CHANGE AND CONTINUITY OVER TIME ESSAY



CHANGE AND CONTINUITY OVER TIME ESSAY

This essay asks you to access how larger global issues and themes such as gender, trade, technology, and environment have changed and remained the same. You not only have to identify areas of change, but also areas of continuity across chronological periods, and will have to compare two or more chronological periods within one geographic area. You all have the same prompt but will be able to choose between different geographic regions to answer the question.

Organization is critical in this essay. While the thesis and conclusion paragraphs are similar to both the Document Based Question and the Compare/Contrast essays, the body paragraphs should be based on chronological periods. There should be one paragraph for each time period.

You will have to have an acceptable thesis. Make sure that the thesis mentions global issues and time periods addressed or implied in the prompt.

You must address all parts of the prompts although not thoroughly or evenly. There are upper and lower standards. To receive two points, the student will need to address the whole time period, change, and continuity. You should differentiate between the time periods and issues included in the prompt. This is best accomplished by dealing with the different parts in separate paragraphs. The simplest way is to create three body paragraphs based on time periods – one beginning, one around a mid-point and the third around the end date. Within each paragraph discuss the global issues, changes and continuities. Then begin each paragraph with a sub-thesis based on one part of the thesis.

You must substantiate the thesis with appropriate historical evidence. It is not sufficient to make a statement without use of proof and evidence. You should use evidence, which is clear and detailed. Appropriate vocabulary, persons, events, and individual states are critical.

You must analyze the process of change and/or continuity. This requires you to address the topic across all relative chronological periods, and show changes and continuities. Most importantly, it requires you to explain at least one reason for any changes or continuities of the period. Having three paragraphs based on chronology helps accomplish this.

You must use relevant historical and global context effectively to explain change over time and/or continuity. This includes discussing the wider world as it relates to the topic.

And you need to conclude. You need to do this in case your thesis fails. A conclusion often is as good as a thesis. The conclusion need not be elaborate. The single sentence should discuss the change – and the single greatest continuity – and combined them into a conclusion. The sentence should also contain the beginning and end dates. As such it could be a thesis, which would receive a thesis point even if it is in the last paragraph.

SAMPLE CHANGE AND CONTINUITY ESSAY

PROMPT:

Trace the transformation of social structures from 1750 – 1914 in any one region listed: (1) Southeast Asia; (2) Sub-Saharan Africa; or (3) Latin America.

Between 1750 – 1914 while numerous societies of Southeast Asia remained dominated by social elites which controlled most of the wealth and land, there were profound changes in the nature and composition of this elite. Additionally, while peasants and small farmers continued in many of their age old social institutions and traditions, new groups arose and diversified including commercial classes, technocrats, bureaucrats and intellectuals.

In 1750, while the Dutch and Spanish controlled many ports and islands of the East Indies and Philippines respectfully, mainland Indo-China including Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, and the Malay Peninsula remained independent. At this time the independent nations were ruled by traditional elites whether it was Confucian educated mandarin elites in Vietnam or Buddhist trained monks and scholars in Thailand, or Muslim clerics in the Malay Peninsula. Most often these elite were men but women were not excluded in all of these areas from considerable influence in society. This characteristic was common throughout Southeast Asian cultures namely women controlled most market places, could sit on village councils, could advise kings and often rule in their own right. On the other hand, the arrival of the Europeans in the preceding centuries had placed an European elite above the native elite in areas which the Europeans ruled. Most often these European men worked for East India Companies. And while they dealt with local princes for tribute in places such as Malacca or Java, provided the tribute in crops and exportable cash crops were paid, the Europeans did not intervene with the local populations allowing the traditional elite to continue traditional roles and rule. This was true in the Spanish Philippines where a lack of native-born Spaniards made it impossible for the Spanish crown to exercise much control beyond the cities and suburbs. While Spanish born elites ran the royal government, dominated the military, controlled the elite church hierarchies and regulated international trade, the Spanish relied on local Filipino elites – datus or chiefs – to collect tribute and provide labor needed by the Spanish. In 1750, the biggest impact on social structures that the Europeans had was to enter into an already diverse commercial scene and become the new dominant social group. The Europeans almost always dominated the jobs and hierarchy of international commercial exports but left local commercial classes – the Malay, Indian, and Chinese – in control of local commerce, banking, and local shipping. Europeans lived in cities and dealt with Malays, Chinese, and Indian commercial groups. Within these groups, each ethnic tradition maintained their own social hierarchies whether it was built around a Confucian, casted Hindu, Buddhist, or Malayo-Polynesian model.

By 1914, as European control of local areas spread, their imperialism and commercial interests disrupted many traditional social structures. While European populations maintained a “white” social hierarchy dominated by governmental service, military service, or success in business interests in the East Indies, Malaya, Philippines, and Vietnam, Europeans often rearranged the social systems to suit their commercial needs. While they rarely interacted with Europeans socially, economically, or religiously, traditional elites were often left in control if they cooperated with European colonial rulers. But these ethnic elites began to “Westernize” in many cases. Javanese princely elites sent their children to Dutch schools while Malay princes dressed and acted like their English counterparts. Filipino intellectuals went to Spanish universities and published books for Spanish audiences. Colonial regimes also fostered the rise of new ethnic social elites such as the educated Vietnamese technocrats to use the machines Europeans brought, educated scholars who taught at local universities following European models, lower echelon bureaucrats, policemen, and soldiers who worked for the French colonial regimes, and urbanized Chinese commercial classes in Saigon and Hanoi who bought and sold goods. If Europeans introduced new religions, a new social elite developed, too. This had happened earlier in the Philippines where a native clergy had emerged larger in number than Spanish priests, nuns, and friars. And for a while around 1750, this clergy even acquired some senior positions. But the Spanish attempted to marginalize and reduce their influence as the Filipino clergy became spokesmen for Filipino interests. In Vietnam, the introduction of Catholicism produced a new elite – Catholics and Catholic clergy who cooperated very closely with the French. In Thailand, in order to maintain his traditional control of the country, the king took control of the Buddhist convents and monasteries as their religious leader, something uncommon in older Buddhist traditions, and introduced western trained bureaucrats, soldiers, and specialists. Nevertheless, the majority of the population – the peasants and poor farmers often were not impacted by these changes. Unless they worked in the new commercialized agriculture such as rubber, rice, spices, sugar, or coffee, or lived in the newly urbanized areas which were modeled after European cities, Southeast Asian traditional elites ran the councils and villages and rarely interacted on a larger scale with the urban or traditional elites unless it was to pay taxes.

The Age of Imperialism ended with Europeans ruling all Southeast Asian nations except Thailand. While peasants and rural elite remained as did traditional religious elites, the other social groups had changed and were more in contact with the wider world. While European colonial administrators dominated the region, elite groups of university instructed locals, engineers and technocrats, Chinese, Indian, and Malay merchants, western educated princes, and low level civil servants all had acquired status within these societies and replaced more traditional elites as the power under the Europeans. But their influence was often confined to the cities and “high culture” leaving an older world with its traditions and hierarchies hidden but intact.

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