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For an interesting coarse overview of this stuff, I've been reading The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan. It's a sprawling world histo

by beat 8y ago

For an interesting coarse overview of this stuff, I've been reading The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan. It's a sprawling world history, from earliest recorded history to the present (I'm currently between WWI and WWII), based on the idea that the Orient (particularly the Eastern Mediterranean basin over to present-day India), not Europe, is the historic center of civilization. Northern/Western Europe was an impoverished, uninteresting backwater until the discovery of the New World (which precipitated a major economic shift, thanks to the tremendous gold reserves that Spain exploited, affecting world currency markets). The author makes interesting arguments that the area is the center of civilization even in modernity. For example, he argues that the main cause of WWI was British fear of a resurgent Russia taking India from them - not German aggression, as is commonly understood by Eurocentric views of history. At any rate, the book is full of epic, sweeping battles, the ebb and flow of great cities like Constantinople and Baghdad, the rise and fall of empires. Highly recommended if you like this stuff!

jandrese 8y ago
Franz Ferdinand was a fall guy.
- beat 8y ago
  Germany had good reason to be paranoid. They were surrounded by a powerful alliance between Britain, Russia, and France, all of whom were scapegoating German ambition to help with their own political problems. Archduke Ferdinand's assassination was just a crystal falling into a supersaturated solution. When Russia demanded action from its allies in support of their ally, war was inevitable. At that point, Germany declared war on Russia only to get the first strike in, before Russia could fully mobilize France and Britain against Germany as well.
  - my_first_acct 8y ago
    When you find yourself surrounded by enemies, you might ask yourself how it came to be that all your neighbors turned against you. An Anglo-French alliance was not inevitable; as late as 1894 it was possible to publish a novel in which England, invaded by France and Russia, was rescued by Germany [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_War_in_England_in_1897 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_War_in_England_in_18...
    - acqq 8y ago
      http://nationalinterest.org/feature/germanys-superpower-quest-caused-world-war-i-10778 http://nationalinterest.org/feature/germanys-superpower-ques... "In the European Union, treating World War I as the product of abstract forces like arms races or nationalism is doubtlessly useful in minimizing national animosities. But unlike the chattering classes, most historians, ever since Fritz Fischer published Germany’s Aims in the First World War (1961), have tended to agree that the major cause of World War I was Imperial Germany’s determination to become a “world power” or superpower by crippling Russia and France in what it hoped would be a brief and decisive war, like the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Following the Archduke’s assassination, Berlin deliberately used the crisis in relations between its satellite Austria-Hungary and Russia’s satellite Serbia as an excuse for a general war that would establish German hegemony from Belgium to Baghdad. World War I started in 1914 for the same reason that World War II started in 1939—a government in Berlin wanted a war, though not the war it ultimately got." Additionally, Austrian historians claim that Austrian military strategists also surely didn't want the big war but just to attack Serbia which they estimated was already weak enough to be an easy target. Both Germans and Austrians simply (stupidly?) expected much less response from other countries.
    - ferkad 8y ago
      Talking about being surrounded by enemies, it might end up really badly for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland
- digi_owl 8y ago
  In a sense he was, as my impression is that his uncle, the emperor of Austria-Hungary, and government had been looking for a reason to stomp Serbia into submission for some time. One that they hoped would not get the Russian Tsar riled up...
Balero 8y ago
I think the idea of a single "centre of civilisation" is less than helpful. There were certainly a number of centre's of different civilisations, but if you try to plot the centre of these, there's a good chance you would end up in the middle of nowhere, or open ocean. I think it's much more useful to think of a net with connections, with different levels of "zoom out". For example, you could look at 0CE Rome, and get a good understanding of how the city ran. Zoom out to Italy, and have a good understanding of the 'Centre' of their empire. Zoom out to the entire empire, noticing a second clustering towards Egypt, and how trade flowed to the Parthian empire, into Germania and how there was even a trickle through the Sahara. Then zoom out again to get an idea of how these all interacted with the other great empires in India and China. And how these were disconnected from the American empires at the time.
- beat 8y ago
  The course of the book is to focus on whatever team was winning at any given time, and how the actions of that winning team set up the game for the next winning team. As such, though... before the New World, northern/western Europe didn't have any winning teams, except for the Vikings (whose slave trade with Persia and the Arab world led to the formation of Russia as a nation and a power), and the brief victory of the Crusades. And China was never very ambitious beyond its own borders. The book is also very focused on trade, not just war. And the brilliant goods of the East were the source of great trade.
  - Balero 8y ago
    Sounds like a great read! I'll add it to the to-read list!
  - adrianratnapala 8y ago
    > And China was never very ambitious beyond its own borders. True, but very informative, as China's borders have grown and shrunk and grown again quite a bit over the centuries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=zdHkY3XYHKA https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=zdHkY3XYHKA
eksemplar 8y ago
Northern Europe wasn’t the impoverished, uninteresting backwater though. It had a rich culture that interacted with the Orient through Russian rivers. Central Africa did as well, and is another forgotten story, but at the time the Greeks invented democracy, the largest city of the time was thriving in central Africa, a city that wouldn’t be out done population until after Augustus was long dead. History is full of stuff like that. The key difference is that these regions didn’t keep written track and have left only archeology, but in Europe most of that didn’t keep because other people lived on it after wards. The earliest written accounts about Northern Europe are Christian accounts that were written almost 400 years after the Vikings discovered America. While it’s not incorrect to theorize that there is nothing because there was nothing, it’s important to keep in mind that we still don’t know how Stonehenge was build.
- yareally 8y ago
  Which city in Central Africa?
  - smcl 8y ago
    They could be referring to Benin City
    - yareally 8y ago
      Benin City came about during the European Middle Ages though, no? They were referring to a city in ancient Greek times
- posterboy 8y ago
  > written records > While it’s not incorrect to theorize that there is nothing because there was nothing, ... There likely was something. Linguistic evidence from proto-indo-european homeland theories aside, could mean ongoing exchange and exploitation from far away, so no permanent civilization but excursions and outposts. And if there was something, it is still possible that was removed by conquering religions.
digi_owl 8y ago
The Great Game, anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Honestly i can't shake the idea that said game has continued to the present day, only with various players tag teaming in and out over the years.
- davedx 8y ago
  Yep. Anglophone nations and Russia up to all their old tricks. Some things never change...
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
>> Northern/Western Europe was an impoverished, uninteresting backwater until the discovery of the New World (...) Ah, yes, an unintersting backwater ...that created objects like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism Also: Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Thales of Melitus, Archimedes, Democritus, Ptolemy, Aristotle of course, etc etc. It's true that the Orient and also Mesoamerica were also civlisational centers, a fact that is not acknowledged in Western history books. But to go from that ommission, to saying that the West (in fact, the entire Old World since it's impossible to separate Greek and Roman history from say Egyptian or Babylonian history) was a "backwater" before Columbus, is simply unhistorical.
- oblio 8y ago
  When did Greece move into Northern/Western Europe? :)
  - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
    Greek history, like Roman history, is (part of) the history of the West. Is the OP talking specifically about the history of, say, the Germanic or Gaulish tribes before they were conquered by Cesar? It's difficult to know. The OP mentions the "Eeastern Mediterranean basin" as part of the Orient: >> the Orient (particularly the Eastern Mediterranean basin over to present-day India), not Europe, is the historic center of civilization. I can't see how that doesn't include Greece, especially Ionia. On the other hand, I can't see how "Europe" excludes Greece, either. The same goes for the Roman Empire, that covered much of both Europe and the Eastern Mediterrannean for a long period. I think the OP, or perhaps their source, is just confused about what is what, the Orient, Europe, the West etc.
    - beat 8y ago
      I thought I was quite clear. Greece and Italy are, effectively, part of the Orient, due to their contiguous connection to the Mediterranean and easy shipping access. Greece is closer to Persia than it is to the British Isles! The straight-line cultural connection from northern Europe to classical Greece is mostly a myth, established to sell a sense of importance to the Johnny-come-lately imperialists of Britain, Holland, and Germany. "Europe" is a more modern concept.

by beat 8y ago

jandrese 8y ago

Franz Ferdinand was a fall guy.

beat 8y ago
Germany had good reason to be paranoid. They were surrounded by a powerful alliance between Britain, Russia, and France, all of whom were scapegoating German ambition to help with their own political problems. Archduke Ferdinand's assassination was just a crystal falling into a supersaturated solution. When Russia demanded action from its allies in support of their ally, war was inevitable. At that point, Germany declared war on Russia only to get the first strike in, before Russia could fully mobilize France and Britain against Germany as well.
- my_first_acct 8y ago
  When you find yourself surrounded by enemies, you might ask yourself how it came to be that all your neighbors turned against you. An Anglo-French alliance was not inevitable; as late as 1894 it was possible to publish a novel in which England, invaded by France and Russia, was rescued by Germany [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_War_in_England_in_1897 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_War_in_England_in_18...
  - acqq 8y ago
    http://nationalinterest.org/feature/germanys-superpower-quest-caused-world-war-i-10778 http://nationalinterest.org/feature/germanys-superpower-ques... "In the European Union, treating World War I as the product of abstract forces like arms races or nationalism is doubtlessly useful in minimizing national animosities. But unlike the chattering classes, most historians, ever since Fritz Fischer published Germany’s Aims in the First World War (1961), have tended to agree that the major cause of World War I was Imperial Germany’s determination to become a “world power” or superpower by crippling Russia and France in what it hoped would be a brief and decisive war, like the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Following the Archduke’s assassination, Berlin deliberately used the crisis in relations between its satellite Austria-Hungary and Russia’s satellite Serbia as an excuse for a general war that would establish German hegemony from Belgium to Baghdad. World War I started in 1914 for the same reason that World War II started in 1939—a government in Berlin wanted a war, though not the war it ultimately got." Additionally, Austrian historians claim that Austrian military strategists also surely didn't want the big war but just to attack Serbia which they estimated was already weak enough to be an easy target. Both Germans and Austrians simply (stupidly?) expected much less response from other countries.
  - ferkad 8y ago
    Talking about being surrounded by enemies, it might end up really badly for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland
digi_owl 8y ago
In a sense he was, as my impression is that his uncle, the emperor of Austria-Hungary, and government had been looking for a reason to stomp Serbia into submission for some time. One that they hoped would not get the Russian Tsar riled up...

Balero 8y ago

I think the idea of a single "centre of civilisation" is less than helpful. There were certainly a number of centre's of different civilisations, but if you try to plot the centre of these, there's a good chance you would end up in the middle of nowhere, or open ocean. I think it's much more useful to think of a net with connections, with different levels of "zoom out". For example, you could look at 0CE Rome, and get a good understanding of how the city ran. Zoom out to Italy, and have a good understanding of the 'Centre' of their empire. Zoom out to the entire empire, noticing a second clustering towards Egypt, and how trade flowed to the Parthian empire, into Germania and how there was even a trickle through the Sahara. Then zoom out again to get an idea of how these all interacted with the other great empires in India and China. And how these were disconnected from the American empires at the time.

beat 8y ago
The course of the book is to focus on whatever team was winning at any given time, and how the actions of that winning team set up the game for the next winning team. As such, though... before the New World, northern/western Europe didn't have any winning teams, except for the Vikings (whose slave trade with Persia and the Arab world led to the formation of Russia as a nation and a power), and the brief victory of the Crusades. And China was never very ambitious beyond its own borders. The book is also very focused on trade, not just war. And the brilliant goods of the East were the source of great trade.
- Balero 8y ago
  Sounds like a great read! I'll add it to the to-read list!
- adrianratnapala 8y ago
  > And China was never very ambitious beyond its own borders. True, but very informative, as China's borders have grown and shrunk and grown again quite a bit over the centuries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=zdHkY3XYHKA https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=zdHkY3XYHKA

eksemplar 8y ago

Northern Europe wasn’t the impoverished, uninteresting backwater though. It had a rich culture that interacted with the Orient through Russian rivers. Central Africa did as well, and is another forgotten story, but at the time the Greeks invented democracy, the largest city of the time was thriving in central Africa, a city that wouldn’t be out done population until after Augustus was long dead. History is full of stuff like that. The key difference is that these regions didn’t keep written track and have left only archeology, but in Europe most of that didn’t keep because other people lived on it after wards. The earliest written accounts about Northern Europe are Christian accounts that were written almost 400 years after the Vikings discovered America. While it’s not incorrect to theorize that there is nothing because there was nothing, it’s important to keep in mind that we still don’t know how Stonehenge was build.

yareally 8y ago
Which city in Central Africa?
- smcl 8y ago
  They could be referring to Benin City
  - yareally 8y ago
    Benin City came about during the European Middle Ages though, no? They were referring to a city in ancient Greek times
posterboy 8y ago
> written records > While it’s not incorrect to theorize that there is nothing because there was nothing, ... There likely was something. Linguistic evidence from proto-indo-european homeland theories aside, could mean ongoing exchange and exploitation from far away, so no permanent civilization but excursions and outposts. And if there was something, it is still possible that was removed by conquering religions.

digi_owl 8y ago

The Great Game, anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Honestly i can't shake the idea that said game has continued to the present day, only with various players tag teaming in and out over the years.

davedx 8y ago
Yep. Anglophone nations and Russia up to all their old tricks. Some things never change...

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

>> Northern/Western Europe was an impoverished, uninteresting backwater until the discovery of the New World (...) Ah, yes, an unintersting backwater ...that created objects like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism Also: Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Thales of Melitus, Archimedes, Democritus, Ptolemy, Aristotle of course, etc etc. It's true that the Orient and also Mesoamerica were also civlisational centers, a fact that is not acknowledged in Western history books. But to go from that ommission, to saying that the West (in fact, the entire Old World since it's impossible to separate Greek and Roman history from say Egyptian or Babylonian history) was a "backwater" before Columbus, is simply unhistorical.

oblio 8y ago
When did Greece move into Northern/Western Europe? :)
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
  Greek history, like Roman history, is (part of) the history of the West. Is the OP talking specifically about the history of, say, the Germanic or Gaulish tribes before they were conquered by Cesar? It's difficult to know. The OP mentions the "Eeastern Mediterranean basin" as part of the Orient: >> the Orient (particularly the Eastern Mediterranean basin over to present-day India), not Europe, is the historic center of civilization. I can't see how that doesn't include Greece, especially Ionia. On the other hand, I can't see how "Europe" excludes Greece, either. The same goes for the Roman Empire, that covered much of both Europe and the Eastern Mediterrannean for a long period. I think the OP, or perhaps their source, is just confused about what is what, the Orient, Europe, the West etc.
  - beat 8y ago
    I thought I was quite clear. Greece and Italy are, effectively, part of the Orient, due to their contiguous connection to the Mediterranean and easy shipping access. Greece is closer to Persia than it is to the British Isles! The straight-line cultural connection from northern Europe to classical Greece is mostly a myth, established to sell a sense of importance to the Johnny-come-lately imperialists of Britain, Holland, and Germany. "Europe" is a more modern concept.