TRUTH  

When Solon (the ancient Greek lawgiver) was asked if he had given his countrymen the best laws, he answered, "The best they are capable of receiving." This is one of the most profound utterances on record. Yet like all great truths, it is a truth so simple as to be rarely comprehended. This is because it contains the whole philosophy of history. It utters a truth which, had it been recognized, would have saved men an immensity of vain and idle disputes, and would have led them into clearer paths of knowledge in the past. In brief, it means this – that all truths are truths of period, and not truths for eternity; that whatever great fact has had strength and vitality enough to make itself real, whether of religion, morals, government, or of whatever else, and to find its place in this world, has been a truth for the time, and as good as men were capable of receiving.
Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualities — particularly rationality. It is a component of a variety of more specific philosophical systems and is incorporated into several religious schools of thought. Humanism can be considered the process by which truth and morality is sought through human investigation. In focusing on the capacity for self-determination, humanism rejects the validity of transcendental justifications, such as a dependence on belief without reason, the supernatural, or texts of allegedly divine origin. Humanists endorse universal morality based on the commonality of the human condition, suggesting that solutions to human social and cultural problems cannot be parochial.

 

ÔLuther's Big Three:  Protestants emphasized such concepts as justification by "faith alone" (not faith and good works or infused righteousness), "Scripture alone" (the Bible as the sole inspired rule of faith, rather than the Bible plus tradition), "the priesthood of all believers" (eschewing the special authority and power of the Catholic sacramental priesthood), that all people are individually responsible for their status before God such that talk of mediation through any but Christ alone is unbiblical. Because they saw these teachings as stemming from the Bible, they encouraged publication of the Bible in the common language and universal education.

 

ÔElizabeth I (7 September, 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the sixth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. The daughter of Henry VIII, she was born a princess, but her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed three years after her birth, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Perhaps for that reason, her brother, Edward VI, cut her out of the succession. His will, however, was set aside, as it contravened the Third Succession Act of 1543, in which Elizabeth was named as successor provided that Mary I of England, Elizabeth's half-sister, should die without issue. In 1558, Elizabeth succeeded Mary, during whose reign she had been imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

Mercantilism is an economic theory that the prosperity of a nation depends upon its capital, and that the volume of the world economy and international trade is unchangeable. Government economic policy based on these ideas is also sometimes called mercantilism, but is more properly known as the mercantile system. Some scholars conceive the mercantile system as a subset of, or synonymous with, the early stages of capitalism, while others consider mercantilism to be a distinct economic system.

Nationalism refers to an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. While there is significant debate over the historical origins of nations, nearly all specialists accept that nationalism, at least as an ideology and social movement, is a modern phenomenon originating in Europe. Precisely where and when it emerged is difficult to determine, but its development is closely related to that of the modern state and the push for popular sovereignty that came to a head with the French Revolution in the late 18th century. Since that time, nationalism has become one of the most significant political and social forces in history, perhaps most notably as a cause of both the First and Second World Wars.

As an ideology, nationalism holds that 'the people' in the doctrine of popular sovereignty is the nation, and that as a result only nation-states founded on the principle of national self-determination are legitimate. Since most states are multinational, or at least home to more than one group claiming national status, the pursuit of this principle has often led to conflict, and nationalism is commonly associated with (both external and domestic), secession, and even genocide in contexts ranging from imperial conquest to struggles for national liberation.

Nationalism does not always lead to violence, however, and it plays an integral role in the daily lives of most people around the world. Flags on buildings, the singing of national anthems in schools and at public events, and cheering for national sports teams are all examples of everyday, 'banal' nationalism that is often unselfconscious. Moreover, some scholars argue that nationalism as a sentiment or form of culture, sometimes described as 'nationality' to avoid the ideology's tarnished reputation, is the social foundation of modern society. Industrialization, democratization, and support for economic redistribution have all been at least partly attributed to the shared social context and solidarity that nationalism provides.

Nevertheless, nationalism remains a hotly contested subject on which there is little general consensus. The clearest example of opposition to nationalism is cosmopolitanism, with adherents as diverse as liberals, Marxists, and anarchists, but even nationalism's defenders often disagree on its virtues, and it is common for nationalists of one persuasion to disparage the aspirations of others for both principled and strategic reasons. Indeed, the only fact about nationalism that is not in dispute may be that few other social phenomena have had a more enduring impact on the modern world.

 

ÔShari’a is the dynamic body of Islamic religious law. The term means "way" or "path to the water source"; it is the legal framework within which the public and some private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Muslim principles of jurisprudence.
Ô

Shari’a deals with many aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business, contracts, family, sexuality, hygiene, and social issues.

Ô

There is no strictly static codified set of laws of shari’a. Shari’a is more of a system of devising laws, based on the Qur'an (the religious text of Islam), hadith (sayings of Muhammad), ijma, qiyas and centuries of debate, interpretation and precedent.

ÔBefore the 19th century, legal theory was considered the domain of the traditional legal schools of thought. Most Sunni Muslims follow Hanai, Hanbali, Maliki or Shafii, while most Shia Muslims follow Twelverss.

Religion in the Muslim Empires:

After the invasion of Persia by the Mongol Empire, a regional Turko-Persio-Mongol
ÔThe
 
ÔThese actions however met with stiff opposition from the Muslim clergy, especially the Sufi Shaykh Alf Sani Ahmad Sirhindi. The Mughal emperor Akbar is remembered as tolerant, at least by the standards of the day: only one major massacre was recorded during his long reign (1556–1605), when he ordered most of the captured inhabitants of a fort be slain on February 24, 1568, after the battle for Chitor. Akbar's acceptance of other religions and toleration of their public worship, his abolition of poll-tax on non-Muslims, and his interest in other faiths bespeak an attitude of considerable religious tolerance, which, in the minds of his orthodox Muslim opponents, was tantamount to apostasy. Its high points were the formal declaration of his own infallibility in all matters of religious doctrine, his promulgation of a new creed, and his adoption of Hindu and Zoroastrian festivals and practices.
ÔReligious orthodoxy would only play a truly important role during the reign of Aurangzeb Ālamgīr, a devout Muslim and the man responsible building beautiful buildings and taking the Mughal empire to its zenith; this last of the Great Mughals retracted the liberal policies of his forbears. Although under Aurangzeb the empire extended to its largest, his rule was thus less popular with the Hindu Rajputs.
 

 

The Mughals

 

ÔThe Mughal Empire was an important imperial power in the Indian Subcontinent from the early sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. At the height of its power, around 1700, it controlled most of the subcontinent and parts of what is now Afghanistan. Its population at that time has been estimated as between 100 and 150 million, over a territory of over 3 million square km. Following 1720 it declined rapidly. Its decline has been variously explained as caused by wars of succession, agrarian crises fueling local revolts, the growth of religious intolerance and British colonialism. The last Emperor, whose rule was restricted to the city of Delhi, was imprisoned and exiled by the British after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Religion

 
After the invasion of Persia by the Mongol Empire, a regional Turko-Persio-Mongol dynasty formed. Just as eastern Mongol dynasties intermarried with locals and adopted the local religion of Buddhism and Chinese culture, this group adopted the local religion of Islam and Persian culture. The first Mughal King, Babur, established Mughal dynasty in India. Upon invading India, the Mughals intermarried with local royalty once again, creating a dynasty of combined Turko-Persian, Indian and Mongol background.
ÔThe language of the court was Persian although most of the subjects of the Empire were Hindu. The dynasty remained unstable until the reign of Akbar, who was of liberal disposition and intimately acquainted, since birth, with the mores and traditions of India. Under Akbar's rule, the court abolished the jizya (the poll-tax on non-Muslims) and abandoned use of the lunar Muslim calendar in favor of a solar calendar more useful for agriculture. One of Akbar's most unusual ideas regarding religion was Din-i-Ilahi ("Faith-of-God" in English), which was an eclectic mix of Hinduism, versions of Sufi Islam, Zoroastrianism, Jainism and Christianity. It was proclaimed the state religion until his death.
 
ÔThese actions however met with stiff opposition from the Muslim clergy, especially the Sufi Shaykh Alf Sani Ahmad Sirhindi. The Mughal emperor Akbar is remembered as tolerant, at least by the standards of the day: only one major massacre was recorded during his long reign (1556–1605), when he ordered most of the captured inhabitants of a fort be slain on February 24, 1568, after the battle for Chitor. Akbar's acceptance of other religions and toleration of their public worship, his abolition of poll-tax on non-Muslims, and his interest in other faiths bespeak an attitude of considerable religious tolerance, which, in the minds of his orthodox Muslim opponents, was tantamount to apostasy. Its high points were the formal declaration of his own infallibility in all matters of religious doctrine, his promulgation of a new creed, and his adoption of Hindu and Zoroastrian festivals and practices.
ÔReligious orthodoxy would only play a truly important role during the reign of Aurangzeb Ālamgīr, a devout Muslim and the man responsible building beautiful buildings and taking the Mughal empire to its zenith; this last of the Great Mughals retracted the liberal policies of his forbears. Although under Aurangzeb the empire extended to its largest, his rule was thus less popular with the Hindu Rajputs.

Johannes Kepler

Ô
 

(December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630) Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, and key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution. He is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astrononomy. They also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation.

During his career, Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, Austria, an assistant to astronomer Tycho Brahe, the court mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II, a mathematics teacher in Linz, Austria, and an adviser to General Wallenstein. He also did fundamental work in the field of optics, invented an improved version of the refracting telescope (the Keplerian Telescope), and helped to legitimize the telescopic discoveries of his contemporary Galileo Galilei.

Kepler lived in an era when there was no clear distinction between astronomy and astrology, but there was a strong division between astronomy (a branch of mathematics within the liberal arts) and physics (a branch of natural philosophy). Kepler also incorporated religious arguments and reasoning into his work, motivated by the religious conviction that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason. Kepler described his new astronomy as "celestial physics", as "an excursion into Aristotle's Metaphysics", and as "a supplement to Aristotle's On the Heavens", transforming the ancient tradition of physical cosmology by treating astronomy as part of a universal mathematical physics.

ÔCharles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Ô

Spirit of the Laws (1748) - In this political treatise Montesquieu advocates constitutionalism and the separation of powers, the abolition of slavery, the preservation of civil liberties and the rule of law, and the idea that political and legal institutions ought to reflect the social and geographical character of each particular community

]Natural laws
]Structure of government - executive, legislative, and judicial functions of government should be assigned to different bodies, so that attempts by one branch of government to infringe on political liberty might be restrained by the other branches. This leads directly to…..
]Checks and Balances and the separation of powers

 

ÔFrançois-Marie Arouet, Voltaire (1694-1778)
]

Criticism of traditional religion – Oppressive and cruel

]Favored religious toleration
]Deism – Reflects the idea that man cannot “know” god, but god “is”
]Spread the ideas of the Enlightenment – Will be of paramount importance later in the Americas.
 

 

Bertha Von Suttner

 

Suttner became a leading figure in the peace movement with the publication of her novel, Die Waffen nieder! (Lay Down Your Arms!) in 1889 and founded an Austrian pacifist organization in 1891. She gained international repute as editor of the international pacifist journal Die Waffen nieder!, named for her book, from 1892 to 1899. Her pacifism was influenced by the writings of Henry Thomas Buckle, Herbert Spencer, and Charles Darwin. Though her personal contact with Alfred Nobel had been brief, she corresponded with him until his death in 1896, and it is believed that she was a major influence in his decision to include a peace prize among those prizes provided in his will, which she won in 1905.

 

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Science in the Age of Enlightenment - From Wikipedia

The scientific history of the Age of Enlightenment traces developments in science and technology during the Age of Reason, when Enlightenment ideas and ideals were being disseminated across Europe and North America. Generally, the period spans from the final days of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century Scientific revolution until roughly the nineteenth century, after the French Revolution (1789) and the Napoleonic era (1799-1815). The scientific revolution saw the creation of the first scientific societies, the rise of Copernicanism, and the displacement of Aristotelian natural philosophy and Galen’s ancient medical doctrine. By the eighteenth century, scientific authority began to displace religious authority, and the disciplines of alchemy and astrology lost scientific credibility.

While the Enlightenment cannot be pigeonholed into a specific doctrine or set of dogmas, science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought. Many Enlightenment writers and thinkers had a background in the sciences and associated scientific advancement with the overthrow of religion and traditional authority in favor of the development of free speech and thought. Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought, and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress. As with most Enlightenment views, the benefits of science were not seen universally; Jean-Jacques Rousseau criticized the sciences for distancing man from nature and not operating to make people happier.

Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. Philosophes introduced the public to many scientific theories, most notably through the Encyclopédie and the popularization of Newtonianism by Voltaire. Some historians have marked the eighteenth century as a drab period in the history of science;medicine, mathematics, and physics; the development of biological taxonomy; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry.

Shadows over the Pacific

 
ÔThe theocratic and militaristic regime arising from the Taiping Rebellion instituted several social reforms, including strict separation of the sexes, abolition of foot binding, land socialization, suppression of private trade, and the replacement of Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese folk religion by a peculiar form Christianity, holding that Hong Xiuquan was the younger brother of Jesus Christ.

 

ÔSelf-strengthening efforts at reform after Xiuquan included………
]Adoption of Western technology combined with the retention of Confucian principles and institutions
ÔProponents of more radical reform.

 

]Wang Tao (Wang T’ao) (1828 – 1897) During his ten-year career as editor in chief of Universal Circulating Herald, Wang Tao penned close to a thousand editorials calling for the reform of the Chinese political system, by adopting a British style parliamentary monarchy. He also called for reform of the educational system by introducing western science to the curriculum; he called for the establishment of textile, mining, railway, machinery and mining industries. His reformist editorial articles reached a wide audience. He was the de facto forerunner of the reformist movement in China
 
Ô
 

Meiji Restoration

ÔBuilding a Modern Social structure
]Military structure – Imperial army replaces Samurai
]Education – Heavy Western influence
]Changing culture – Again, Western influence significant
]Civil Code, 1898 - was heavily influenced by the German Civil Code and emphasized law and order over freedom. It has had a role in the development of civil law in several East Asian nations. It remained substantially unchanged even after the American occupation in 1945. To a large extent it remains essentially intact as of 2006.
]Women - Feminism in modern Japan began in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. Many observers believe the movement was due to the flood of western thinking after the Meiji Restoration in 1868. However, the consciousness of women’s rights drew from both imported and native thought.
•
 

 

The Schlieffen Plan

Ô
ÔThe forensic plan was the German General Staff's overall strategic plan for victory both on the Western Front against France

 and against Russia in the east, taking advantage of expected differences in the three countries' speed in preparing for war. It was

 executed to near victory in the first month of World War I; however, a French counterattack on the outskirts of Paris, the Battle

of the Marne (combined with surprisingly speedy Russian offensives), ended the German offensive and resulted in years of trench

 warfare. The plan has been the subject of debate among historians and military scholars ever since.

 

ÔThe Schlieffen Plan was created by Alfred Graf von Schlieffen.

 

Wilson's 14 Points

  1. There should be no secret alliances between countries
  2. Freedom of the seas in peace and war
  3. The reduction of trade barriers among nations
  4. The general reduction of armaments
  5. The adjustment of colonial claims in the interest of the inhabitants as well as of the colonial powers
  6. The evacuation of Russian territory and a welcome for its government to the society of nations
  7. The restoration of Belgian territories in Germany
  8. The evacuation of all French territory, including Alsace-Lorraine
  9. The readjustment of Italian boundaries along clearly recognizable lines of nationality
  10. Independence for various national groups in Austria-Hungary
  11. The restoration of the Balkan nations and free access to the sea for Serbia
  12. Protection of former Ottomans, the chance to create their own autonomous nations and the free passage of the ships of all nations through the Dardanelles
  13. Independence for Poland, including access to the sea
  14. A league of nations to protect "mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small nations alike."

The Balfour Declaration of 1917

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 (dated 2 November 1917) was a letter from the British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.
His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.[1]

The statement was issued through the efforts of Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, the principal Zionist leaders based in London; as they had asked for the reconstitution of Palestine as "the" Jewish national home, the declaration fell short of Zionist expectations.[2]

The "Balfour Declaration" was later incorporated into the Sèvres peace treaty with Turkey and the Mandate for Palestine. The original document is kept at the British Library.

 

The Washington Conference of 1922

The treaties that emerged preserved peace during the 1920s but are also credited with enabling the rise of the Japanese Empire as a naval power leading up to World War II.

For the American delegation, led by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, the primary objective of the conference was to inhibit Japanese naval expansion in the waters of the west Pacific, especially with regard to fortifications on strategically valuable islands. Their secondary objectives were intended to ultimately limit Japanese expansion, but also to alleviate concerns over possible antagonism with the British. They were: first, to eliminate Anglo-American tension by abrogating the Anglo-Japanese alliance; second, to agree upon a favorable naval ratio vis-à-vis Japan; and, third, to have the Japanese officially accept a continuance of the Open Door policy in China

 

 

Ô
 
Ô
Ô
ÔThe Great Depression
ÔIn economics, a depression is a sustained, long-term downturn in economic activity in one or more economies. It is a more severe downturn than a recession, which is seen by economists as part of a normal business cycle.
ÔConsidered a rare and extreme form of recession, a depression is characterized by its length, and by abnormally large increases in unemployment, falls in the availability of credit— often due to some kind of banking/financial crisis, shrinking output and investment, numerous bankruptcies—including sovereign debt defaults, significantly reduced amounts of trade and commerce—especially international, as well as highly volatile relative currency value fluctuations—most often due to devaluations. Price deflation, financial crises and bank failures are also common elements of a depression.
 

Fascism

 

ÔFascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests inferior to the needs of the state, and seeks to forge a type of national unity, usually based on ethnic, religious, cultural, or racial attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, corporatism, collectivism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, and opposition to economic and political liberalism. The root word of fascism is fasces (lat.) referring to the bundles of rods and the axe carried by Roman lictors symbolizing the states power to punish. Fascism in the 20th century is best evidenced in the governments of Italy under Mussolini and Germany under Hitler.

The Effects of the Treaty of Versailles

 
ÔThe treaty evoked an angry and hostile reception in Germany from the moment its contents were made public. The Germans were outraged and horrified at the result - since Wilson's idealistic fourteen points had painted the picture of a different outcome. They did not feel that they were responsible for starting the war nor did they feel as though they had lost. The German people had understood the negotiations at Versailles to be a peace conference and not a surrender.

 

ÔRegardless of modern strategic or economic analysis, resentment caused by the treaty sowed fertile psychological ground for the eventual rise of the Nazi party. Indeed, on Nazi Germany's rise to power, Adolf Hitler resolved to overturn the remaining military and territorial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. Military build-up began almost immediately, in direct defiance of the Treaty, which, by then, had been destroyed by Hitler in front of a cheering crowd. "It was this treaty which caused a chain reaction leading to World War II" claimed historian Dan Rowling (1951).Various references of the treaty is found throughout many of Hitler's
vitriolic speeches and in pre-war German propaganda.
 

The Final Solution

The Final Solution (German: Die Endlösung) was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the final, most deadly phase of the Holocaust. Heinrich Himmler was the chief architect of the plan, and the German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler termed it: "the final solution of the Jewish question" ("die Endlösung der Judenfrage").

Mass killings of about one million Jews occurred before the plans of the Final Solution were fully implemented in 1942, but it was only with the decision to eradicate the entire Jewish population that the extermination camps were built and industrialized mass slaughter of Jews began in earnest. This decision to systematically kill the Jews of Europe was made either by the time of or at the Wannsee conference, which took place in Berlin, in the Wannsee Villa on January 20, 1942. The conference was chaired by Reinhard Heydrich. He was acting under the authority given to him by Reichsmarshall Göring in a letter dated July 31, 1941. Göring instructed Heydrich to devise "...the solution of the Jewish problem..." During the conference, there was a discussion held by the group of German Nazi officials how best to handle the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". A surviving copy of the minutes of this meeting was found by the Allies in 1947, too late to serve as evidence during the first Nuremberg Trials.

By the summer of 1942, Operation Reinhard began the systematic extermination of the Jews, although hundreds of thousands already had been killed by death squads and in mass pogroms. In Heinrich Himmler's speech at the Posen Conference of October 6, 1943, Himmler, for the first time, clearly elucidated to all assembled leaders of the Reich to what the "Final Solution" referred.

The Yalta Conference

ÔThe Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, was the wartime meeting from 4 February 1945 to 11 February 1945 among the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union—President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Josef Stalin, respectively—for the purpose of discussing Europe's postwar reorganization. Mainly, it was intended to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe.
 

George F. Kennan

 

ÔGeorge Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. He later wrote standard histories of the relations between Russia and the Western powers.
ÔIn the late 1940s, his writings inspired the Truman Doctrine and the U.S. foreign policy of "containing" the Soviet Union, thrusting him into a lifelong role as a leading authority on the Cold War. His "Long Telegram" from Moscow in 1946, and the subsequent 1947 article "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" argued that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be "contained" in areas of vital strategic importance to the United States. These texts quickly emerged as foundational texts of the Cold War, expressing the Truman administration's new anti-Soviet Union policy. Kennan also played a leading role in the development of definitive Cold War programs and institutions, most notably the Marshall Plan.

Austria after WWII

ÔMuch like Germany, Austria, too, was divided into a British, a French, a Soviet and an American Zone and governed by the Allied Commission for Austria. Largely owing to Karl Renner's action on April 27th in setting up a Provisional Government, however, there was a subtle difference in the treatment of Austria by the Allies. The Austrian Government was recognized and tolerated by the Four Powers. Austria, in general, was treated like it had been originally invaded by Germany and liberated by the Allies.
ÔAlthough the Eastern part of Austria, including the greater Vienna area, lay in the Soviet Zone, the capital itself was equally divided into four occupational zones. Outside of Vienna, however, travel across zone borders, in particular leaving or entering the Soviet zone, was difficult and time-consuming if possible at all. During the time of the Berlin Air Lift, Soviet military pressure was increased further, but could be successfully overcome by skillful military, political and diplomatic influence on the part of the other Allies.
ÔOn 15 May 1955 Austria regained full independence by concluding the Austrian State Treaty with the Four Occupying Powers. On 26 October 1955 Austria was declared "permanently neutral" by act of Parliament, which it remains to this day.
 

An Era of Equivalence

 
ÔOctober 1964 Khrushchev was replaced by party chief Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) and Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin (1904-1980).

 

ÔThe Brezhnev Doctrine - In practice, this meant that "limited sovereignty" of communist parties was allowed, but no country would be allowed to leave the Warsaw Pact, disturb a nation's communist party's monopoly on power, or in any way compromise the strength of the Eastern bloc. Implicit in this doctrine was that the leadership of the Soviet Union reserved, for itself, the right to define "socialism" and "capitalism". The doctrine was used to justify the invasions of Czechoslovakia that terminated the Prague Spring in 1968 and of the non-Warsaw Pact nation of Afghanistan in 1979.
Ô

An Era of Détente

 

]Détente, reduction in tensions between U.S. and U.S.S.R. (Detente is French for "relaxation)
]SALT I that limited antiballistic missile systems, 1972
ÔU.S. policy of “equivalence” (balance of power)
ÔPresident Nixon pursues a policy of “linkages” through trade and cultural contacts
ÔHelsinki Agreement, 1975
]Acknowledged the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe
]Recognize and protect human rights of signatories’ citizens
 
Thatcherism - "Thatcherism" is characterized by decreased state intervention via the free market economy, monetarist economic policy, privatization of state-owned industries, lower direct taxation and higher indirect taxation, opposition to trade unions, and a reduction of the size of the Welfare State. "Thatcherism" may be compared with Reaganomics in the United States, Rogernomics in New Zealand and Economic Rationalism in Australia . Thatcher was deeply in favor of individualism over collectivism, with self-help as a mantra.