User:Monseborrayo/sandbox

Article Evaluation:

Eurocentrism is talked about vaguely and should include the intersectionalities to different identities. I think the European exceptionalism section of it is too biased towards Europe.

Eurocentrism

Eurocentrism in America
Societies are built on the past, and the past affects the present as well as the future. History is taught in different forms from different perspectives throughout the globe. The study of history plays a role in understanding behaviors and documenting data for later events. Historians have noticed American culture is taught through a bias that is white, male, and European. Eurocentrism in America has been a result of a Westernized structures. For centuries America has been an influence or outcome of European practices, these practices have wiped out identities all over the world.

Economic Structure
Economically, historians like Samir Amin believe in the shifting of geographic power centers to lower the inequalities that capitalism causes. Global capitalism is explained as the idea of progressing to have world dominance through a racist Eurocentric lense. Third-World Countries, specifically, are affected negatively by the global economic order because of the globalized capitalism Europeans began and America followed.

Colonialism
Colonialism is deeply rooted in European culture. When the Spanish Empire sent Christopher Columbus to the Americas it was an act of meeting and not a discovery. European consciousness challenged the New World in dominating their land and resources. The formation of Eurocentrism was present during the fifteenth century and dragged all the way to still be implemented in the twenty-first century. American schools continue to teach the “Discovery of America” as if it was not an act of Eurocentric motivations. James Loewen presents facts that Columbus brought to the Americas and not the sugar coated stories that were told in American elementary schools. Columbus was not the first to set foot in the New World but this was one of the first deadly forms of European diseases placed on new land.

Assimilation
Eurocentrism creates a shift in identities through racial, national, and religious aspects. All these topics intersect with each other and the authors of Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas argue how Americans struggle to understand global politics, there is a belief that certain identities involved in religion can only evolve in non Eurocentric societies. Historians have found that religious and racial identities do not have to follow a Westernized model but are accustomed to being assimilated to European perspectives.

American Schooling
In Modern-Day Schools in America the content of histories are taught through one European lense. Students then develop Eurocentric perspectives on the world but tend to not see the identities that are being stripped away of individuals. Western success is recent, civilization has contributed from different parts of the world not just Europe. Eurocentrism is a way of dominating ideas to show the superiority of one perspective and how much power it holds over different social groups.

History of Books:

Pre-Columbian Codices of the Americas
There are more than 2,000 illustrations drawn by native artists that represent this era. Bernardino de Sahagun tells the story of Aztec people’s lives and their natural history. The Florentine Codex speaks about the culture religious cosmology and ritual practices, society, economics, and natural history of the Aztec people. The manuscript are arranged in both the Nahuatl language and in Spanish. The English translation of the complete Nahuatl text of all twelve volumes of the Florentine Codex took ten years. Arthur J.O. Anderson and Charles Dibble had a decade of long work but made it an important contribution to Mesoamerican ethnohistory. Years later, in 1979, the Mexican government published a full-color volume  of the Florentine Codex. Now, since 2012, it is available digitally and fully accessible to those interested in Mexican and Aztec History.

Florentine Codex
The Florentine Codex is a 16th century ethnographic research study brought about by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagun. The codex itself was actually named La Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva España. Bernardino de Sahagun worked on this project from 1545 up until his death in 1590. The Florentine Codex consist of twelve books. It is 2400 pages long but divided into the twelve books by categories such as; The Gods, Ceremonies, Omens, and other cultural aspects of Aztec people.

History of Publishing
Civilization has been heavily influenced by pieces of writing. Industries of publishing are seen as being responsible for the spread of cultural material. Publishing books was a faster way to spread knowledge and news to society than what civilization was accustomed to. The book trade emerged and soon enough there was a literary history in the making.

Cuneiform and Sumerian Writing
Different clay tablets around 3200 B.C. had Cuneiform and Sumerian writing. Cuneiform was used by those who spoke multiple languages. Clay tablets were used to distribute information through writing and document events. Sumerian writing eventually evolved and new forms of writings were developed.