Protestant Ref., Imperialism, and WWI Term Paper

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92). Pope Innocent X lamented the procedure, of course -- for it served to subvert the truths which the Roman Church strove to propagate.

Thus, the modern world was built not upon the majesty of kings and religion, but upon treaties and revolutionary ideals. The philosophical fruit of Protestantism would spring up in the age of Romantic/Enlightenment doctrine, which would produce the American and French Revolutions. "Liberty, equality, fraternity" would be the modern world's ethos -- in theory. However, capitalist ethics would undermine the romantic ideology. Imperialism -- for gold, God, and glory at the end of the medieval world -- would be based, in the modern world, upon sheer greed (as a principle). America defined this principle well with the notion of "manifest destiny," which by the end of the 19th century was expanded beyond the American frontier to encompass the whole globe.

The new Imperialism of America (and other leading/competing nations in Europe) was, of course, a product of Industrialization. But American Imperialism was an especially devious kind. While America was theoretically isolationist, in practice it was anything but. New Expansionism and Republican ideology (which was kept, fundamentally, in the back pocket of Wall Street) paved the way to World War I -- which saw the final annihilation of Catholic Austria.

America's Imperialistic role was directly related to its wars: The Spanish-American War in 1898, propagated by the yellow journalism of Hearst and Pulitzer who blamed the sinking of the Maine on Spain (a blame that had no truth to it whatsoever), turned public sentiment in favor of war. That war allowed America to go all the way to the Philippines to fight and anchor, in response to which men like Mark Twain helped form the Anti-Imperialist League. However, the League would draw little political weight as a Republican Washington would serve as the handmaiden of Wall Street -- and corporate America was the new King. 1917 would be the death of the old world -- and the sinking of the Lusitania would help effect it. America's entrance into WWI (through another shady tragedy -- a common theme in American war entry) would present Woodrow Wilson with his chance to promote his pet project, the League of Nations.

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The effect of WWI on world history, however, would be more subtle: essentially, it wiped out an entire generation of men -- men still tied at least to a degree to an old world spirit. As Spielvogel (2010) states, "The High Middle Ages was a time of extraordinary intellectual and artistic vitality. It witnessed the birth of universities and a building spree that left Europe bedecked with churches and cathedrals" (p. 304). The God of those cathedrals had been rejected -- and now so too the spirit. The new spirit of the world would be Masonic, naturalistic, and anti-Catholic (Laux, p. 546; Jones, 2000, p. 7).

In conclusion, the Protestant Reformation, Imperialism, and WWI each effected a break from the old world ideology that had drawn Europe together under one house. The new world would rely on treaty and strong-arm tactics to keep itself together: but as the 20th century would show, neither was effective. War follows war, and treaties fall. The medieval philosophy that brought Western civilization out of the Dark Age, rejected, returns Western civilization to another age of darkness.

Reference List

Elliot, J.H. (2009). Spain, Europe and the Wider World: 1500-1800. Yale Universtiy

Press.

Haaren, J. (1904). Famous Men of the Middle Ages. New York, NY: American Book

Company.

Jones, E.M. (2000). Libido Dominandi. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press.

Laux, J. (1989). Church History. TAN Books.

Spielvogel, J. (2010). The Essential World History,….....

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