Essays on Imperium

There can never be two centers of power; the buck must stop somewhere. This saying is true in the case of state right’s and the union. In order to understand this phenomenon, it is important to look back in time to the period when the union was conceived. U.S. founding fathers deliberately divided sovereignty between the states and the federal government. The vision was that the national and devolved units of government would work together harmoniously. However, this was the recipe for a subsequent power struggles in the succeeding years. The battle lines were drawn. On one side, some ...

HIST1010: “How do we remember?”

Introduction Memorials remembering a tragedy (or perhaps celebrating the perceived positive outcome of a tragic event) often serve different purposes over time. In the beginning, they usually focus on the suffering and on the loss of both soldiers and civilians. The establishment of the memorial is an integral part of the mourning process. But while historians try to keep these memories alive in their ‘objective’ accounts of events, they do inevitably fade. At the same time, others (for example the government, but also support groups) try to remember the past, creating lieux de mémoire that evoke pictures from ...

The first centuries of the Roman Empire were a time of unparalleled prosperity and stability. The Empire was also called Roman Peace (Pax Ronama) due to its successful existence. Between (98–117AD) when Trajan was in charge the Empire attained its biggest expanse. When the Empire was in its third century, it underwent a life threatening existence. It was later stabilized and reunited by Diocletian and Aurelian who by then were emperors. In its fourth term in existence, Christians were rising to power and it was during this time when the dual rule system started developing in the Greek East and ...

Barriers to Forming an East Asian Trade Bloc: China and Japan

Countries usually enter into trade agreements by forming blocs so that they can provide and benefit from preferential treatment in trade. The arrangement provides a country easier access to external investments removes trade barriers and facilitates better and greater movement of goods and money across national borders. The trade bloc commonly seeks to reap the benefits of significant economic advantages made possible through greater FDI flows (Foreign Direct Investment), economies of scale of production, more competition among manufacturers in nearby member countries, beneficial tariff regimes and more efficient markets. The most common types of trading blocs include the Preferential Trading ...

It should be no surprise that the idea of utopia has often been explored by American writers, since one could argue that America itself exists as a sort of utopian ideal. The words of the Declaration of Independence posit a sort of utopia in their idealistic talk of ’life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ This is very bound up with the notion of America as a new world, a new place where fresh starts can be made and the mistakes of the past avoided: The utopian passages in Euro-American writings tended to elevate American spaces and colonists by comparing them to ...