Amanda said 2/25...

Today in class we reviewed what we learned yesterday about the Panama Canal. Then we learned that Roosevelt added a new document to the Monroe Doctrine, called the Roosevelt Corollary. It stated that we had the right to be the police force in North and South America and we will pay off the debts of those places. If other countries didn't follow the rules, we had the right to attack them. By this time, it was 1904 and the U.S. had grown and become strong, therefore this document added the "muscle" to the Monroe Doctrine, and we were able to back it up.

We then moved on to imperialism in China. We reviewed the dynasties starting from the very first one (even though it was never proven to exist). It started off with the Xia, then the Shang dynasty, who were the first to monopolize bronze, then the Zhou dynasty, the first to enforce the mandate of heaven and the dynastic cycle. Next, there was the Qin dynasty, led by Shi Huangdi, and they were very strict legalists. The Han dynasty came next, and they can be compared to Rome. They were the classical and Golden Age of China, and silk and paper were invented during that dynasty. The Tang and Song dynasties were next, and they were also 2 Golden Ages. The Song dynasty was full of big cities and very cosmopolitan. The next dynasties were the Yuan, who were Mongols, and the Ming, who were very interested in starting, and ending exploration. That brought us to the last dynasty in China that was called the Qing, but they are also know as the Manchu. They existed from 1644-1911.
During the 1500's (Ming Dynasty), Europe started to push into China, mostly for their natural resources and convenient location. The Ming was unhappy with this, so they isolated their country and created strict laws that foreign countries had to follow in order to come in. They were able to do this because they were much stronger than any other place at the time. These policies carried over to the Qing dynasty.

In the beginning, the Qing was extremely stable, with fair laws, civil service exams, and great agriculture. They became obsessed with politics, and payed no attention to the economic and technnological problems they were facing. By 1715, China experienced a horrible famine and the government did little to help. We looked at woodblocks that showed the harsh conditions and the devastating effects of the famine. People had nothing, and China was faced with two main problems that the government needed to address:

1. unhappy people at home due to famine,
&
2. foreigners pushing into their country.

The "pushiest" country at this time was Great Britan. They didn't use guns, a navy, and they try to be nice, but when they don't get their way they change all of that. The laws that the Ming had set about who trade had gone down the drain because the Qin dynasty wasn't as strong as the Ming were, and the rest of the world became much stronger.

After that, we moved on to the sheets that we have to finish for homework, and textbook assignment number 5A is due tomorrow as well. We will also probably have a big test around March 8th.

The next person to blog is Tiffany!