Reading 3 - silk roads Flashcards
Eric Wolf: the accepted and lazy history of civilisation
‘Ancient Greece begat Rome, Rome begat Christian Europe, Christian Europe begat the Renaissance, the Renaissance the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment political democracy and the industrial revolution. Industry crossed with democracy in turn yielded the United States, embodying the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
= mantra of the political, cultural and moral triumph of the West
birthplace Civilization
- the bridge between East and West: the centre of global affairs since the beginning of history
- roughly: shores of the Mediterranean and Black see - Himalayas
- now home to states with: unstable regimes, violence, thread to international security, dictatorships, poor human rights
- this is the region where the world’s great religions burst into life + where language groups competed + great empires rose and fell + after-effects of clashes between cultures and rivals were felt far away
= best vantage point to view the world’s past and present
silk roads
- Ferdinand Richthofen (named it)
- network that fans out in every direction, showing a world that is interconnected
- connect peoples and places together
- invisible, understanding the connections allows us to understand how the world works
- world’s central nervous system
largely forgotten by mainstream history partly due to orientalism + narrative of the past is so dominant (story rise Europe and the West), that there is little/no room for this region
modern impression vs past
the present has washed away the past
- e.g. we see Jalalabad, Herat, Aleppo, Homs, Afghanistan etc. as religious fundamentalism and sectarian violence
- e.g. modern impressions about Iran have obscured the glories of the more distant history of the (then famous) Persian predecessor
places whose names are all but forgotten once dominated
orientalism
the strident and overwhelmingly negative view of the east as underdeveloped and inferior to the west, and therefore unworthy of serious study
e.g. scholars of the past weren’t in Europe or the west, but in Baghdad and Balkh, Bukhara and Samarkand
reason why cultures, cities and peoples who lived along the silk roads developed and advanced
they traded and exchanged ideas = learning and borrowing = stimilus philosophy, science etc,
shift mantle of progress
(the story of Europe)
change in world’s center of gravity: Western Europe no longer regional backwater, but middle of communication, transportation and trading, it became the mid-point between east and west
result of 2 great maritime expeditions (end 15th century)
- Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic, finding America (previously untouched)
- Casco da Gama sailed into India (new roads)
the twisting of history
rise of Europe 1490s -> battle for power + twisting and manipulating history to create a narrative where the rise of the west was natural and inevitable (to be used in ideological clashes)
the ‘Mediterranean’ in its literal meaning
= the center of the world
not a see separating Europe and North Africa, but right in the heart of Asia
(story of Zeus’ eagles, released at opposite ends of the earths, the place where they met in the middle was to be the naval of the world -> where is this? no one knows, it depends)
