Situation 2:
(Sitting down in the back of the lecture hall.)
I thought for sure I’d be late.
Hey,Mike.You are late,but so is Professor Clark.
He’s getting old,maybe he forgot about class today.
We should be so lucky.No,I’m just happy that he’s later
Oh,here he comes.
Prof.Clark:(Entering from the front of the room
and walking up to the podium.)
Good morning class,or should I say good afternoon?
Twelve o’clock classes always confuse me.
In any case,let’s begin today’s lecture.Today I want to speak
about the American Civil War,which I am assuming
all of you read about last week in the book
by Huntington.The Civil War can be
analyzed in many ways,but today I want to
discuss it as a result of economics.The northern United
States industrialized rather earlyand so had little need
for slave labor in their society.The southern states,
on the other hand,had an economy based
on agriculture,particularly cotton.
This caused a much higher demand for
slavesto supply manual labor in the fields.Eventually,this funda-
mental difference in economic structuresled to a difference in
ideology.And,as ideological differences often do,
this led to a conflict which eventually resulted in war.
In this way,the Civil War is not unlike the
Cold War between the United Statesand the Soviet Union,
which was also largely caused by differing economic systems.