Chapter Sixteen: Atlantic Revolutions, Global Echoes

"Ways of the World"

Chapter Sixteen: Atlantic Revolutions, Global Echoes &

Part Five: The European Moment in World History

1750-1914

This first section of the chapter and second section of history in this book was more, dare I say, entertaining. Aside from it being a reasonable and easy read, I did find a few thing that stood out to me. The first belonging to the first paragraph of the chapter starting with Haiti. Apparently twenty-one years after the Haitians succeeded in breaking away from the French colonial rule, the French demanded Haiti to repay some "150 million gold frances in compensation for the loss of its richest colony and its 'property' in slaves," and "with French warships hovering offshore, Haitian authorities agreed." Now if that isn't bullying I don't know what is. This of course put Haiti in a sea of debt but later down the line- 185 years later in 2010- once disaster struck Haiti, the French government decided to pay back "$17 billion, effectively returning the 'independence debt'..."
Secondly, what I find pretty funny, but it is definitely not in retrospect, is the handy dandy guillotine execution practices. Mainly I find this humorous because it was actually a serious way of killing someone during that time- by beheading them- it just reminds of Alice in Wonderland. The only thing I can give them on that is that it was effective.
Last, although this may be more towards Strayer's style, is how he uses the word 'Act' to describe each revolution. He refers to 'Act One' as the American Revolution, 'Act Two' as the French, and so on for the Haitian and Spanish Revolutions. It takes me back to World Literature or Literature/English classes in high school where the separation of major events are divided by Acts. It almost, for me at least, make me think that in some parallel these events were becoming more and more predictable perhaps. Implying that for each revolution there are, while varied, the same major turning points each revolution. Now maybe I am just not hip on history lingo and maybe they're all commonly referred to as acts but if that is not the case I stand by my interpretations.