Academic Writing

The Age of “–isms” in the West The Nineteenth century saw a flurry of ideologies emerge and compete for influence in the West. Select TWO of these “-isms” and explain what they were, how they arose, and how (if at all) they responded to one another. A good essay, for example, could explore the ways that Socialism developed in response to Liberalism in industrialized nations. Another could explore the ways that Social Darwinism informed nineteenth century thought and spurred states toward Imperialism or National Chauvinism. Lastly, one could opt to describe Romanticism and tell the ways that this artistic movement strongly rejected dominant ideologies of the era. In any event, your essay must describe TWO contemporaneous ideologies and will be bolstered by citing historical examples and referencing crucial sources (e.g. Marx and Engels’s The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Spencer’s Survival of the Fittest Applied to Human Kind, Kipling’s The White Man’s Burden, Canvas Reading Set #3, etc.)