GLOBAL STUDIESGLOBAL STUDIES

Unit #4Europe and Russia

• Eurasia – world largest landmass – made up of both Europe and Asia

• Ural Mountains – forms an imaginary boundary between Europe and Asia – Russia straddles the mountain range --

• Europe – west of the mountains• Asia – east of the mountains• Siberia – stretches for thousands of miles in

Eastern Russia – mostly uninhabited or sparsely inhabited – home of vast natural resources – intense cold in the winter

North European Plain – stretches from northern France across the Germanic and Polish lands and into Russia – rich, productive soil – great for farming – area of where the highest concentration of people live – cities such as London, Paris, Moscow, Warsaw, Berlin

Alpine Mountains – stretch from Switzerland across to Austria, into the Balkans and across the Black Sea to Georgia – form a natural barrier between Central (Germanic) Europe and Mediterranean (Greco-Roman) Europe – The Alps, a mountain range in Italy and Switzerland from which the system takes its name, is but one range in the Alpine chain

Danube River Begins in the mountains of Germany and runs east

to the Black Sea Second longest river in Europe Navigable year round

Volga River Longest river in Europe Runs through Russia to the Caspian Sea Much of the river is frozen during winter months

and is thus not navigable Rhine River

Starts in the Alps and runs to the North Sea (flows north)

Along with its tributaries, forms a major transportation network for Western Europe (very important for trade in pre-industrial European times)

Europe forms a peninsula Gulf Stream – brings warmer water from the southern

hemisphere (runs up the east coast of North America and across the North Atlantic) – keeps coasts of Great Britain and Norway from freezing

Marine influences dominate the continent and keep the climate warmer than it should be based on its latitude

As one moves east towards Russia, there is less influence from the warm, moist air.

Arctic regions are bitterly cold, due in large part to the “Siberian high” – a large cold, dry high pressure area that forms in central Siberia during the winter months

Fossil fuels, particularly oil and coal, are found across the continent

Large oil fields can be found in the North Sea and in Siberian Russia, although much of it lays far from centers of population, and thus must be transported great distances via pipelines.

Russia also has great reserves of coal and iron ore Great Britain also has a shallow, but important, vein

of coal that runs the spine of the island. This vein was important for the early industrial revolution, which relied heavily upon steam engines powered by coal fires.

Timber reserves are largely depleted due to hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years of development and civilization

Important for philosophical thought and the idea behind observation and logical processing in science, medicine and reasoning

Democracy – form of government used in ancient Athens – every citizen votes on every law – impracticable in a large society

Dictatorship – form of government used in ancient Sparta – citizens serve the state – no individualism – absolute equality

Republic – form of government advocated by Plato in his book, The Republic – citizens vote for representatives, and those representatives vote on the laws for the citizens – sets the pattern for modern republics of today

Republic started in 509 BC – 1st working republic (only for the upper class citizens at the time)

Turned into an empire after Rome began to expand off the Italian peninsula

Eventually grew to encompass the entire Mediterranean area, North Africa and most of Europe

Governed by local autonomy – provinces had a dual system of government where local rulers shared power with Roman procurators

Means “rebirth” – it was the rebirth of learning and culture

Started in the Northern Italian City States as a result of profits from the spice trade

Artistic movement based on the rediscovery of Greco-roman ideas

Literary movement in Northern Europe (England) – centered around Shakespeare

Great Italian Artists of the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci Donatello Raphael Michelangelo

The search for the spice routes led Europeans into exploration

Portuguese sailed around Africa

beginning in the 1450s and eventually rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 and sailed onto India and China

Found the coastal west African kingdoms

Became Europe’s slave traders

Spanish Columbus sailed west to

find the Orient (everyone knew the earth was round)

Eventually colonized most of Central and South America

French and English Settled North America

Copernicus Used mathematical

principles to develop the heliocentric model of the universe (disproved the geocentric model)

Challenged the Church on a scientific basis

Opened the door for others to challenge

Age of Enlightenment Used reason to

challenge government David Hume –

Challenges the existence of God

Deism – a new enlightened religion

Rise of the machines and factories Steam power – runs the first factories Textiles – cloth products – first factories in the

textile industry – starts in England Railroads – very important for transportation of

goods New efficient weapons – better ways to kill

people Socialism – comes to life with the growth of the

new proletariat (working class) – tries to improve the lives of the people living in the slums

Nationalism – competes with socialism for people’s passions – tells workers that nation matters, not class – uses propaganda to “convince” workers to do what they’re told to do.

European powers fighting over land and nationalism

Old tactics and modern weapons lead to horrific numbers of dead

Trench system on the western front (France and Belgium) drags the war on for 4 years

Eventually the United States helped turn the tide in 1918

NAZI – German workers party of ex-soldiers that came to power in 1933 – dedicated to taking over the world – run by Adolph Hitler

Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany’s losses in WWI – he tried to exterminate them in what became known as the Holocaust

1935 – Germany begins to take over parts of Europe (much of it had been taken away from Germany after WWI

1939 – Britain and France go to war against Germany (the USSR joined against Germany in 1940)

After 1945 the US rebuilt Western Europe while the USSR rebuilt Eastern Europe

1945 to 1990 – Europe was divided into two armed camps, each supplied with nuclear weapons

Berlin – A divided city When the USSR

collapsed, Germany reunited and the cold war ended

European Union – the EU United economically

under the Euro (currency)

Countries are intensely nationalistic, but they no longer want to fight wars over it – too many died in the 20th century

Mostly socialist Healthcare Airlines Public services Telephone and other

services