AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE 1865 TO 1900 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE 1865 TO 1900 - Essay Example ples of this differential in overall levels of freedom exists with regards to the period in time following the conclusion of the Civil War and the turn of the 20th century. As a function of this unique reality and the differentials and freedom that were existing for whites and blacks during this unique period in American history, the following analysis will seek to analyze these differentials so that the reader may gain a more informed and realistic interpretation of how they impacted upon such people and the far-reaching historical ramifications that these differentials had and continue to have. Firstly and most obviously, African-Americans were able to experience freedom from slavery as a direct result of collusion of the Civil War. Although this statement seems the very matter of fact, the overall an underlying importance that it holds should not be misunderstood. Prior to 1865, at least in areas that were controlled by the Confederacy, the practice of slavery had reduced nearly all legal and democratic rights of African-Americans and place them on a level that was comparable to property. As can reasonably be expected, the overall humanitarian, democratic, legal, and egalitarian effects that this had were profound. Yet, once freedom was one and the process of slavery was abolished, it cannot be stated that African-Americans within the deep South, or anywhere else in the country for that matter, suddenly realized drastic improvement in the overall quality of life or level of freedom that they could immediately express. As a result of the horrors of the Civil War, large sections of the South were laid waste. Cities were burned, infrastructure was destroyed, working aged men and business owners were dead, and resources that could be directed to capital investment were otherwise lost. As such, even though freedom existed for these African-Americans, at least in terms of no longer being slaves, the level and extent to which they could express this freedom and seek

Enivironmental archeology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Enivironmental archeology - Essay Example In his explanation Diamonds tries to explain a number of issues in relation to the environment and social calamities. He alludes and associates the occurrence of collapse of the society to the presence or the occurrence of a massive decline in population ,complexities in economics and the social failures of an area over a long time duration affecting the well being and the very tenets of survival of the society. However ,he poses the question of how to quantify whether the actions and occurrences of the society warrant being valued as having collapsed over the years and in relation to social developments. Many theories have been advanced on the collapse of societies; some have taken a non linear process portraying sudden and non practical paths of explanation. The processes try to explain the sources of societal collapse such as human calamities and the mundane nature of daily events which to some extent give relatively disturbing information on the viability of the subjects under investigation (Flannery). Diamond explains that collapse is related to the occurrence of the phenomenon whether it is over a time duration or whether the act occurs instantaneously as a drastic action but the area factor is quite important to be put into consideration when looking into the collapse. He further explains the collapse of France in 1940 and that of the Soviet Union in 1941 not as actual collapse but merely political collapse. The biological and cultural elimination of the Tasmanians which Diamond explains in Guns, Gems and Steel is equally not a representation of collapse since the people rapidly later increased the population and developed more complex social settings compared to the previous ones. Generally this collapse though they are affecting the political and social states of the society ,they do not quantify and qualify to be regarded as absolute collapse (Diamond). The raid by the Mongols in 1258 in