Reflection 15

Well it looks like this is pretty much it for the semester. This is the last blog post and i am not quite sure what to say. I did enjoy this class, no matter how many tons of reading or strenuous group projects we had to do. I guess that I wish I had maybe talked more in class, but that is something I always wish for when I am finished with a class. I know I am really quiet in class, but sitting in a room of 20 people, most of whom are more outspoken than me and seem to pull outside information into the class that I didn't even know existed, makes me severely intimidated. I really don't generally speak my mind unless I am having a conversation with a small group of people about something i know a lot about. Otherwise I just worry that i am going to get something horribly wrong and people are going to call me out on it.
But besides that, I did generally enjoy the class, and we did hit some issues I feel very strongly about, which I am sure will be quite obvious in my blog posts. I think more than anything I enjoyed having a class where everyone knows each other and can come talk to you about what you said in class later. It was slightly relieving to walk into the lounge the day before the mid term was due only to find seven people just as stressed out as me sitting in there rapidly typing on their computers. Luckily, that is not something that is going to change next semester, but it is something I think I will miss very much next year.

Reflection 14

I find it really ironic that we are reading the Todorov book this week. Of course, this week is thanksgiving, where we celebrate being together and being alive with mountains of food and time off of work and school. Of course, on the Original thanksgiving, the feast they made came from the help of the Native Americans, who taught the settlers of the Mayflower how to farm and hunt, and they celebrated the fact that the native Americans pretty much saved them from death. Then we go on to read Todorov, that offers deep insight into how the European settlers destroyed the Native American populations by killing them and giving them diseases. When I actually realized what was happening, I kind of laughed a little bit.
I thought about it a little more, and I realized how much the institution of thanksgiving in general directly correlates with constructivism. Thanksgiving is a purely American institution, where people spend hundreds of dollars traveling to family homes to spend a long weekend together, while for the rest of the world it's just another weekend. Thanksgiving gives the American public an identity completely unique to them, which distinguishes them from the rest of the world. And so thanksgiving also contributes to the theory of constructivism.

Reflection 13

I found the Native American museum this week very interesting. It was kind of funny actually, I was always really interested in Native American culture as a child, and going to the museum on Wednesday reminded me of that. I was always interested in the culture, history, and mythology of Native American tribes, and that led me to thinking about why that possibly was. Then I remembered, that at the time I was being taught about Native Americans, I was in the fourth grade, and had lived in this country for no more than two years. At this point, I did have some friends, but my transition into an American lifestyle was horrible, and, luckily*, it never became complete. I was tormented every day for the first year, my mom talked of nothing but how much she wished she were back in the UK, and I had to learn what different words meant (like eraser and pants) while getting accustomed to habits that I had been taught were impolite (like eating french fries with your fingers). Anyways, I digress. the reason this is important is because at that point in my life, I hated this country and came home from school near tears every day, just wanting to go back home with my friends and family. The only thing that was going well for me was my schoolwork. Then I learned about the Native Americans, and I discovered a part of American history that was completely different to anything I had learned up to that point. I guess it gave me a little bit of hope that not everything in this country is bad, which is lucky because when I was given the decision to go back to the UK or not in 4th grade, I decided to stay here. So it must have done something to change my views of the US. sure, I know now how much Native American culture is removed from US culture, but at the time it had an impact on me. Anyway, it was nice to feel nostalgic as I was walking through that museum.

*Just to clarify, I do not in anyway use that word to suggest I don't like the US or don't want to be an American. It is more to clarify that I love being who I am, and that is British. It is a joke I use a lot but I sometimes get myself into trouble for it, so I just had to clarify to anyone who took offense to that.

Bonus Blog question

I am not going to lie, the first time I saw this photo I rolled my eyes a little bit. I have never much taken to "football" (remembering i'm English), and it's no offence to anyone but that is just generally the usual response I give to anything "football" related. But I digress; that is not what this blog post is supposed to be about.
In terms of which representation of Native Americans is more acceptable, I believe you could see both representations either way. Most Native American rights advocates (as well as the Native Americans themselves) would find the museum a more acceptable view of "Indians" because it showcases and represents the history and culture of various Native American tribes that generally most people don't know about and don't think about on a regular basis. They would also probably find the representations of "Indians" made by the Redskins unacceptable because in their view, it is an innacurate representation of Native Americans and possibly an ethnic slur. But at the same time, Football fans probably don't think much about the slurs behind naming a football team a Native American derogatory term, and see it simply as a representation of the sports team they love and support until the day they die. But the senario becomes different when talking about how the same football fans would view the Native American museum. In this case, the football fans take on the same view as the American public; which is that they don't know very much about Native Americans in the first place. That is not anyone's fault though, because Native American affairs simply are not prevalent in American news and culture, so they are often forgotten about. Sure, people are taught about Native Americans in elementary school, but it is not likely they still remember it far into their adulthood. So in this case, it is impossible to say wether these people view the museum as acceptable or not, because they just don't know enough to decide in the first place.

Blog Post 11

Despite everything that Columbus did to the Native Americans in Hispaniola, he did find (not discover) the America which opened a whole new set of resources and a plethora of knowledge up to the Europeans, as well as a new area of the world to expand into and eventually a little country called the United States of America. So, even though it is widely believed that Columbus did not do very many positive things in terms of finding Hispaniola, there were a few good things that came out of his voyage.

That being said, there is a lot to blame him for. He did still highly marginalize the indigenous people, bring disease from Europe and enslave the natives. He was sent to prison for the way he governed Hispaniola, and he started a trend of explorers dehumanizing the Natives in the areas they find. You could blame Columbus for a lot of things that happened to the Native Americans in Hispaniola.

At the same time, Columbus didn't influence or tell other explorers and conquistadors to treat the natives they encountered in the same way. Everything that happened to the Native Americans in the rest of the Americas was exactly the same as what happened to them in Hispaniola. So it is impossible to blame Columbus for everything that happened to the Native Americans, because it was not Columbus who told Cortez to conquer the Aztecs, or told the Continental and British armies in the American Revolution to have Native Americans fight for them and then kill them off.

Reflection 12

We had a very interesting discussion in class this week about who deserves an education and what it means to attain an education. A few people brought up the point that it is possible for someone to attain higher education, and if they could not afford it, that they would find a way to pay for their education. And I could not disagree more. In this country, to go to a good university, it can cost up to $50,000 a year. To a good percentage of the population, that is more than a yearly salary. It is not possible for those people to send their children to a school like American University. Some would respond: Well what about financial aid? It is true that schools offer financial aid to students who need it, but it is simply impossible to offer full scholarships to everyone who needs them. And even at Ivy League institutions, where the average gpa of an accepted student is 4.0 and SAT scores are close to perfect, it is not possible to offer every poor child who gets those figures full financial aid, and there is not even a guarantee of getting in to that school when every single applicant to that school has a perfect gpa and perfect SAT and AP scores as well. It simply is not fair that a student with a 3.0 gpa, 1670 SAT score and no AP's can go to college because they can afford it and a student with a 4.0 GPA, 2300 SAT score and all 4's and 5's on several AP's cannot go to that same school because they cannot afford it, even with financial aid.

The University of Oxford in England costs 3,375 pounds, or approximately 5418 dollars a year to attend. The University of Tokyo in Japan costs 535,000 Yen, or approximately 6446 dollars a year to attend. Australian National University in Australia costs 8859 australian dollars, or approximately 8723 US dollars at the most to attend. It is highly unlikely that in these countries, there is a big issue with money when thinking about going to University. And in these countries, education is no joke. You have to work unbelievably hard to get into University in those countries as well. The people who are informed about the educational situation in these countries would say that the only reason it is so cheap to go to school in these countries is because the government funds education. Exactly. In most of the modernized world, the government subsidizes education, and there is no reason why it shouldn't be done in the US as well. the privatization of education does nothing but drive up the price of education, causing it to be nearly impossible for the poor to attend a very good university. A person should not have to choose what school they go to based on the amount of money they get from that school. Some of the best minds come from the working and lower classes, and they are being deprived of many opportunities because they cant afford higher education.

Reflection 11

Since we have been talking about Security and Insecurity all this week, I would like to take some time to point out the slightly alarming things I found when we went to the pentagon on Wednesday. First of all, I may just be over reacting, but I feel a little uncomfortable at the fact that the Pentagon has its own metro stop. Sure, it is the pentagon, and it is, to some extent, a tourist site. But it is also the center for security of the entire Nation, and I just can't help but worry how easy it would be to just run out of the subway station and cause major damage to the tourists and the guards on duty. I also found it even more alarming to learn that the escalators leading out from the subway station came right up inside the pentagon. First of all, whose smart subway planning was that? Second of all, it is unbelievably easy for a very dangerous person to walk right into the Pentagon and detonate something (this might be an exageration, but it's not completely impossible.) Last of all, what? just, what? I'm going to stop thinking about it now because I'm hoping there was some form of SUPER STATE OF THE ART security technology to prevent things like that from happening.
I also found it unbelievably ironic to find that they actually sold Pentagon shot glasses. I spent a good half hour cracking up at the idea in my head.

Security?

Having troops deployed to Afghanistan was a great way to make people feel secure back in 2001, when people were scared and they knew that the organizer of the attack was in Afghanistan. Not only did it help people feel secure, but it also had a clear purpose. Troops were sent in to help break up Al-Qaeda and find Osama Bin Laden.

But that was nine years ago, and it is questionable wether there is still as much use to the US being in Afghanistan as there was back then. The US has lost track of Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda insurgents are now being trained and sheltered in Pakistan and it is also believed that Osama Bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan. If the US really wanted to make headway in the fight against Al- Qaeda they would force Pakistan, a supposed ally to the US, to give up all known Al-Qaeda leaders and insurgents in Pakistan, or at least have them do a thorough search for those leaders and insurgents. But I myself no longer see how we can make headway in Afghanistan.

Not only that, but the war in Afghanistan is the last thing on people's minds anymore. It is no longer heavily covered in the news and people are more concerned with the Economy as well as other domestic interests. The US's campaign in Afghanistan no longer effects people's sence of security because it has been going on for so long that people have simply gotten used to their current security status. No one can survive being scared for nine whole years, so everyone just goes on with their lives as normal.

Reflection 10

I want to start off by saying that I still stand by my stance that security is not all encompasing, as I said on Wednesday (or Thursday morning). But I just want to reflect a little bit on the 2010 Security strategy. One of the means of advancing US interests as stated in the National Security strategy is Prosperity, meaning economic stablility and the well being of the citizens. This week we went to the Christ house, where many homeless people with chronic sicknesses go to get well before they move on to improve their lives. This is a great establishment, and shows that there are people out there who are trying to help people contribute to US society. But at the same time, the fact that there are so many homeless people overshadows the National Security strategy's efforts to promote prosperity. Sick and homeless people can not help the country increase its prosperity, and therefore they have to be taken care of and put in homes before they can ever contribute to society. If prosperity is key to national security, you have to start out by making sure the citizens of your country can contribute to that prosperity. That is all I have to say for today.

Blog 8

National Security involves the measures that are taken, or should be taken, to ensure that the citizens of a country are physically safe and under a stable government. That means stopping and preventing any threats of attack or even sending troops abroad to prevent an attack on the people from happening. But to the US today, it doesn't seem like that is the way things are. The US seems to put every issue in its country as a matter of National Security.
After reading the NSC68 document, it was very clear to me what the US's security strategy was in 1950. The US wanted to subdue the threat of communism because it went against everything the US constitution stood for (under a stable government) and it wanted to try and counter any possible nuclear attack from the USSR (physically safe). That was the basic idea of this top secret security strategy, and it involved nothing but security.
The 2010 security strategy is a little bit different. Not only is it out in the open for anyone to read, which I protest to, but it is very general in terms of what it considers security. Sure, it involves actual security and military options, but for some reason the US seems to consider improving the economy, human rights abroad and education parts of national security, which I just don't agree with. Sure, I understand how educating the youth can contribute to National Security, or how improving the Economy can contribute to National Security. But I don't believe that either of these things really ARE National Security the way that defense is.

Reflection 9

Since I put most of the action stuff in my Blog from yesterday, I think I am going to just reflect on how I felt about the Risk game in general. i had never played Risk before, and it was a really exciting experience to learn how to play in a world politics setting. I am sure it probably will have ruined the real version of Risk for me, should I ever choose to play it. On one hand, I wish it would have just kept going, but on the other, I was kind of glad to finally get it done and over with. I was happy that all of our tactics seemed to be working, but after a while I just wanted the game to end and to move on, because it just felt like no one was coming any closer to their goal, we were all just getting rid of people instead of working to win. But I guess that's how it has to work in the world of Liberalism, which I hadn't thought about yesterday. when you work with other people, things take longer to get done, and so in the end, it is just easier to go at it by yourself sometimes, from a world politics point of view. I guess that is another reason why not everyone in the world will just give in to Liberalism. But anyway, this was probably my favorite subject of the class so far, and hope we can play a game like that again in the future.

Blog 7

Before I say anything about Risk relating to World Politics, I would just like to clarify that I had no idea we had been trying to bring the Green Team down and was only made aware by my diplomat well after hope was already lost for the Green team. Just clarifying so that I don't get as may angry glares as I already am.
In the beginning of the game, we almost exactly simulated World Politics. Every group was acting in its own interest, simulating Realism, but at the same time was making deals and alliances with other groups to help themselves acheive their goal, simulating Realism. But that as because we had all just started to play the game, and everyone had a general interest in the affairs of their respective "countries." Then, time went by and after several thousand backdoor deals and meetings took place in the dorms, teams started to band together and trust eachother to help neutralize a common threat, which at that time was the red team. This is exactly like when Russia and the US set aside their political differences in WW 2 to defeat the Nazi's, because they decided that since they had the same goal, it was better to work together to acheive it than try to take on Germany by themselves. After the Red country was gone, things started to change. several people lost interest and those who were interested became more interested. After that, people were making secret alliances left and right, while some (which I must once again clarify, had nothing to do with me) turned their back on their allies without them knowing. During the last round of Risk, the Yellow, Blue, and Black teams arranged a three way tie by completely destroying the other two nations.
During the game, the Yellow team was working very closely with the Green team to mutually acheive their goals. But later, the Yellow team (EXCLUDING ME) decided that the green and yellow teams could not win together, so they decided to find another way to win. This is exactly like when the USSR and the US's friendly relations fell apart shortly after destroying Nazi Germany, because it was immediately after the red team had been destroyed that green-yellow relations fell apart.
So overall, I believe it almost exactly simulated real world politics, except for the three way tie at the end. The ending of this game showed that Liberalism is the way the world chose to go, but in the actual world things would have never happened like that. The world's countries will never be able to trust each other enough to put their entire fate in another country's hands, for fear that they will betray them. In the real world, everyone is still scared of each other to the point that they don't quite trust anyone, which is why the three theories of International Relations are so balanced in the real world. And that is why things will never be as they were in our game of Risk.

Reflection 8

I was really looking forward to the Salome show, as I had never been to an opera before. It made me even more excited to learn that it was in German, as I am learning the language and am very interested in it. Getting there was a different story though. First of all, I had forgotten my glasses and could not see the supertitles very well. So, from that point on, I just had to go by what little German I know, and it did not go well overall. I understood "Give me the head of Johannen" pretty well though. But that wasn't really the important part to me. What I found interesting was how such a raw and grotesque scene as Salome holding the head of Johannen was surrounded by an audience of mostly older upper class men and women, which isn't exactly the kind of audience you would expect to find watching a show like that. But even so, it is the Opera; I feel as if the very fact that they are going to the opera would entice them to go, because it has always been an upper class activity. It really shows you that a good portion of society functions upon the stereotypes with which it identify's itself with.

At any rate, I wouldn't go back. There was just a general pretentiousness to the atmosphere that didn't really sit well with me; it just made me feel uncomfortable, or like I didn't belong. And in all honesty, I didn't find the acting all that good. I found the scenes, especially the final one with Salome gripping the head of Johannen, to be unnecessarily long and drawn out. The music and singing were pretty good, I will give them that. But in all honesty I would rather go see Wicked on broadway, and I honestly feel like it would have been more entertaining generally.

Reflection 7

I was very impressed with the way the simulation went. Everyone had good arguments and critiques relative to their topics, and their videos were equally as good. I personally thought that when we were given eight minutes of time in which to do our presentations, it was going to be easy to keep our presentation under eight minutes and still prove our point. That was until I edited our groups video and it ended up being 7 minutes and 50 seconds long. We had to cut out almost half of our material in that video, which made me a little dissapointed because the video became choppy and we didn't get to express everything we wanted to in it. Then, when we had three minutes for our rebuttal, I was unable to address all the arguments I wanted to because my other group members just had enough time to be able to address all the arguments they needed to. So I believe that it would have been beneficial to have had more time to present this simulation, maybe during a lab period. I also think it would have been beneficial to have had some debate time so that we could address each argument but also develop arguments against the rebuttals. I feel like the whole process was very formal and rigid, and I feel like we would have been able to convince our president to sway to one side or the other if we had been able to debate our issues. Otherwise it turned out much better than expected, and I look forward to doing something like it again.

Reflection 5

I do believe reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is a controversial and important topic. I have discussed this in classes in the past, and it seems to me like most people have the same opinion in that it doesn't seem to be a big issue. The reason I think it is is that from the time children are 4 or 5 years old, they are taught the words of the pledge of allegiance and are told that they have to say it every day. The idea that children have to pledge their allegiance to a country is frankly, in my opinion frightening. It is almost as if by not pledging allegiance to the country, they might grow up to not be proud of the country, or believe that a different form of government is suitable. When I started elementary school in New York in 3rd grade after just moving there from England, what the pledge of allegiance actually meant never occurred to me. it wasn't until 9th grade that I realized what I was actually saying when I recited the pledge of allegiance, and also that I was pledging allegiance to a country that wasn't my country. So I stopped saying the pledge. Every day, for a year and a half, I was bullied because I didn't say the pledge of allegiance. Two guys who were in my homeroom would shout at me to say the pledge every day and call attention to it. People would stop me in the hallway to ask me why I didn't say the pledge every morning. In the end, I was forced to say the pledge every day because it became a huge problem. I was being bullied for not participating in something which was not relevant to me. I do not have a problem with the action of reciting the pledge; I have a problem with being forced to recite it like I was.

I also was very surprised by the "This is Alabama, we speak English" ad. To a certain extent, I did believe there were still people in this country who were anti-immigration and to some extent, prejudiced against foreigners, but I didn't realize that an ad like this could represent a significant amount of people.

Blog post 5

About the question of wether there are things states can and can't do based on social norms and expectations, Of course their are certain things states cannot do. Every state is subject to the judgements of other states, and not to mention international law, on every action they take at both an international and domestic level. If a state believes that another state is doing wrong by another state, or by it's people, it has been common in the past for that state to intervene when the situation proved to be unresolvable in any other way.

One good example is with genocide. Starting with the Nazi genocide on Jews, Homosexuals, and other minorities during world war II, there have been several other genocides in the past sixty years. Genocide is such an international outrage because the state itself, rather than protecting it's people, is killing off the people it deems undesirable. Even so, Genocide is a really tricky issue. It is really tricky to tell if Genocide is actually going on. One example is the controversial Turkish-Armenian genocide. According to Armenians, the Turks commited genocide against them in the World War 1 period. It is believed that there were 25 concentration camps, and that the death toll was somewhere near 1.5 million. Armenians are constantly fighting to have the genocide recognized by other countries. But the Turks insist that a Genocide never took place, there is nothing in the governmental archives about it, and in fact even accusing Turkey of genocide is against the law in Turkey. So when hearing two very different stories from both sides, it is very hard to tell wether or not something actually happened, thus making Genocide a really tricky topic.

Another issue, which seems to give everyone the chills when it comes up, is the production of Nuclear Weapons. The Cold War left the world forever fearful of the power of Nuclear weapons, after the Cuban missile crisis had everyone fearing for the end of the world. And according to the Center for Defence Information (http://www.cdi.org/) the US alone could possibly have enough Nuclear weapons to destroy the world, and they have since reduced their Nuclear Arsenal greatly. So it is natural that when you hear of another country developing a Nuclear Weapon, for example the current situation with North Korea, The rest of the world goes crazy over it. Right now even the US is highly concerned with the possibility of North Korea developing a Nuclear weapon, and are intervening to try to put an end to it. This has also happened with Iraq and Iran in the past; President George W. Bush was even suspected of falsely giving information of WMD's in Iraq to convince the Senate to invade. The development of nuclear weapons is almost prohibited on the world stage.

Reflection 4

This week was a very interesting week for me, especially our discussion on friday about wether or not uninformed or misinformed people should be allowed to vote. I discussed this in my very first blog post, because I do consider the power of the voter to be a major issue in world politics, in the way that uninformed or misinformed people can misrepresent the voices of the people by possibly not being able to represent themselves based on true facts. This is particularly important in the United States, because the people in this country are voting on things that effect the entire world. It is also something I feel very strongly about, as I feel like I am a pretty well informed person, but as I am not an american citizen, my opinion doesn't count, but someone who is uninformed's opinion does. But I gained a little more insight into the issue on friday and the opinions of my peers, which I found interesting.

I do admit that at first, I wasn't sure where the discussion was going, because we were talking about the issue, but not exactly how to fix it. I was surprised to find that some people believed that uninformed and misinformed people should be kept separate from the rest of the population. Although I respect their opinions, I strongly believe that as opposed to keeping these people separate from the rest of the voting population, we should do what we can to transform uninformed and misinformed people into informed people, thus fixing the problem and further representing the masses. If we attempt to separate the informed and the not informed, we begin to draw lines that aren't necessarily very clear. You need to start thinking about what an informed person is, and how you are going to determine wether someone is informed or uninformed. In the end the entire process becomes costly and detrimental to the system, and even possibly could create social divides between the informed and uninformed, which is very dangerous. For this, it would probably be a better idea to educate rather that separate, or rather segregate as it might eventually become.

Reflection 3

Learning about the concept of Hegemony this week helped me to see the US global position as it is. I had never actually put thought into the fact that the US is the modern Hegemon, though I cannot understand why. The US, economically and politically, is the most important and influential country in the world. People in Romania may not be able to tell you who the current President of South Africa is, but they can tell you who the president of the United States is, how long he has been in office, and probably the last important political action that took place in the US. The US economic determines the economic status of the entire world. As the US fell into deep recession in the fall of 2008, eventually the whole of Europe fell into an even deeper recession.

In all honesty, it is quite scary that a single country could have such a big influence on the world. In the past, as stated by Christopher Layne in "The Unipolar Illusion Revisited," other states have challenged a Hegemonic state and tried to balance out the power. These attempts have always succeeded, but it has been twenty years since the end of the Cold War, when the two dominant powers were the US and the USSR, and no one has challenged the US yet. An interesting point was brought up in class the other day, that maybe China is stepping up and challenging the US's power. I believe that this is very possible, but that China will not pose a huge threat until it can fix some of its internal problems, like population growth.

Blog Post #3

Machiavelli's The Prince was essentially the guide to ruling a country for the Renaissance age sovereign. In my opinion, the methods suggested in The Prince were brilliant for the time that they were created. In the 16th century, Absolutism was on the rise and the majority of european states were in a constant struggle for land and power. The methods suggested by Machiavelli, as immoral as they may seem sometimes (on pg. 17 Machiavelli explains that the only certain way to hold power over a newly acquired territory is to kill all the citizens and destroy it, then start from scratch), were the best ways to rule a country for the time period.

But we are no longer in the 16th century, we are in the 21st, and it is obvious that the world and its governments don't rule the same way as before. Absolutism is no longer the predominant form of government, and modern european monarchies have little power in comparison to their countries parliaments. Today, the predominant political structure of the main powers of the world are Democratic or Socialist, and Machiavelli clearly states that The Prince is on ruling Principalities, not Democracies. And frankly, if President Obama or Prime Minister Cameron went around taking over countries and killing its inhabitants to establish their power, the UN and the world would be in an uproar. Also, today the political and territorial structure of Europe and the US is a lot more stable, and the threat of a sudden change of government or invasion is minimal. This makes many of the ideologies present in The Prince redundant.

However, there might be one or two pieces of advice that could be useful to heads of state today. For example, the latter portion of The Prince talks about how a ruler has to find balance between two qualities in order to be a good ruler, for example, generosity and parsimony. A head of state today would not be able to tax heavily without a huge uproar, but they would also not be able to give huge tax cuts as well, because if tax cuts were given equally, the citizens would not like having to pay more taxes again. Even so, overall The Prince is a little to outdated to todays political structure.

Reflection 1

I feel that reading How Football (or Soccer) explains the World was a great way to start of the semester in this class. Many people, especially in the United States, fail to recognize how much football is engrained into the culture of, well, the entire world. So much so that, even though it may have been a stretch at times, it can tell the history of a country or a religion as if they were the game themselves.

It especially put the culture of my own country in perspective for me. My family is originally from Glasgow, Scotland, so I grew up around football, and from the age of three I knew about the rivalry between Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic. It wasn't until I read this book that I actually understood how serious the rivalry was. I knew pretty much all the history of the Protestant and Catholic rivalry in Scotland, but it was only upon reading this book that I began to say to myself "Wow, that is really bad, but its completely true."

I do need to clarify some things though. I have never heard someone sing anything about Fenian blood, and I have never seen a Rangers fan wearing orange. Rangers wear dark blue and white, like the colors of the scottish flag, and Celtics wear green and white. Also, the hype around the Rangers and Celtics is not nearly as bad as it used to be. My mum told me stories of her going with her mum to visit her grandmother on the other side of Glasgow every weekend. She said that before they left, they always checked what Football games were on and where, because to come home from her grandmothers, they had to pass Ibrox stadium on the bus, and if there was a Rangers/Celtics game on, there would be fans from both teams on the bus, and there WOULD be fights. But today it is not nearly as violent as it was in the past. The last Rangers/Celtic game I went to was about four years ago, and there were no fights, and certainly no one talking about Fenian Blood. Today it is just a friendly rivalry, and it should be since those two teams are at the top of the Scottish Premier League. So this book gave me not only an insight into my own country's history, but into the history of the world.