The History Of Christopher Columbus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The History Of Christopher Columbus - Essay Example Prior to hardcore revelations made by Bigelow regarding the extraordinarily respectful public hero Columbus, the American nation strongly believed that Columbus was the courageous navigator who took great pains to travel around the world and discover the land of America, where he found the local people to be extremely co-operative, friendly, and understanding. The fresh and riveting information introduced by Bigelow in his revisionist history based on the voyage made by Columbus in 1492 has turned many persons’ heads and rustled up hot debates regarding which version of the voyage made by Columbus is weighty and credible, the old traditional one or the new not-so-pretty version. Comparing the conventional and modern versions regarding Columbus’s historical journey, one remains dumbfounded as to what to believe and what to reject as a fake piece of information. If on one hand, the conventional historical version presents an extremely noble, well-mannered, compassionate, and heroic version of Columbus, then on other hand, the modern version introduced by Bigelow is enough to fervently shake one’s beliefs about various actions made by Columbus to the point that one starts seeing oneself as a submissive fool, who readily took what was taught in the schools at mere face value. Traditional historical version is so designed as to overlook all the deficiencies in Columbus’s character and present him as a man of larger-than-life vision who was dedicated to the native residents of America and treated them with remarkable dignity, while taking great care to give them their space so that they could live their lives the way they were prior to the di scovery and arrival of Columbus and his men. Bigelow claims that first of all, the word discovery is in itself a laughably loaded word that does not relate in any way to Columbus, who was just travelling for personal gain and certainly ambitious to search for riches and gold that could be enjoyed by him and his heirs. It was just a mater of co-incidence that he came across the land which was to be named America later. Columbus’s main intention never remained traveling for the sake of discovery, rather he travelled in an order to search for ways that could make him powerful. T hunger for power and money is just proved by the way Columbus and his men treated the native residents of America. Columbus forced the native people to choose him as their governor and unjustifiably demanded 10% share in everything that was shipped to Spain. It was Columbus who actually initiated the slave trade and like a brutal tyrant that he was, demanded large amounts of gold from the native people. The conventional and modern historical versions differ so hugely that one finds oneself entrapped between the two utterly opposite schools of thought. Speaking of Columbus, (Bigelow) says that â€Å"he also deserves credit for initiating the trans-Atlantic slave trade, albeit in the opposite direction than we’re used to thinking of it.† In an attempt to get more and more students acquainted with the modern version of Columbus’s history, Bigelow lays stress on the fact that taking any piece of information at its face value is a highly detestable attitude which should be despised by every student. Bigelow encourages students to explore and contemplate at length nearly every widely accepted belief because only in this way, fresh and crisp facts can be exposed before the public. He deliberately chose the historical issue of Columbus and his actual intentions because he knew this would prove to be the most interesting way to get hold of the

Midterm exam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Midterm exam - Essay Example were primarily formed to support the rebuilding processes of the nations and provide a world forum that can provide mediation. The central banks play critical role and national political and economic agenda main revolved around low interest rates, regulation of industries, labor unions to strengthen the business environment with the countries. Neo-liberalism, on the other hand, can broadly be defined in terms of emerging new economic paradigms in the changing socio-political scenario across the world that favors opening of domestic market for global business powers. But 1975 onwards, the world economy has increasingly become more market driven and trade across geographical regions has become more attractive to developed and developing countries. In the new-liberalism era, the economic conditions had drastically changed through de-regulation of industries, privatization and curb on union power. America came into the forefront of global political and economic front. With Ronal Reagan, as President of America in 1980, the demise of old economic order became a certainty. The role of central bank was significantly curbed and privatization became the major propellant of new economic order. The strong economy and advanced stature of United States, subsequently, made sure the success of US Dollars as Global Currency. This system greatly facilitated international trade and investment but restricted the capital movement so as to maintain certain extent of control by few dominant countries (Harvey, 2005). The advent of neo-liberalism primarily relied on economic liberalization. It promoted more capitalistic approach that favored the rich and made the poor nations as the scapegoat for getting exploited by the developed countries and multi-nationals. The monopoly of American influence in all the leading international financial institutes like World Bank and IMF, have followed the American