I would have enjoyed this more had it more nuance. Even if you don't know squat about history, its important to get of this single-dimension "who was greatest" + Western self-loathing (and ironic combo too).
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From what I learned in school and remember off the top of my head:
- Rome was an ugly place, but they kind of knew it hence upper classes went Greek and the eastern empire became more prominent. Romans were great for trade, but their empire could only be held together by growth (plunder) and that's not sustainable
- Greeks were more civilized, but clearly sucked at empire building (Alexander is Macedon). Hellenization shows that even if he messed up Persia, the culture was influential.
- China couldn't really expand because it is so isolated geographically, so it is harder to for it to influence other places. But this had an effect that arguably they were less interested in conquest and influence (outside of uniting accessible areas)
- Confucianism raggin' on merchants, artisans, and whatever else might form a middle class
- Ming treasure fleet might have reached Africa, but no fucks given.
- Mesopotamia did do great things back in the day, but by 1000 was past its peak (as was the Levant). Interesting how ethnic identity, especially among Semitic groups, seems quiet fluid, though invading armies + Islam explains a lot of that.
- Persions were not at all taught (before college). Seriously wtf, we covered everybody else said to be skipped in American education. But I later learned in college that perhaps they were more rural/feudal than eastern Mediterranean, (the article says more Urban than Rome, but then makes a bunch of medieval comparisons, so who knows?)
- While we didn't cover it. I read about Kush/Bactria on Wikipedia (and the other Kush hah (south of Egypt not what you were thinking hah)). I can kind of understand that as an influenCED rather than influencING kingdom it was easy to gloss over (oh we talked about the silk road, but usually in the abstract). But I do like covering it as concrete evidence that those things which were said to be influential actually were.
Basically, even in fairly leftist history curricula, it was all about who does the most trade, most urbanization, and most interaction with neighbors. Any overly courtly civilization was suspect.
Arguably then the same things that made China so dominant early on and steady thereafter also lead to its eventual falling behind. Central Eurasia might have become the dominant world culture except the Europeans got a huge steroid injection with easiest access a humongous place you could depopulate by coughing.
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Author asked in a caption about better timelines. I inherited some company's Hammond's "Graphic History of Mankind" from the 1950s. Some things there should definitely be revised (though they kept on extending and publishing the timeline until at least 2000) but the concept is great.
Somebody should make some crazy SVG thing where as you zoom in more details would appear. Make it procedural generated and open source so non-technical history buffs can send you PRs (or figure out how to scrape Wikipedia). I'll be forever grateful.
========
From what I learned in school and remember off the top of my head:
- Rome was an ugly place, but they kind of knew it hence upper classes went Greek and the eastern empire became more prominent. Romans were great for trade, but their empire could only be held together by growth (plunder) and that's not sustainable
- Greeks were more civilized, but clearly sucked at empire building (Alexander is Macedon). Hellenization shows that even if he messed up Persia, the culture was influential.
- China couldn't really expand because it is so isolated geographically, so it is harder to for it to influence other places. But this had an effect that arguably they were less interested in conquest and influence (outside of uniting accessible areas) - Confucianism raggin' on merchants, artisans, and whatever else might form a middle class - Ming treasure fleet might have reached Africa, but no fucks given.
- Mesopotamia did do great things back in the day, but by 1000 was past its peak (as was the Levant). Interesting how ethnic identity, especially among Semitic groups, seems quiet fluid, though invading armies + Islam explains a lot of that.
- Persions were not at all taught (before college). Seriously wtf, we covered everybody else said to be skipped in American education. But I later learned in college that perhaps they were more rural/feudal than eastern Mediterranean, (the article says more Urban than Rome, but then makes a bunch of medieval comparisons, so who knows?)
- While we didn't cover it. I read about Kush/Bactria on Wikipedia (and the other Kush hah (south of Egypt not what you were thinking hah)). I can kind of understand that as an influenCED rather than influencING kingdom it was easy to gloss over (oh we talked about the silk road, but usually in the abstract). But I do like covering it as concrete evidence that those things which were said to be influential actually were.
Basically, even in fairly leftist history curricula, it was all about who does the most trade, most urbanization, and most interaction with neighbors. Any overly courtly civilization was suspect.
Arguably then the same things that made China so dominant early on and steady thereafter also lead to its eventual falling behind. Central Eurasia might have become the dominant world culture except the Europeans got a huge steroid injection with easiest access a humongous place you could depopulate by coughing.
==========
Author asked in a caption about better timelines. I inherited some company's Hammond's "Graphic History of Mankind" from the 1950s. Some things there should definitely be revised (though they kept on extending and publishing the timeline until at least 2000) but the concept is great.
Somebody should make some crazy SVG thing where as you zoom in more details would appear. Make it procedural generated and open source so non-technical history buffs can send you PRs (or figure out how to scrape Wikipedia). I'll be forever grateful.