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> Khan and Caesar brought peace to millions They make a desolation, and call it peace

• ajross 11mo ago
  Not to nerd out too much, but this is HN so it's probably OK. The Pax Romana/Mongolica concepts have wide support in academia. Unified government under despotic colonial powers was indeed the source of the immense social progress, and we simply have to treat with that. In fact, the rapid expansion of cross-eurasian trade under Mongol rule is arguably the proximate cause of the European renaissance, concentrating wealth in Italian trade centers designed to exploit the availability of those goods. As always, wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Romana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Romana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Mongolica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Mongolica Does that make them good people or me a Yuan dynasty apologist? No. But it makes the world complicated and not well suited to the kind of quips that you're flinging at Cheney. Again, we could do a lot worse. We may already have.
  • hitarpetar 11mo ago
    so, the wikipedia articles you shared show that pax romana and pax mongolica fostered trade. is increased trade worth genocide and mass slavery? I would lean to no but actually, you're comparing apples and oranges. why are you doing that? nice job slipping "social progress" into your argument. I wonder what your sources actually say? > Romans regarded peace not as an absence of war, but as a rare situation which existed when all opponents had been beaten down and lost the ability to resist yay social progress!