¶ … constructing responses titles I listing. In response make show reference entry. (01) Discuss One of the most powerful movements that transformed European society during the early modern era was the dissemination of information and the propagation of reading material due to Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press around 1450 A.D. The movement that would prove to have the most impact upon society as a whole, however, was the imperialist movement that many credit to have originated with Columbus' journeys to the Americas, the first of which was in 1492. The imperialist movement would allow the appetite for power and conquering to expand beyond Europe and eventually encapsulate the entire globe. This movement is directly responsible for today's globalization, and the previous (and perhaps current) colonization and tyranny of many non-European nations. Another major movement during this time period was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, which began around 1517 A.D., and provided the seeds of unrest that would spur much of the ensuing colonization, particularly that in the United States. Many would eventually seek the new world to avoid religious persecution (Kaplan 2007). The Protestant Reformation was a response to the widespread corruption of the Catholic Church in the early 16th century. Spearheaded by Martin Luther and John Calvin, this movement was an effort get back to the religious fundamentalism which the Catholic church -- with its common practice of selling indulgences -- had become increasingly distant from (Bentley, Zeigler and Streets 2006, p. 378). Although this movement eventually began in Germany, it spread throughout the continent of Europe and was instrumental in the reforming of other national religions, and in spurring those who found dissent with such institutions to form their own and travel to other lands where they could safely practice it. Therefore, the Protestant Reformation can be considered to have had the greatest impact upon Europe of all the movements that transformed the continent during this epoch.

2.The Middle Passage experience may well be regarded as one of the worst calamities of all time, as multitudes of Africans were piled into ships and transported to the "new world" the middle passage was characterized by immense overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, starvation and thirst and helped to dehumanize and reduced the morality of the Africans who were able to survive it, while it outright killed exceedingly large amounts of them (Equiano). Overall, the slave trade helped to further divide Africa and reduce its resources to compete in the modern world as its most valuable resource, people, were taken away and alienated from their native culture. It boosted the advancement of the Western World in that slaves provided a substantial amount of labor for the areas that were colonized. The Islamic slave trade changed the existing system of slavery in that it was not based upon color, ethnicity, or nationality. A host of people from different backgrounds were enslaved and afforded a level of decency that many would not see in places such as the United States, in which the Atlantic Slave traded prospered under a system of chattel slavery. The Africans transported were entirely owned by the Europeans who purchased them, and were considered and treated as less than human. The slave trade began in the attempts to utilize cheap labor.

3. At the height of its prowess, the Ottoman Empire controlled land in Europe, Asia, and in Africa, before it eventually declined and ended in the early 1920's due, in large part, to nationalist and secessionist tendencies of a widely diverse population group which the government could no longer appease (The Applied History Research Group 1998). The Ottoman empire (which rose largely from the ashes of the Byzantine Empire) was a central place of interaction -- particular in Constantinople and in its Mediterranean territories -- for the Western World. The Mughal Empire was a predominantly Indian empire that ruled much of the subcontinent of India. The empire would eventually dissolve in the mid 19th century, for reasons that were similar to the dissolution of the Ottoman empire and which included a multitude of religious differences and secessionist tendencies of its people, and which were exacerbated by the presence and colonization of Britain, the European country that had the greatest effect on the empire. The rise of the Mughal Empire is attributed to the decline of a Turkish presence in that area. One of the differences between this dynasty and the Ottoman dynasty was that it was based primarily in one continent...

The Safavid dynasty, which encompassed territory in Persia, Armenia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey, was similar to the aforementioned in empires in that it existed during the same time frame as the others (the Safavid spanned from 1501 to 1722). However, it was different in that it existed for a significantly less amount of time in the other two empires, and eventually declined due to the shift of trade routes (popularized by Europeans) away from the region, as well as to the secessionist tendencies of the several nation-states which the empire encompassed at its height. The greatest effect that Europeans had on this country was that it left the empire monetarily crippled when European trade routes shifted away from the Safavid dynasty, which contributed to the former's decline.
4. Nationalism is essentially devotion to one's country as a whole, despite whatever differences may exist in religion or population groups. Countries promote nationalism through a variety of means, including through events of national scope such as elections, national holidays, and even (in certain cases) intense propaganda such as signs or films. Nationalism can be beneficial in that it can greatly increase the solidarity and power of a particular nation, while it can be negative in that it can provide intolerance of certain people or subsets of people both within and without a nation's borders, and can be utilized to facilitate selfish means of conquest such as fascism in both World War II Germany and Italy. In these two examples, their unification (particularly in Germany) was used to fuel the nationalistic tendencies that eventually led to an attitude of superiority between other nations and of other peoples (such as Jews) who were not deemed to be native to those regions. Zionism is similar in the respect that it eventually flourished with the founding of a nation-state (Israel) following the conclusion of World War II.

5. The revolutions that took place in the United States of America, in France, and in Latin America during the late 18th and early 19th centuries had an immense effect upon the world that may be characterized as something of a domino effect. The first of these revolutions, the American Revolution, inspired the French Revolution. It should be noted that the idealistic principles of the Enlightenment and the conceptions of self-determination played significant roles in both of these revolutions, which in turn would go on to inspire the Latin America revolutions.

The common theme for each of these revolutions was the attainment of power and sufficient representation of the common people. Virtually all of the revolutions in Latin America and those that took place in the United States and in France occurred in situations where the people were dissatisfied with the form of government that was ruling them. In Latin America and in the United States, that form of government took the form of an overseas colonizer, who was largely reaping the monetary and other benefits of the labor of another set of people. In France, this sentiment was true although the government did not come in a foreign form. However, the several centuries of absolutism had drained any and all power, money, or forms of representation of the people in the government (Lynn 1999, p. 143). Although the ruling power was synonymous with the people in that they were both of French origin, there was little else in common with these two disparate bodies. Similar to the cases of the revolting people in the United States and in Latin America, the commoners in France were seeing all of the benefits of their labor and toil in terms of land, money, and power, harvested by another -- who was not toiling among the people.

The short-term outcome for each of these governments was largely the same. In the United States, the common person was given a substantially greater amount of power in his or her government. A democratic system replaced the former British monarchy. People were allowed to elect their own officials, and as mandated by the original Articles of Confederation, there was an equanimity enjoyed between the different states that provided a form of equity of government that was not existent during the former British rule. It should be noted, however, the colonial revolution shared more in common with France than just the common forms of ideology as propagated by the Enlightenment (such as Deism, which is the belief that God created the universe and everything in it and then allowed man to virtually determine everything else). French militia…