McNeil

Polyethnicity and National Unity in Wold History shows how societies grew together through trade and commerce, and began to blend in characteristic. Polyethnicity was the blend of these cultures. Conquest, enslavement and trade began to blend these cultures into a polyethnic assortment of influences. Many forces helped force this polyethnicity such as wars, immigration, and marriage. This became a strong concept in the 1700's and 1800's and grew to be an unstoppable force by WWI. As the world grew more interdependent through trade and the projection of power and influence of certain cultures, a blending of cultures and people became prevalent everywhere.

I found this view to be very interesting since we are doing our topic on economic globalization. It seems that western culture is completely made up of many sub-cultures that were mixed together through intermingling of foreign born populations and international commerce. Since labor resources and immigration has been prized in the west, it makes sense that the west is a bit more intermingled than the east where it other cultures were prized less and most resources were exported and not as many imported up until now. The east is traditionally more of a closed culture and the west prizes adaptive openness warranting the best of all cultures. It seems like most countries that were involved in trade with European and western countries over longer periods of time have the most chance to be polyethnic.