- Cultural Region (Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania, or Latin America)
- MLA Citation
- Concise (no more than 5 sentences) summary with a clear thesis statement
Monday, September 18, 2017
FI #49 - "Current History" Article Summary
To complete question #49 on the "Foundations Investigation," select an article from a PRINT issue of Current History. Your comment should include the following:
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South Africa
ReplyDeleteFinan, William W. "Southern Africa beyond Caricature." Current History, vol.
110. Originally published in Current History, May 2011, pp. 204-05.
This article describes a book by Stephen Chan, which tries to dispel caricatures that dictate how westerners think about political leadership in Africa. Overall, the author describes the good things and the bad things about this book written by Stephen Chan. The author says that even though this book sheds light on African politicians, it doesn't give a very large scale assessment of developments in Africa. The author goes on to say how Chan assumes that the reader is already aware of the chronology of events that took place in the nation over the past 30 years. The author concludes that it is a good book for those who are more familiar with overall history.
Taylor, Scott D. “The High Cost of Labor.” Current History, May 2009, p. 216.
ReplyDeleteSurprisingly Africa's low productivity is not offset by low labor wages. Africa actually has very high labor cost due to many factors in Africa, for instance the health care for the employees. For a continent that has very limited medical health care, where HIV/AIDS and other diseases like malaria can weaken the working force dramatically. Another factor that leads to the high labor cost is the labor protections found across many countries that determine what the job is like. The high cost of labor can impact a region immensely due from other factors that are hard to control.
East Asia
ReplyDeleteKlien, Susanne. "Recovering Disaster, Reinventing Japan?" Current History, Sept. 2017, pp. 241-43.
The article “Recovering from Disaster, Reinventing Japan” is about fixing the damage of a 3 part disaster. The minister in charge of rebuilding Japan, Masahiro Imamura, resigned due to claiming that it was good that the catastrophes of an earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear-reactor meltdown hit the rural areas instead of Tokyo. Six years later, the damage of the disasters and the central government’s policies have caused the local people turmoil. The government has spent an enormous amount of money to rebuild, yet none of it has gone towards improving the daily lives of the local people. Some people have used the destruction of the disasters as a way to turn the town hit, Tohoku, into a better area, such as creating businesses and build a better social infrastructure.
Middle East
ReplyDeleteSerfaty, Simon. "The New Middle East Will Test Europe." Current History, Mar.
2012, pp. 118-19.
Change in the middle east is contributing to a more complicated system in Europe. The middle east is constantly going through changes whether it be civil wars or revolutions. These wars and revolutions involve Europe and test them. Europe still doesn't jave enough power to set everything straight in the middle east especially as Iran becomes a nuclear country. The wars and terrorism in the middle east are spreading into Europe at a dangerous rate. By this change in the Middle East, Europe will be forced to make some changes.
Middle East
ReplyDeleteSerfaty, Simon. "The New Middle East Will Test Europe." Current History, Mar.
2012, pp. 118-19.
Change in the middle east is contributing to a more complicated system in Europe. The middle east is constantly going through changes whether it be civil wars or revolutions. These wars and revolutions involve Europe and test them. Europe still doesn't jave enough power to set everything straight in the middle east especially as Iran becomes a nuclear country. The wars and terrorism in the middle east are spreading into Europe at a dangerous rate. By this change in the Middle East, Europe will be forced to make some changes.
Sub-Saharan Africa
ReplyDeleteObadare, Ebenezer. "A Nigerian President's Disappointing Return." Current
History, pp. 194-96.
This article explains the Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari's poor leadership. The artcile explains that the public of Nigeria were expecting better leading by Buhari. He promised the people to fix the broken politics and prevent abuse of the political office. All in all, Buhari did not live up to his word. Buhari did not make big efforts to fix Nigeria's politics and abused his power in the political office.
Cultural Region : East Asia
ReplyDeleteCummings, Bruce. “The North Korea Problem: Dealing with Irrationality.” Current History, vol. 108, no. 719, Sept. 2009, pp. 284-90.
North Korea’s volatile leadership and testing of weapons designed for nuclear attacks, showcases to the world why it is a problem that could lead to a castastriphic end. North Korea has been testing nuclear missle weaponry since the early the beginning of the 21st century. This raised some eyebrows and also the question of whether a preemptive attack on North Korea’s leader would help prevent the chaos he is stirring up. The Nucleaur Project and it’s impulsive, egocentric leadership could lead to North Korea becoming a major threat to the United States and her citizens.
East Asia
ReplyDeleteKlien, Susanne. "Recovering Disaster, Reinventing Japan?" Current History, Sept. 2017, pp. 241-43.
After the Great East Japan Earthquake, Japan has had trouble cleaning up and beginning to rebuild their infrastructure. The government has chosen to mainly focus on physically reconstructing the country rather than adressing issues such as mental health suppprt after the disaster. Despite the struggles Japan has endured, the Earthquake was able to give the country a push into being open to change, possibly a revolution that could make the country better.
Weller, Robert. "Chronicles of China's Spiritual Level." Current History, Sept.
ReplyDelete2017.
Up until a decade ago, the city of Suzhou was dominated by agricultural villages. Although the villages and temples of this area were often faced with major setbacks, the people whom inhabitated them were always quick to rebuild and repair them through the guidance of spirit mediums and religious leaders. When they reached the 2000's, urban planters decided to flatten every village and temple with bulldozers in hopes of making the city of Suzhou more modernized, which left the people of these cultural villages in despair. The Chinese local government realized what a loss this destruction had left these people in, and helped to build two large Daiost temples in honor of the ones that no longer existed. This empowered the people of these temples and villages once more to continue with their culture and pleasing their gods through their everyday lives worshiping at their villages and temples.
Motadel, David. "Muslims in Hitler's War." History Today, vol. 65, no. 9, Sept.
ReplyDelete2015.
During the Second World War, Hitler's troops came into contact with many Muslim territories, and found them to be politically significant. Many attempts were made at acquiring the Muslims as an alliance against their alleged common enemies of the British Empire, Soviet Union, America, and the Jews. Although, this later caused problems when Nazi squads had trouble differentiating between Muslims and Jews, and ended up executing thousands of them. As all attempts ultimately failed, the hopes of an alliance was finally given up. The Germans had realized that the attempts to form allies had been launched too late and clashed with the realities of violent war.