Chapter 14 - 16

Chapter 14 - 16:

I wish the weekends would go by slower and allow us to rejuvenate in order to deal with the week ahead. I found this reading particularly interesting. The parts that I enjoyed the most are discussed below.

I still can’t believe that Zeng He’s fleet was allowed to deteriorate in the fashion that it did. It was the most impressive naval fleet of all time and they could have conquered many more areas. I do understand that they seem to have been happy with what they had but it is a very typical human characteristic to think that there is never enough. I was relieved to read that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they were able to expand their empire. It also seems to be that the Confucian way of live was eventually victorious in comparison to any other system. People do say that offense is the best form of defense. China was the perfect example of that in obtaining security by conquering the surrounding areas.

The Dutch East India companies resemble modern day business in the ocean export and import industry. The companies were privately owned and were able to raise money - I guess this was the start of venture capital :) The businesses were even granted monopolies by their respective government. I never realized that the Dutch were so ruthless in their acquisition of new suppliers of cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and mace. I am sure there are some businesses out there in the modern era that have ridiculous profit margins but making fourteen to seventeen times the cost price is just mind blowing. It was interesting to see the transition from predominantly luxury goods being traded to bulk goods for the mass market - as is the case predominantly in the modern era. I found it fascinating to learn about the slave trade in class last week. It is always a topic of heated debates that America was at the forefront but in actual fact they were only a small player in the industry...

The clash between religion and science is a topic that I have been forced to deal with in the past few years as I am a biology major which involves studying evolution in detail and extensive reading from Darwin to Hawking. The acts of the Catholic Church were quite horrific and definitely have been a dampener on their reputation.I never realized that there were Africanized versions of Christianity that had spread to various parts of the world due to the slave trade. It makes me curious to think how on earth were these people able to combine drumming, animal sacrifice, ritual dancing with going to church and using candles and crucifixes...