Page 128 - Encyclopedia Of World History

478 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

A costumed mime performing
a ritual in a public square in
Guadalajara, Mexico in 2003.

example proved contagious, so by 1914 almost
all European governments drafted young men
for a year or more of military training and
assigned them to reserve units throughout their
active years. Such military training involved long
hours of drill and patriotic exhortation that
proved very effective in superceding village ties
with new national identities. Accordingly, dur-
ing World War I, national rivalries sustained
mass armies, numbering in the millions,
through four years of military stalemate, before
ending with the sudden collapse of Germany
and its allies when hastily trained American sol-
diers arrived on the Western Front to reinforce
the flagging French and British. World War II
(1941–1945) turned into an even more destruc-
tive disaster for Europe; and transformed Asia
and Africa by making European empires unsus-
tainable. In every theater of war the power of
drill to create obedient soldiers manifested itself;
and as Asians,Africans, and Americans began to
participate actively in the two World Wars, new
national identities took hold among them, thus
ending Europe’s temporary dominance. Eco-
simultaneously British, French and Dutch agents estab- nomic and demographic changes worked along parallel
lished extensive overseas empires in Asia and eventually lines; but military drill among Asians, Africans, and
in Africa as well, thanks to victories won by surprisingly Americans was what triggered this worldwide shift of
small, well-drilled forces, fruited in large part among power.
local populations, and obeying European commanders.
The psychological effect of drill was never more clearly Dance as a Tool for Society
demonstrated than when Indian,African,and Indonesian Among many peoples, dance of course has never been
recruits,moving together in unison,learned to obey Euro- restricted to religious and military affairs. Urban popu-
pean commanders. Older social ties were almost wholly lations were too large and diverse to dance together, as
superceded among them by a new collective solidarity villagers continued to do; but subgroups could and did
that made men of diverse backgrounds into obedient dance privately among themselves. Dancing perhaps
instruments of utterly alien European intruders. always played a role in selecting mates; and continued to
Meanwhile, similar armies, recruited from city slums do so in urban settings. In renaissance Italy, for example,
and impoverished rural communities, strengthened Euro- dancing among the urban upper classes became a way of
pean governments at home, sustaining the aristocratic showing off fine clothes, good manners and sexual attrac-
and privileged urban classes of Europe’s old regime. tiveness. This Italian style of ballroom dancing then
The French Revolution of 1789–1815 expanded the spread across northern Europe in early modem times. In
role of army drill among Europeans, creating citizen addition, dancing could express and exhibit the grandeur
armies on the model of the Roman republic.The French of a king, as Louis XIV of France (reigned 1643–1715)