bodner081

Here's a link to a terrrific blog post with 19 infographics about Africa that will surprise you.  For example, did you know that Africa is so big that it can contain not just China and the United States, but India and Argentina as well! What three African countries have the largest populations? You'll see a small inforgraphic showing Nigeria, Egypt and Ethiopa as the three largest.

Studying imperialism? Here are some great resources. The first video, from the National Museum of American History,  examines Commodore Matthew Perry's entrance into Tokyo Bay in 1853, with the hope of opening trade between Japan and America. The host reviews a Japanese book from the time period that shows how the Japanese viewed the Americans. Al Jazeera has an excellent documentary that reviews the Scramble for Africa. The first twenty minutes offers a good overview. The full documentary runs 44 minutes. BBCFOUR has an excellent nine minute clip about the Congo and King Leopold. Finally, here's a primary source from Jules Ferry on French colonialism  written in  1858.  Ferry outlines the reasons the French were so interested in colonialism. He's pretty blunt-- We must say openly that indeed the higher races have a right over the lower races . . . .

Here's a terrific web comic about the Haitian Revolution . It's readable, colorful and ideal for the classroom and written by a scholar, Laruent Dubois, who teaches at Duke. Professor Dubois' book, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804 , " won a number of awards, including the American Historical Association Prize in Atlantic History. Thanks to Bram Hubbell for the link!

Here is a terrific short video introduction to Islam from Andrew Mark Henry and Dr. Hussein Rashid. The video is part of Henry's series called Religion for Breakfast . Henry and Rashid offer a methodology we can use to understand Islam and any religion. The methodology is that religions evolve over time, are internally diverse and are embedded in our culture.   This methodology helps us to understand, for example, that Islam is not a monolithic religion. Islam in Indonesia is not like Islam in Saudi Arabia.   This is an awesome introduction and the methodology will help students to understand the complexity of Islam and indeed all religions.

Here, John Bellaimey, explains yin and yang. You can see the TedEd lesson here .