Green Group

Question 1

Global Inequality Content

Divergence

Eurocentrism

Capitalism

Inequality

Answer 1

The Great Divergence - massive shift at around 1500 sees Europe into enormous growth and development relative to Asia and the wider world - peak in WW1 and Convergence as Third World growth rates rapidly increase in late C20

Eurocentrism - bias of historiography towards the European perspective/experience/culture

Capitalism - is inequality an inevitable consequence of the system of production we have created - most would say yes, the disagreement arises over how best to deal with the inequality

Int Vs Ext Inequality - is regional inequality different to international inequality?

Question 2

Global Inequality Primary Sources

Marx

HDI

Enlightenment

Piketty Data Set

Answer 2

Marx - Communist Manifesto, Das Capital
1848/1867 - Lays out Marxist interpretation of INTERNAL inequality - Imperialism & Colonialism as a further manifestation of Capitalism

UN HDI for 2018 - 21.4% for Europe, higher for SE Asia and SS Africa, women 6% behind, conflict and climate change - Evidence of the Great Convergence

Enlightenment Accounts - Rousseau + Condorcet and exploitation, expeditions to China

Piketty Data Set - theory of wealth concentration when economic growth is greater than rate of return on capital, leading to social and economic instability

Question 3

Global Inequality Secondary Sources

Pomeranz

Ferguson

Diamond

Frank

Piketty

Answer 3

Kenneth Pomeranz - coal and colonies, introduces ‘Great Divergence’ as a concept

Prasannan Parthasarathi - China has coal; tech and trade

Niall Ferguson - cultural factors: competition, science, medicine, property rights, consumerism, work ethic (W.e. S.P.r.C.C. M.)

Jared Diamond - environmental factors; Balkanisation of Europe vs unification of China

Andre Gunder Frank - sees the economic dominance of Asia as the norm, recent history as the exception - accusations of ‘Sinocentrism’

Piketty - unequal wealth distribution produces social and economic instability - progressive wealth taxes and welfare is needed to promote equality
- inequality as a feature of capitalism

Question 4

Genocide & Holocaust Content

Lempkin

Examples

Ethnic Cleansing

Law

Answer 4

First used by Raphael Lempkin in ‘43

Armenia - 1915-6, 1.5m
Holodomor - 1932-4, 4.8-9.8m
Holocaust - 1941-5, 11m
Serbs (Croats) - 1941-5, 0.5-1m

Ethnic Cleansing - forced resettlement, e.g. Germans post-WWII leading to 1/2-2m deaths
- Czech Camps - ‘Oko za oko, zub za zub’

Difficulties of international law - UN for states not peoples, definition interfered with by council members, e.g. the USSR

Question 5

Genocide & Holocaust Primary Sources

Frankl

Solzhenitsyn

Hitler

UN

Nietzsche

Lempkin

Answer 5

Viktor Frankl - Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) - Genocide’s psychological effects, the unnecessary torture of civilians,

Solzhenitsyn - Gulag Archipelago (1973), One Day (1962) - ideological roots of genocide and ethnic cleansing

Hitler’s Table Talk - refers to the Jews and other groups as vermin to be exterminated

UN Convention on Genocide
- national, ethnical, racial or religious group

Nietzsche - worst atrocities would take place in C20, directly resultant from the collapse of religious morality

Raphael Lempkin - ‘Axis Rule in Occupied Europe’ and ‘Soviet Genocide in Ukraine’ - defines genocide and places the destruction of cultural symbols and locations in the category - Sovietisation of Ukraine

Question 6

Genocide & Holocaust Historiography

Intentionalists
vs
Functionalists

Nuance

Power Structures

Holodomor

Answer 6

(Within the Holocaust)
Intentionalists - Always intended, personally ordered, e.g. Lucy Dawidowicz - points to Mein Kampf and the ‘sonderweg’ (Special Way) of German culture and society that led to Nazism - Richard Breitman, decided upon in the early ’30s, matter of opportunity

Functionalists - improvised ad-hoc policy following the failure of expulsion, e.g. Laurence Rees , Karl Schleunes (‘The Twisted Road to Auschwitz’)

Middle ground - ‘Cumulative Radicalisation’ - Snyder, Ian Kershaw (radicalised bureaucracy) - personally ordered, yet a result of improvised policy, e.g. anti-partisan ops -> murder of Belorussian Jews

(More generally)
Height of Modernity - use of science to justify and industry to facilitate (Zygmunt Bauman, Adorno & Horkheimer)

Christopher Browning - failure of individual morality leads to totalitarian control and atrocities - individuals were NOT bloodlusting, they were peer-pressured and obedient
- 12/500 opted out of the killings when given the choice

Primo Levi - importance of power structures and WHO they attracted

Anne Applebaum - Holodomor as a genocide by Lempkin’s definition, UN definition warped by the USSR to link genocide firmly with fascism and race theory