Thesis Practice
\nRead the following excerpts and highlight or underline the thesis, or main point, of the passage. Then restate the main idea of the excerpt in your own words. Finally, identify whether the passage is a primary, secondary, or tertiary source.<\/p>\n
1. \u201cWere the Barbarians a Negative or Positive Factor?\u201d
\nDespite the usual negative view and definition of barbarians provided by the sedentary civilized peoples the steppe nomads had developed a complex pastoral and nomadic society. They were tough and hardy horsemen whose cavalry tactics gave them the military advantage for several centuries. The barbarians used this advantage, and their periodic attacks on civilization centered caused destruction, sometimes severe destruction. But the barbarian role in mankind\u2019s history was not always negative. The barbarians can and should be viewed as representing a dynamic and vital element in human history for they periodically revived many stagnating coastal civilizations. Many of these sedentary centers flourished, growing rich and powerful. In the process they also became conservative, settled into a fixed routine. Preferring the status quo, they tended to use old answers and ways to face new problems and issues, and as a consequence they lost the vitality and flexibility required for healthy and progressive growth.
\nGregory Guzman, \u201cWere the Barbarians a Negative or Positive Factor?\u201d in Worlds of History a Comparative Reader, 3rd ed. Bedford St. Martins: Boston, 2009, 384.<\/p>\n
2. Abba Eban, Address to the United Nations, 1958.
\nThe Arab refugee problem was caused by a war of aggression, launched by the Arab States against Israel in 1947 and 1948. Let there be no mistake. If there had been no war against Israel, with its consequent harvest of bloodshed, misery, panic, and flight, there would be no problem of Arab refugees today. Once you determine the responsibility for that war, you have determined the responsibility for the refugee problem. Nothing in the history of our generation is clearer or less controversial than the initiate of Arab governments for the conflict out of which the refugee tragedy emerged. The historic origins of that conflict are clearly defined by the confessions of Arab governments themselves: \u201cThis will be a war of extermination,\u201d declared the Secretary General of the Arab League speaking for the governments of six Arab States; \u201cIt will be a momentous massacre to be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.\u201d
\nAbba Eban. 1958. \u201cHow Was the Refugee Problem Caused?\u201d in Worlds of History a Comparative Reader, 3rd ed. Bedford St. Martins: Boston, 2009, 982.<\/p>\n
3. \u201cThe Israel Lobby\u201d
\nBeginning in the 1990s, and even more after 9\/11, U.S. support [of Israel] has been justified by the claim that both states are threatened by terrorist groups originating in the Arab and Muslim world, and by \u201crogue states\u201d that back these groups and seek weapons of mass destruction. This is taken to mean not only that Washington should give Israel a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians and not press it to make concessions until all Palestinian terrorists are imprisoned or dead, but that the U.S. should go after countries like Iran and Syria. Israel is thus seen as a crucial ally in the war on terror, because its enemies are America\u2019s enemies. In fact, Israel is a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue state.
\n\u2026 saying that Israel and the U.S. are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: The U.S. has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficulty. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel\u2019s presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremist to rally popular support and to attract recruits.
\nJohn Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, March 2006. \u201cThe Israel Lobby,\u201d in Worlds of History a Comparative Reader, 3rd ed. Bedford St. Martins: Boston, 2009, 982.<\/p>\n
4. \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Burden\u201d Rudyard Kipling
\nTake up the White Man’s burden –
\n And reap his old reward,
\nThe blame of those ye better,
\n The hate of those ye guard –
\nThe cry of hosts ye humour
\n (Ah slowly !) towards the light:-
\n“Why brought ye us from bondage,
\n “Our loved Egyptian night ?”<\/p>\n
Take up the White Man’s burden –
\n Ye dare not stoop to less –
\nNor call too loud on Freedom
\n To cloak your weariness;
\nBy all ye cry or whisper,
\n By all ye leave or do,
\nThe silent sullen peoples
\n Shall weigh your Gods and you.<\/p>\n
Take up the White Man’s burden –
\n Have done with childish days –
\nThe lightly proffered laurel,
\n The easy, ungrudged praise.
\nComes now, to search your manhood
\n Through all the thankless years,
\nCold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,
\n The judgement of your peers.<\/p>\n
Kipling, Rudyard. \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Burden. The Kipling Society. accessed Nov. 9, 2023.https:\/\/www.kiplingsociety.co.uk\/poem\/poems_burden.htm.<\/p>\n
5. \u201cI Have the Heart and Stomach of a King\u201d
\nMy loving people, we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes for fear of treachery. But I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear\u2026I have always to behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects, and therefore I am come amongst you as you see at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king and a king of England too, and should think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any Prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm, to which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.
\nQueen Elizabeth I. 1588. \u201cI Have the Heart and Stomach of a King.\u201d in The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches. ed. Brian MacArthur. Penguin Books: London, 1995, 40-41.<\/p>\n
6. American Pandemic
\nIn retrospect, it is tempting to criticize Americans\u2019 failure to commemorate the pandemic in their public culture. As they relied on the optimistic narrative that focused only on the promise of the future and erased the dark days of their recent past, Americans\u2019 collective memory exhibited a costly amnesia that left too many Americans to suffer in private as they lived out the consequences of the influenza crisis. This dismissal of the memory, indeed of the experiences, of so many seems cruel and careless. And yet this tendency toward national amnesia and the resulting contradiction between. Public and private culture, between national forgetting and personal remembering, was not unique to the period following the pandemic but appears instead as a mainstay of American culture. In the wake of the influenza scourge, it seems, Americans were only acting out a process common in the nation\u2019s history, drowning out narratives of anguish with the noise of public optimism.
\nNancy K. Bristow, American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, 191.<\/p>\n
7. \u201cA Tale of Two Americas\u201d
\nAmericans have long celebrated the mythology of the American Dream. The fundamental belief that the United States has existed from its beginning as a unique land where democracy, equity, inclusion, and economic opportunity are freely available has fueled the nation since the first European settlers arrived.1 However, the historical scholarship of Nell Irvin Painter in Standing at Armageddon: A Grassroots History of the Progressive Era and Erika Lee and Judy Yung in Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America reveal a much more complex history. As cultural historians, Painter, Lee, and Yung refuse to force American history into static, limiting categories of democracy or empire, open-door or closed gate.2 Instead, they build comprehensive narratives of a dichotomous America where the ideals of democracy and equity, tolerance and acceptance competed against traditional views of class, race, and the protection of prosperity.
\n1 Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon: A Grassroots History of the Progressive Era. (New York: W.W. Norton and Co, 2008), 390. And Erika Lee and Judy Yung, Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 22 and 70.
\n2 Painter, x.
\n3 Painter, 35.<\/p>\n
8. Jurassic Park<\/p>\n
Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can\u2019t be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won\u2019t use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won\u2019t abuse it\u2026<\/p>\n
A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits. And that is why you think that to build a place like this is simple.<\/p>\n
Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. Ballantine Books: New York, 1990, 306-307.<\/p>\n
9. \u201cThe Tyger\u201d<\/p>\n
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
\nIn the forests of the night;
\nWhat immortal hand or eye,
\nCould frame thy fearful symmetry?<\/p>\n
In what distant deeps or skies.
\nBurnt the fire of thine eyes?
\nOn what wings dare he aspire?
\nWhat the hand, dare seize the fire?<\/p>\n
And what shoulder, & what art,
\nCould twist the sinews of thy heart?
\nAnd when thy heart began to beat.
\nWhat dread hand? & what dread feet?
\nWhat the hammer? what the chain,
\nIn what furnace was thy brain?
\nWhat the anvil? what dread grasp.
\nDare its deadly terrors clasp?
\nWhen the stars threw down their spears
\nAnd water’d heaven with their tears:
\nDid he smile his work to see?
\nDid he who made the Lamb make thee?<\/p>\n
Tyger Tyger burning bright,
\nIn the forests of the night:
\nWhat immortal hand or eye,
\nDare frame thy fearful symmetry?<\/p>\n
Blake, William. \u201cThe Tyger.\u201d The Poetry Foundation. Accessed November 16, 2023. https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/43687\/the-tyger.<\/p>\n
10. \u201cMore Than Villains or Fools\u201d<\/p>\n
A vast, evil empire rules all cruising along in their galactic navy and threatening to squash a small, brave band of rebels fighting to establish liberty for all. The incompetence of the Empire allows the merry band to finally pull off a spectacular victory, fulfilling the prediction of one of the Rebellion\u2019s leaders, that the tighter the Empire grasped, the more star systems, or colonies, would slip through their fingers. Star Wars is an American cult classic that follows in the mythological narratives of good versus evil and freedom versus authority. In a similar manner, generations of Revolutionary Era historians have adopted and passed on the traditional dichotomy of the British and their loyalist following as bungling arch-villains attempting to root out and destroy freedom-loving American patriots.
\nNewer generations of Revolutionary Era historians have added complexity and accuracy to the traditional narrative, such as Alan Taylor in American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804. They broaden the scope of Revolutionary history to include new continental locations and a new cast of characters and have complicated the popular historical view. However, even solid revisions of older historiographical narratives use classic British and Loyalist stereotypes. Jane Kamensky\u2019s, A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley; Maya Jasanoff\u2019s Liberty\u2019s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World; and Andrew Jackson O\u2019Shaughnessy\u2019s The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire all redress the two-dimensional portrayals of British leadership and their loyal American compatriots. These historians and biographer contend that studying the American Revolution in the context of the British Empire adds a richness to previous historiographical conclusions concerning identity, ideology, competency, and legacies. Together they form a new way to view British leadership and Loyalist Americans and prove that Loyalists and British leadership were more than villains and fools. <\/p>\n
Alan Taylor, American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2016), 7.
\nJasanoff, 12, 27, and 347-350, Jane Kamensky, A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley. (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2016), 2-5, and O\u2019Shaughnessy, 5-6 and 353.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thesis Practice Read the following excerpts and highlight or underline the thesis, or main point, of the passage. Then restate the main idea of the excerpt in your own words. Finally, identify whether the passage is a primary, secondary, or tertiary source. 1. \u201cWere the Barbarians a Negative or Positive Factor?\u201d Despite the usual negative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"disciplines":[28],"paper_types":[],"tagged":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/11334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/questions"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/11334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=11334"},{"taxonomy":"paper_types","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/paper_types?post=11334"},{"taxonomy":"tagged","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.writemyessays.app\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tagged?post=11334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}