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The Man Comes Around Johnny Cash Analysis

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The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash would be a phenomenal song to represent the AP World History period of the early modern world from 1450-1750 C.E. for a myriad of reasons. While examining the Early Modern Era, a historian would notice several pointers that suggest that in this period people were coming closer to what our world looks like today. The main reason this song matches the period so nicely is because it outlines the main theme of this time period. This theme lies in the linking of the Western and Eastern World as European explorers like Christopher Columbus discovered and exploited colonies across the world to their own benefits- truly globalizing the continent for the first time. This truly connected and globalized world is …show more content…

To partake of that last offered cup has a lot to do with religion, specifically Christianity, a very prevalent religion at the time. It means to find redemption, which would be fitting for these colonies which have been imprisoned by the newly risen Europe. The potter’s ground is a reference to the field that the chief priest bought with Judas’ betrayal money (Matt 27:5-7), and in a World History context we can see the betrayal of man against his brother, and specifically the way the colonizers treated the natives in the name of their own gain. The lines, that can be looked at with a wide scope, “When the man comes around/Hear the trumpets hear the pipers/One hundred million angels singin'/Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum/Voices callin', voices cryin'/Some are born and some are dyin'/It's alpha and omega's kingdom come’’ signify an end of life like the one depicted by Christians as the arrival of Jesus to the world. It is possible that the colonies did feel like it was the end of the world, but it was really just the beginning of a new and very different world. Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, the beginning and the end, another reference to the destruction of the older world and birth of

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