From previous knowledge, I was led to believe that modernization for any nation would be a beneficial process. During the Industrial Revolution, which was a form of modernization, I was focused on the benefits rather than the harm is brought to Great Britain. For example, the Industrial Revolution resulted in cheaper means of production and lower costs of goods to the country which is entirely beneficial. However, I only skimmed the surface of the negatives which resulted in my skewed view of modernization being a process beneficial to everyone. The reading from the previous week continued to strengthen my view. My previous knowledge led me to believe that there was in fact a gilded age, yet the reading introduced the idea that this period of time did not exist. How can the economy be booming, infrastructure growing in complexity and numbers exponentially, and yet the gilded age did not exist????? This was a discrepancy that I hoped the readings would solve.

The reading this week was looked at the issue from another perspective and in fact did brought the discrepancy to light and changed my view on modernization for any country. Although the country as a whole was benefiting from modernization, if one looked deeper into the whether everyone benefited, it can be seen that modernization did not benefit everyone equally and some even detrimentally. I believed that the main harm done to the lower class citizens would only be economic such as a loss of jobs and land. There was, however, much more conflict. One example Dawson brings up is the detriment brought about by the railway construction. “Almost every mile of railway construction was accompanied by some minor conflict,” is a statement that signified the extent to which modernization was a detriment to to country.

Moving onto another topic, my view on Porfirio Diaz. I have no previous knowledge on him so I read about him with an open mind. First impressions are deceiving as the case is with Porfirio Diaz. He was a good leader in some areas because he was able to facilitate the process of modernization of Mexico and bring increased stability into the Mexican economy. His government, however, was anything but beneficial to Mexico. It was a dictatorship that used its army to take control and oppress the general population. Furthermore, the actions of Diaz claiming not to be running for re-election and then jumping in and “winning” a rigged election started a series of events that sent Mexico into an infinite series of civil wars that did nothing to benefit the country.