Age of Discovery

Examples of Age of Discovery in the following topics:

• Colonialism and Neocolonialism

  • India is an example of a British colony that did not achieve independence until the mid-20th century, remaining mired by foreign debts and lack of capital for decades after.
  • Modern colonialism started with the Age of Discovery, during which Portugal and Spain discovered new lands across the oceans (including the Americas and Atlantic/South Pacific islands) and built trading posts.
  • After the First World War, the victorious allies divided up the German colonial empire and much of the Ottoman Empire according to League of Nations mandates.
  • In this theory, the world economic system is divided into a hierarchy of three types of countries: core, semiperipheral, and peripheral.
  • By the end of the 19th century, most of the Americas were under the control of European colonial empires.

• Natural Cycles

  • In fact, the early theory of Sima Qian, a Chinese historiographer of the Han Dynasty and typically considered to be the father of Chinese historiography, the more recent theories of long-term ("secular") political-demographic cycles as well as the Varnic theory of P.R.
  • The interpretation of history as repeating cycles of Dark and Golden Ages was a common belief among ancient cultures.
  • The more limited cyclical view of history defined as repeating cycles of events was put forward in the academic world in the 19th century in historiography (the study of the history and methodology of the discipline of history) and is a concept that falls under the category of sociology.
  • To illustrate this claim, he pointed out that by the end of the 19th century the Roman-German civilization was in decline, while the Slav civilization was approaching its Golden Age .
  • One of the most important recent findings in the study of the long-term dynamic social processes was the discovery of the political-demographic cycles as a basic feature of the dynamics of complex agrarian systems.

• Postindustrial Societies: The Birth of the Information Age

  • An example of the Information Age is how virtually every individual uses the Internet in some way at their place of work.
  • The Information Age formed by capitalizing on computer microminiaturization advances.
  • The Information Age has allowed rapid global communications and networking to shape modern society due to the fast evolution of technology use in daily life.
  • This graph shows the drastic increase in Internet usage, indicative of the pervasiveness of the Information Age.
  • Examine the impact the Information Age has on the accessibility and breadth of information available to society

• Age and Race

  • Aging does not result in similar outcomes for members of different races.
  • There is evidence that black senior citizens are more likely to be abused - both physically and psychologically and suffer greater financial exploitation than do white senior citizens.Further, recent demographic profiles suggest that social aging varies across racial groups, and demonstrates that minority elders (especially Hispanic and African American identified) typically enter later life with less education, less financial resources, and less access to health care than their white counterparts.Finally, researchers have noted that minority groups' greater likelihood of facing patterns of structural disadvantage throughout the life course, such as racial discrimination, poverty, and fewer social, political, and economic resources on average, create significant racial variations in the stages or age-related trajectories of racial minorities and majorities that may be observed at all points of the life span, and contribute to disparities in health, income, self-perceived age, mortality, and morbidity.
  • As a result, sociologists often explore the timing (in both subjective and objective conceptualizations of age) of varied life events within and between racial groups while exploring ways that age-related disparities influence the structural realities and bio-social outcomes of people located within different racial groups.

• The Role of Age

  • Age is an important factor in U.S. politics because there is a correlation between age and rates of political participation and because it is a determining factor in the issues people care about.
  • The lower voting rates of young people in the U.S. help explain why things like Medicare and Social Security in the U.S. are facing looming crises—the elderly will retain many of the benefits of these programs and are unwilling to allow them to be changed even though young people will be the ones to suffer the consequences of these crises.
  • Its mission is to improve the quality of life for retired people and people over the age of 50.
  • Its total revenue in 2006 was approximately $1 billion, of which $23 million was spent on lobbying.
  • Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign was notable for attracting large numbers of young voters.

• Work and Technology

  • The Information Age has impacted the workforce through automation and computerization, resulting in higher productivity and fewer jobs.
  • The Information Age has impacted the workforce in several ways.
  • There is another way in which the Information Age has impacted the workforce: automation and computerization have resulted in higher productivity coupled with net job loss.
  • The basic characteristic of this sector is the production of services instead of end products.
  • Discuss the shift in the economy from mechanization to automation due to the Information Age and its impact on the modern industrial worker

• Mechanisms of Cultural Change

  • Prior to the introduction of the birth control pill, women were at a high risk of pregnancy as a result of sex.
  • After the introduction of the pill, their risk of pregnancy was substantially reduced, increasing their willingness to engage in sexual activity outside of wedlock.
  • Discovery and invention are mechanisms of social and cultural change.
  • Discovery refers to the finding of new knowledge within an existing realm.
  • New discoveries often lead to new inventions by people.

• Race and Genetics

  • There are very few biological differences between the races and there is no "race" gene or set of genes to speak of.
  • Today it is possible to determine, by genetic analysis, the geographic ancestry of a person and the degree of ancestry from each region.
  • Such analysis can pinpoint the migrational history of a person's ancestors with a high degree of accuracy.
  • Recent discoveries in genetics offer a means of categorizing race which is distinct from past methods, which were often based on very broad criteria corresponding to physical characteristics, such as skin color, and which do not correlate reliably with geographic ancestry.
  • Recall what recent discoveries in genetics has revealed about the concept of race

• Age and Gender

  • This is of special concern considering women live longer than men, as illustrated in the next figure.
  • Men are also more "successful" when attempting suicide, which increases the rate of death among men of suicide.
  • Another factor that may contribute to the greater life expectancy of women is the different types of jobs men and women tend to have during their lifetimes.
  • Other biological factors likely play a role, including greater heart health among women, though how much they contribute to the greater longevity of women is not entirely clear.
  • The combined effect of all these differences may or may not account for the longevity gap between men and women, but it is clear that women do live longer than men and that holds true around the world.

• Age

  • Aging in humans refers to the accumulation of processes of physical, psychological, and social change over time.
  • The city of Pittsburgh offers an intriguing case study of the effects of an aging population on a city.
  • As of 2008, more people are dying in Pittsburgh than are being born.
  • Aging is the accumulation of changes in a person over time.
  • Age is measured chronologically, and a person's birthday is often an important event.