Chapter 17 Atlantic Revolutions

The beginning of the chapter spoke about eurocentricism. The idea that everything revolved around Europe caught my attention because it reminded me of what I had seen on T.V. the night before. I had been watching the opening ceremony for the olympics and noticed that when each country was introduced there was a little screen off to the side that showed where that country was in comparison with the United States. When I read about this chapter the next day I thought about how we are like Europe in our belief that we are the center. I found it interesting that all of the Atlantic revolutions were connected in that each reflected the one before it. The American revolution from the French was a big event that triggered more and more people to believe in their own independence. The idea of liberty spread like the industrial revolution. Soon everyone wanted to be apart of it. The revolutions influenced much more than independence, they inspired freedom of slavery, nationalism, and feminism. The people of Haiti are a good example of the abolition of slavery for they revolted and took freedom by force because they knew they deserved equality. People around the world began to realize that they were more than just a class status. Everyone was born with the right to freedom and equality, which ment that people no longer wanted monarchs or a handful of wealthy controlling all of the money while the majority of people starved. They realized that they deserved a better life and used to revolutions as a way to take what was rightfully theirs from those who formerly controlled everything and everyone. Although today everyone is no treated equally there is a much better sense of freedom because of these revolutions. We now have democracy and instead of tring to conquer the rest of the world many nations are more interested in becoming allies. Without the Atlantic revolutions I fear the world would have been far worse than it is today.