ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your shmoop du jour,

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brought to you by King James the first.

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Not to be confused with King James,

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the first to abandon the city of Cleveland.

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[ failure sound effect ]

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[ cheering ]

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Well, all right, check out this excerpt.

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I, James, by the Grace of God, King of England...

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...blah, blah, blah...

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[ mumbles ]

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Okay, here's the question.

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Increased colonization in the New World

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was partly facilitated by which of the following trends?

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And here are your potential answers...

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And we're biting our tongue on Manolo Blahniks.

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'Cause, uh, they're... [ indistinct ]

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All right, so what's this question asking?

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Well, all right, we've got increased colonization

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of the New World.

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In other words, America is this hip new development

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and anybody who's anybody is moving there.

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The question wants to know what facilitated that colonization.

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i.e... what helped it along.

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Was it a separation of church and state?

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Well, no, not back in those days.

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Church and state were besties.

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They went to movies together and even played

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on the same beach volleyball team on Sundays.

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Point being, they were tight.

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[ aww ]

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So choice A can't be the right answer.

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[ buzzer sounds ]

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Was it the cooperation between European nations?

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Well, trust us, there was about as much cooperation

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between nations as there is between Republicans

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and Democrats in today's Congress.

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[ buzzer sounds ]

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Okay, then is it D -

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the progression from capitalism to feudalism?

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Well, no way. Feudalism used to be all the rage...

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but around this time much of the world

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had decided to give capitalism a spin.

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So, completely the opposite.

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[ buzzer sounds ]

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Meaning C has to be our guy -

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The development of new economic organizations.

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Well, sure enough, Europeans had started forming

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joint-stock companies that sold pieces of a company

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to the general public.

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[ digital noises ]

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The need for these joint-stock companies arose

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mostly because of how unsafe all their voyages were.

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The company's shipment would sink,

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or a bunch of their slaves would die of some disease...

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and they figured, "Hey, why not divide this sucker up,

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spread the risk, so we're not the only ones to take a hit, right?"

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And, just like that, stocks were born.

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So, yeah, our answer is C,

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as in "capitalism" or "capsized."

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[ splat ]

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