Chapter 9• Every part of the Earth had been explored in the 18th century except the Pacific.

• Europeans were beginning to throw out absurd ideas like the world being flat but still had many fantastic thoughts about the uncharted Pacific.

• A common belief was that there were places in the world that provided everything that a human needed to live. The Pacific being the last frontier to be explored, many thought that it was that land.

• Many of these ideas came from impressionistic travelers tales.

Chapter 10• When nationalism arrived on

the scene at the end of the eighteenth-century, it made previous empires look as if they were constraining natural human thought and features.

• Johann Gottfried Herder is often identified as the father of German nationalism including most European nationalism.

• He could not comprehend the concept of “people” and the concept of “empire” in a single entity. He simply thought that the two were incompatible.

Chapter 11• When resisting any kind of ruler, one must have some vision of better future

after the breakdown of the original empire. It takes courage and organization.

• It also requires a leader of some sort who is capable of gathering and motivating those who wish the empire to be overturned also.

• In 1911, the Chinese Empire suffered an internal rebellion that left it in the hands of several “warlords” and remained that way until 1949.

Epilogue• Western perceptions of past

historical events are fairly short compared to those in the East such as the Muslim and Islamic fundamentalists.

• When the World Trade Center was destroyed, according to Osama Bin Laden, it was in retaliation to not only the president’s “war on terrorism”

• He mentioned also the “crusade” that took place almost 1000 years before when a Christian army took control of the holy city of Jerusalem and occupied it for nearly 100 years.