Race in Tolkien is Reality Rather Than Socially Constructed

In Middle Earth, unlike reality, race is objectively real rather than socially constructed. There are species (elves, men, dwarves, etc.), but within those species there are races that conform to 19th-century race theory, in that their physical attributes (hair color, etc.) are associated with non-physical attributes that are both personal and cultural. There is also an explicit racial hierarchy which is, again, real in the world of the story. Middle Earth is literally a racist’s fantasy la...

 Points in a Learning Game

A twist in this learning contest is how teams can earn even more natural, military, sociocultural, or national will points to spend. Imperialism is a complex topic, and each country is an entire class of learners in competition with other classes. Classes can earn additional points in these four areas by doing research. They can earn natural resource points by generating content that reveals information about the nations that were colonized. For example, a fact sheet on The Gambia might be wo...

 Airplane VS Airship

The histo ry o f flying is a goo d example to loo k at in detail fo r insight into the interactio n o f techno lo gy with human affairs, because two radically different techno logies were co mpeting fo r survival- in the beginning they were called heavier-than-air and lighter-than-air. The airplane and the airship were no t o nly physically different in shape and s ize but also so cio lo gically different. The airplane grew o ut o f dreams o f perso nal adventure. The airship grew o ut o f dr...

 The British Empire Circled the World

With the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 the British Empire won "the world's power structures championship" and became historically the first empire "upon which," it was said, "the sun never sets." This is because it was the first empire in history to embrace the entire spherical planet Earth's 71-per¬ cent maritime, 29-percent landed, wealth-producing activities. All previous empires—Genghis Khan's, Alexander the Great's, the Romans', et al.— were unified European, North African, and Asian-...