Unless you read the text you probably wouldn't notice that Emperor Menelike is shown in the upper left hand corner with his queen Empress Taytu, watching the battle take place. Additionally, in the paining there was a halo of red, yellow, and green celebrating the win of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian flag was adopted shortly after the battle.

Chapter 18: pg 879-912

Due to the Industrial Revolution, there was now an enormous amount of productivity which created the need for extensive raw materials. Wheat from American Midwest and southern Russia, meat from Argentina, bananas from Central America, rubber from Brazil, cocoa and palm oil from West Africa, and gold and diamonds from South Africa. In addition to all these new needs, Europe still needed to sell its own goods. It was very common that in industrial capitalism countries would produce more goods than its own people could by. Additionally, most Europeans invested their money abroad.

Europeans had many colonial takeovers, this way was cheaper and less likely to lead to war. However, this did not last long. Soon enough Europeans made new empires everywhere, along with the force of a powerful military threat. In the end of the fights, they prevailed most everywhere.

The culture in the empires once the colonial rule was in place changed the way of working. It changed taxes, enterprises, labor, and transportations. It also increased the demand in the supply of goods. Because of this the type of work changed. Instead of subsistence farming, they now tried to sell what the produced for cash income. The cash was used to pay taxes and buy machines. The Artisans in returned suffered because the machines prices had to be lower.