Rough Darwin Thesis/Half Intro Paragraph

Charles Darwin generated and published innovative theories on the mechanisms behind the transmutation (evolution) of species, completely contradicting the long-standing church beliefs on the genesis of man. The complex man behind the theories grew up with a scientific background: a mother who was a botanist, a grandfather who was an evolutionary pioneer among other subjects, and an education in one of Scotland’s most renowned research facilities at The University of Edinburgh. Darwin lived for some time in London, at the heart of the industry and capitalism, allowing him to experience first hand the truths behind Thomas Malthus’ economic speculations that suggested “survival of the fittest.” On an extended sea voyage focused on scientific research, he was among sailors who were religious skeptics causing him to question his own faith. Evidently Charles Darwin’s external influences are most likely the main explanations for his motivation to publish his radical ideas.

Imperialism: Perspectives through literature

WW1 Tech

Throughout the course of history, advances in technology have vastly affected the way humans fight wars. One could name countless additions to the human war cabinet that have, over the years, changed the manner of war. With the progression of personal weaponry, armor, artillery, there are countless examples. Within World War One, automatic weapons elevated warfare to a previously unforeseen level. The introduction of automatic weapons, weapons that could sustain a high rate of fire, made all formally used war tactics obsolete. Normally, these tactics in earlier wars consisted of men lining up across from each other on an open field and firing upon the opposing line until one group retreated. Automatic weapons made these tactics outdated, as a group of 500 men lined up in such a manner could be taken down with a machine gun in a few seconds. Machine guns showed their revolutionary worth most notably in World War One when they made crossing open battlefields an inevitable death sentence.
Utilized heavily in World War One, machine guns brought full armies to a halt, causing them to dig in for defense. Trench warfare was the new tactic developed in response to the machine gun because combatants could not be in the open or else they would be shot down by a machine gun. Moving only a few yards in trench warfare could have cost hundreds of men’s lives because of the devastating power of the machine gun. Normally, tactics in the war consisted of a heavy artillery barrage of the enemy’s fortifications to break down any obstacles and barbed wire in the way and to throw the enemy into a state of panic. Next, the army who just fired the artillery would climb out of the trenches and run toward the enemy’s trenches hoping they could take control of them. However, this tactic was extremely ineffective because although the artillery could have taken out a few machine gunners, one machine gunner could hold hundreds of men at bay. This new weapon created the very indecisive nature of World War One because armies would rarely advance into enemy territories, and if they did, it would be at the cost of thousands of soldiers. The significance of the machine gun was that war would never be the same. No longer would armies be able to see each other as intimately as they would have in conflicts like the Civil and Revolutionary wars.

John Stuart Mill Tentative Thesis

Though John Stuart Mill is now thought of as a breakthrough liberal thinker that developed revolutionary policies and ideas in many areas of philosophy, his legacy is not deserved; Mill merely copied the thoughts of previous philosophers, such as Jeremy Bentham and Adam Smith, and made them far more accessible to the general public.

Elizabeth Strutt and middle-class woman of the family enterprise in the 18th century

Dana Tom

Why were Elizabeth Strutt and many middle-class women of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries successful in contributing to their family enterprises, despite the imminent emergence of "the separate spheres" of the sexes?

Elizabeth Strutt possessed a unique, romantic marriage with her husband and thus earned the entrusted role as an economic contributor to the Strutt family enterprise, unlike the subordinate roles of most wives during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, aside from her unconventional, marital partnership with Strutt, Elizabeth accurately represented the role of many eighteenth-century middle-class wives as the hidden investments of family industries before the later years of the Industrial Revolution. And yet, ironically, the economic contributions of women during the late eighteenth century eventually fazed them out of all economic activity during the nineteenth, as European corporations industrialized and grew and as “the separate spheres” of the sexes consequently emerged.

Elise's Austen/Gender Roles Thesis

Jane Austen, the acclaimed literary and poetic genius, became widely respected for her witty and pointed critique of gender roles in the 18th and 19th century.  However, despite her sharp tongue, her observations in Pride and Prejudice do not necessarily reflect the actual role of women during her time.

Bismarck Thesis

Because of Germany’s heightened interest in colonization, Bismarck chose to use nationalism as a means to unite Germany, help enforce total war, and mask separate actions and motives.