Saturday, January 25, 2020

History Essays Sparta Foreign Policy

History Essays Sparta Foreign Policy Sparta Foreign Policy The beginning of Sparta was a city-state which began with the Dorian migration giving rise to the mighty polis. During this time there were endless military actions and invasions and Sparta fortified its locality through military might but also through the development of its agriculture, trade and crafts which transformed it into a self-sufficient and quite well-provided nation. Sparta became one of the strongest Greek city-states during the Hellenic era because of its order and organization. During the first few years the foreign policy of Sparta had two goals which were to succeed Athens as the leader of an Aegean-based naval empire, and to strengthen Spartas hold on the hegemony (leadership) of Greece (Buckley, Aspects of Greek History 750-323 BC, pg. 424). Get help with your essay from our expert essay writers Sparta, like most cities during that time seemed to have an aggressive policy toward there neighbors. Spartan foreign policies were biased many of the people did not like the way the states had been set up so they usually supported by a Spartan garrison. Sparta had an essentially a foreign policy that was cautious which kept Sparta out of the military involvements near the Aegean. With the expansion of Persia you saw a number of Greek colonies being captured and turned into dependent states belong to the Persian Empire. Many cities did try revolting against Persia. During this time they requested help from Sparta but they refused to help these cities which many felt was very wrong but this seemed to reflect how Sparta was during that time frame along with the fact that Sparta had no resources or equipment to help support a war that was being fought on the other side of the Aegean. Part of the policy of Sparta was once they taken control of one of their neighbors and had them under there influence they would not pursue them any further. They felt that they did not need to expand any further into that country. Also part of the policy of Sparta was not to unify Greece. They felt they did not need to have one rule but they had a policy in place to that it would prevent other states from trying to take total control of Sparta. Do we believe this policy to be successful? I believe it was successful for many years but eventually failed when Sparta lost control to the Macedonians. Eventually we would see Sparta depart from they cautious polices to that they could preserve their democracy. In the second half of the 6th century, Sparta won a reputation as the bulwark of democracy against tyranny by repeatedly coming to the assistance of democratic elements in other cities and helping them to depose their tyrants. Plutarch claims, for example, that Sparta was instrumental in deposing the tyrants in Corinth, Naxon, Athens (Hippias) and Sikyon (Sparta Reconsidered Diplomacy). Many people today have a problem with this but knowing how the people of Sparta believed that there might be some truth to this. Why was this statement even questioned by people? They believed that the Spartan foreign policy of intervention in the internal affairs of other cities can be seen as preventive self-defense. Another explanation, of course, is that the tyrants tended to be populist leaders who catered to the mob. As such, they were viewed as more dangerous to the conservative Spartan s than democracies dominated by aristocratic elites. (Sparta Reconsidered Diplomacy). Many historians believe that the Spartan Kings were able to influence the foreign policy by trying to influence the officials. Since the kings were not able to make the foreign policy of Sparta they felt that if they were able to influence those in control they would be able to get what they wanted. On a formal level, foreign policy seems to have been in the hands of the ephors (Mitchell, Greeks Bearing Gifts, pg. 64). Part of the problem was the many did not think that the ephors had as much power as the kings believed they did. We do have to be careful when we consider the effect that the foreign policy of Sparta had on foreign policy. It did seem that the main policy of Sparta was: the main objectives of Spartan policy form 600 to 400 B.C. were to prvent any state in Greece from becoming dangerous and to bar any outsider from entering the Aegean world (Starr, The Ancient Greeks, pg 115) From my readings I found that during the 6th and 5th centuries it was believed that Last but not least, the conservatism of Spartas 6th and 5th century foreign policy is reflected in the fact that Sparta was extremely reluctant to move against Athensdespite rising pressure for support from the city-states chafing under Athens increasingly oppressive and arrogant hegemony.(Sparta Reconsidered Diplomacy) Did Spartan Foreign Policy have an impact on the world today? Yes I do think that we can see common factors between ancient Greece and the contemporary world. This impact has had an impact on many nations spanning over twenty-four centuries. Has it always had a positive impact, probably not but we do see that these policies had a great impact on the course of human events References Buckley, Terry. Aspects Of Greek History 750-323 BC: A Source-Based Approach. New York: Routledge, 1996. 424 [online] books.google. New York: Routledge, 1996., 424. Available from: http://www.questia.com/library/book/aspects-of-greek-history-750-323-bc-a-source-based-approach-by-terry-buckley.jsp Accessed August 30, 2008 Mitchell, Lynette G.. Greeks Bearing Gifts: The Public Use of Private Relationships in the Greek World, 435-323 BC. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 64 Available from: http://books.google.com/books?hl=enid=FbVPFJQtoZgCdq=Mitchell,+Lynette+G..+Greeks+Bearing+Gifts:+The+Public+Use+of+Private+Relationships+in+the+Greek+World,+435-323+BC.printsec=frontcoversource=webots=oL_hF8Vwo7sig=B8C9j7rGsRYYTaA_CK96Jmze6oMsa=Xoi=book_resultresnum=1ct=result Accessed August 30, 2008 Sparta Reconsidered Spartan Diplomacy. Elysium Gates Web Hosting. http://elysiumgates.com/~helena/Diplomacy.html (accessed August 30, 2008). Starr, Chester. The Ancient Greeks. Library of Congress: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Argentina Genocide Essay

There was court investigated crimes against 200 opponents of the military regime in six illegal detention centers in Buenos Aires, One of the crimes was a kidnapping of a man named Jacobo Timerman who was tortured by electric shocks, beatings and solitary confinement in the years he was held illegally. The prosecutor said Jaime Smart was a leading factor in the persecution of opponents in the military. The illegal detention centers were run in police stations under his command. During the seven year military rule, an estimated 30,000 people were kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the junta. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/argentina.htm The Dirty War ran for seven years, from 1976 – 1983. It was run by the Argentine government against dissidents (A person who opposes official policy) and subversives (A person seeking or intended to subvert an established system or institution). Many people were â€Å"disappeared† which usually meant being taken in the night to secret government detention centers where they were tortured and killed. These poor humans were known as â€Å"los desaparecidos† or â€Å"the disappeared.† The war started with the death of President Juan Peron in 1974 when his wife gained authority, unfortunately the woman was not a strong political leader and a military junta removed her from office. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3673470/Argentinas-dirty-war-the-museum-of-horrors.html Miriam Lewin, 49, one of only 150 Esma survivors, was arrested and taken to a detention center for almost a year, Miriam was locked in a tiny dark cell, kept hooded and chained to the wall and tortured with electric shocks. They told her she was being taken to a work camp to be rehabilitated instead they shoved her into a car trunk and took her to Esma. Miriam spent 10 months at Esma, on her release she fled to the US and returned after the w ar as a journalist for a television station. Lewin repeats some of the horrific events passed, ‘It was similar to the Terezin Nazi camp: some prisoners worked and were shown films for entertainment, while others were tortured next door, then drugged and weighted before being taken on â€Å"death flights† over the Atlantic.’ The bodies were dropped into the ocean; others were burnt. As in the case of the Holocaust victims who were forced to write to their families saying that they were being treated  well, Esma prisoners were occasionally allowed contact with the outside world, mostly through calls from a monitored telephone booth in the entrance, which is now a lavatory.’When I was 20 they took me to see my parents,’ Lewin says, ‘to prevent them from looking for me. My mother asked, â€Å"How are you, how are you being treated?† Fine. â€Å"What do you do all day?† Well, we write, watch films, read†¦ â€Å"Are you with other girls of your age?† Yes, yes, Mum. I couldn’t tell her that I was in a concentration camp where they tortured and killed people, that this could be the last time she would see me alive, otherwise they would have been in danger, too.†I will never forget how, purely to humiliate us, they took me and some other female prisoners to have dinner in a restaurant in the centre of town with a group of armed plain-clothes officers. We would be sleeping in the middle of the night and a guard would shake us and say, â€Å"Wake up, you have to go.† We didn’t know if we were going out for a meal or to die. A girlfriend of mine was taken dancing by the guy who had killed her husband two weeks earlier,’ she says with a wry smile.Like most others, she was imprisoned in the casino or officers’ hall of residence, a building clearly visible from the street and overlooked by nearby flats. She was forced to work in the basement, translating into Spanish articles on the military regime that appeared in English and French newspapers; others wrote military biographies, forged documents and filmed propaganda videos. As they worked, inmates in adjacent rooms were tortured with water and electric cattle prods, their shouts sometimes muffled by loud music. http://www.vice.com/read/inside-argentinas-secret-death-camps Inside Argentina Camps In 1977 Nilda â€Å"Munu† Goretta was walking home from work on a busy street in downtown Buenos Aires when members of the Argentinean Military Death Squad blindfolded her from behind and shoved her into a nearby car. She wasn’t seen or heard from for 13 months. During the height of Argentina’s seven-year military dictatorship Munu lived as a political prisoner in the torture center, ESMA. In order to maintain control, the junta organized a system to eliminate any threats to the new government. Anyone who expressed the slightest sympathies for leftist politics would vanish without a trace. The general public was not aware of the concentration camps. ESMA operatedÃ'Ž

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Reconstruction Goals Reconstruction And Reconstruction

Reconstruction Goals Reconstruction started in 1865 after the war was coming to an end and completed in 1877. It Is the process by which federal government controlled the former Confederate states and the conditions for their readmission to the union. Abraham Lincoln was our president at the time and could not form a treaty with the defeated government. After the emancipation, thousands of freedmen left their plantation to find a new life without being owned and forced to work. This began the political, social, and economic goals for reconstruction regarding African Americans. There were many different approaches of political goals set for reconstruction. Republicans dealt with the political control. Conservatives within the party†¦show more content†¦Congress then passed the bill in 1864 to which Lincoln vetoed it; this infuriated Radicals. Lincoln, then, accepted some of the Radical demands to stop the disagreements and conflict. Another view of Reconstruction was Johnson ’s â€Å"Restoration† plan. This plan was very similar to to Lincolns and the Wade-Davis Bill. Southerners who took an oath of allegiance were offered forgiveness. The new president appointed a provisional governor in each state and charged him with inviting qualified voters to elect delegates to a constitutional convention. To win readmission to Congress, a state had to revoke its ordinance of secession, abolish slavery and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, and repudiate Confederate and state war debts. This plan was implemented in 1865 when Congress was in recess. By the end on 1865, all seceded states underwent new governments following either Lincoln’s or Johnson’s plan. The North became irritated with the South’s reluctance to abolishing slavery which resulted with them becoming harsher towards this situation. Although this plan worked for a short amount of time, it ended in December of 1865 hence starting â€Å"congressional† or â€Å" radical† reconstruction. There were many social plans implemented during the period of reconstruction. Some of these plans included Jim Crow Laws, Black Codes, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Freedmen’s Bureau. Jim Crow Laws created a hierarchy reaching into almost every area of southern life. Blacks and whites could notShow MoreRelatedEssay The Primary Goal of Reconstruction after the Civil War848 Words   |  4 PagesSouth had been devastated both physically and economically. Helping former slaves and making state governments loyal to the Union also presented various problems that would take years to resolve. The primary goal of Reconstruction after the Civil War would have been- in my Reconstruction Plan- mainly based around the integration of freed African Americans into Southern society. Many problems faced by Southerners that led up to the Civil War and followed it were centered around racial hatred andRead MoreWhat Did The Ku Klux Klan Reach Their Goals, Both Social And Political, During The Reconstruction Period2012 Words   |  9 PagesCriterion A: Identification and evaluation of sources: This investigation will evaluate the question: to what extent did the Ku Klux Klan reach their goals, both social and political, during the reconstruction period from its birth in 1866 to 1877? This essay will first determine the social and political goals of the Klan, than analyze how successful they were in attaining them. 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For instance, during the reconstruction the 14th amendment was passed soRead MoreTreatment Of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Essay985 Words   |  4 Pagesa protocol of rehabilitation before randomization that included goals for range of motion, muscle formation, and functional performance and had four different levels. The goals of each level had to be met before the patient could move on to the next. If there were any reasons that a patient was struggling to mo ve to the next level the patient was scheduled to see the treating clinician. In the rehabilitation and early reconstruction group the surgery was performed within ten weeks of the injury.Read MoreAmerican Reconstruction after the Civil War Essay1228 Words   |  5 Pages Reconstruction was a period of time after the Civil War (1865-1877) that was supposed to be the rebuilding of America. It was also the process used to readmit all the Confederate states back into the Union. There was controversy, however, on how to go about rebuilding the nation. Abraham Lincoln proposed a lenient plan. After he was assassinated, Andrew Johnson proposed a very similar plan. The Radical Republicans, a group of legislators that were in favor of freedmen’s rights, were opposed

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Learn About Petcoke

Petroleum coke, or petcoke, is a byproduct from the refining of crude oil. It consists mostly of carbon, with variable amounts of sulfurs and heavy metals. It has many industrial uses, including the production of batteries, steel, and aluminum. Lower-grade petcoke, which contains higher concentrations of sulfur, is used as fuel in coal-fired power plants and cement kilns. Lower-grade coal is estimated to represent 75% to 80% of all petcoke produced. The production of petcoke in North America has increased in recent years due to the refining of crude oil originating from Canada’s tar sands region. If all the recoverable bitumen (the â€Å"proven reserves†) from tar sands was removed and refined, several billion tons of petcoke could be produced. When operating at capacity, large U.S. refineries can produce 4,000 to over 7,000 tons of petcoke per day. In 2012 the United States exported 184 million barrels (33 million metric tons) of petcoke, predominantly to China. A lot of petcoke is also produced in Canada, in close proximity to the tar sands, where bitumen is upgraded into synthetic crude oil or syncrude.  Ã‚   A Troublesome Source of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Bitumen’s high density, or what gives it that semi-solid consistency, is explained by the fact that it contains more carbon than conventional oil. Refining crude oil from tar sands involves the reduction of the number of carbon atoms per hydrocarbon molecule. These discarded carbon atoms eventually form petcoke. Since large volumes of tar sand crude oil are currently refined, large amounts of low-grade petcoke are produced and sold as an inexpensive fuel for coal plants. This burning of petcoke is where tar sand bitumen releases extra carbon dioxide, compared to conventional oil. Petcoke produces more CO2 per pound than almost any other energy source, making it a contributor to greenhouse gases and thus a driver of global climate change. Not Just a Carbon Problem Refining sulfur-rich tar sand bitumen concentrates the sulfur content in the petcoke. Compared to coal, petcoke combustion requires the use of additional pollution controls to capture much of that sulfur. In addition, heavy metals are also concentrated into the petcoke. There are concerned with the release of these metals into the air when petcoke is used as a fuel in a coal power plant. These same concentrated heavy metals can enter the environment at storage sites where large piles of petcoke are staged, uncovered. The epicenter of complaints stemming from petcoke storage seems to be in the Chicago, Illinois, area. Large piles of petcoke, each made of thousands of tons of the dusty material, sit along the Calumet River and come from an oil refinery in nearby Whiting, Indiana. These storage sites are in close proximity to residential areas in Chicago’s Southeast side, where residents complain about dust from the petcoke piles blowing into their neighborhoods.   Indirect Effects: Keeping Coal-Fired Plants Open The recent boom in natural gas production has been a challenge for coal-fired power stations. Many have been closed or converted to natural gas power generators. However, petcoke can be used concurrently with coal in many power plants, a practice known as co-firing. Some technical challenges associated with co-firing exist (from petcoke’s high sulfur content, for example), but the very low price of petcoke could be an important factor to keep coal plants open in an economically competitive energy environment. New life could be breathed into slated-to-close coal power plants, with for a net result elevated CO2 emissions. Sources Chicago Sun-Times. Accessed 11 February 2014. Rahm Emanuel to Propose Ordinance Prohibiting New Petcoke Facilities.OilChange International. Accessed 11 February 2014. Petroleum Coke: The Coal Hiding in the Tar Sands.Oxbow Carbon. Accessed 11 February 2014. Petroleum Coke.Pavone, Anthony. Accessed 11 February 2014. Converting Petroleum Coke to Electricity.US Energy Information Administration. Accessed 11 February 2014. U.S. Exports of Petroleum Coke.US Energy Information Administration. Accessed 11 February 2014. Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Program.