The blog for the World History AP course is designed to supplement the main blog for the World History course. We will only be using this blog to record summaries of the discussions we have in class on Thursday.
The first class was on Wednesday, 12 September. During this class we discussed Alfred Crosby’s The Children of the Sun. In this book, Crosby argues how human history can be understood by the changing relationship between humans the energy produced by the sun. Since the beginning of human history, humans have been dependent on the suns. Major shifts have occurred in human society based on the different ways in which humans have managed to exploit the energy of the sun. With each new method, the demand for energy has increased, and humans have needed to search for new ways to get access to solar energy. The book concludes with the recent experiments with fission and fusion that are would provide humans with a new and important source of energy. Some of the interesting points raised in the discussion was how Crosby seems to assume that technology is the answer to humans’ problems. He does not consider the alternative of trying to conserve energy and finding more ways to maximize what energy we do use.
