The interpretation of Italy during the last two centuries, a contribution to the study of Goethe's "Italienische Reise"

In terms of language, it is already possible to glimpse the future through those who use the internet. Though the proportion of China ’s population who are internet users is far smaller than that in the United States, by 2008 the number of Chinese internet users had already overtaken the number of American users. [1255] Figure 44. Top ten internet languages, May 2008. Figure 45. World internet users, March 2008. THE CHINESE RACIAL ORDER For the last two centuries Caucasians have enjoyed a privileged position at the top of the global racial hierarchy. During the period of European colonial empires their pre-eminent position was frequently explained in terms of racial theories designed to show the inherent superiority of the white race. Since the mid twentieth century, with the defeat of Nazism followed by colonial liberation, such explicitly racial theories have been in retreat in most regions of the world and now enjoy only minority appeal in the West. Nonetheless, if such racial theories are no longer regarded for the most part as acceptable, there remains an implicit and omnipresent global racial pecking order, with whites invariably at the top ...»