Comment by dalbasal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dalbasal | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Yes, exactly.

The whole sequential history narrative, the Standard Model, is totally blinkered from its NW european perspective.

"Civilisation," meaning societies that have cities, taxes, writing, big government, roads, aqueducts, and such.... these existed for thousands of years in Egypt, Iraq, India, China, Greece etc. Rome was such a society.

Rome also conquered "The East," and the north african coast... all long established urban "civilisations." When Rome "fell," those civilisations persisted. Persia had "fallen" before them, as had Alexander's empire, Assyria, Babylon, Sumer, etc. etc.

There were good centuries and bad, but they generally stayed "civilised" through thousands of years worth of political turmoil and change. They always had scribes, high priests, princes, infrastructure and such.

England, France, Germany and whatnot.... These were never civilisations. They were, for short periods ruled by Rome. They had some elements of civilisation, but for brief periods with limited reach. It was never culturally rooted or widespread. They were barbarian societies, and continued to be barbarian societies. Writing doesn't "disappear" in europe, it never really existed.

Concepts like Scottish or German renaissance are ridiculous. These were new civilisations being established in previously barbarian societies. They weren't renewing, they were founding.

Urban civilisation is new to NW europe. 200-500 years old. England's "old world civilisation" is only 150 years older than US civilisation.

> The whole sequential history narrative, the Standard Model, is totally blinkered from its NW european perspective.

It’s not blinkered if it’s a model of northwestern European history.

> England, France, Germany and whatnot.... These were never civilisations. They were, for short periods ruled by Rome. They had some elements of civilisation, but for brief periods with limited reach. It was never culturally rooted or widespread. They were barbarian societies, and continued to be barbarian societies. Writing doesn't "disappear" in europe, it never really existed.

This is misleading if not entirely false.

* Germany was never meaningfully conquered or ruled by Rome.

* The land we call France today was conquered by Julius Caesar by 40 BC. The Romans called it Gaul. Gaul remained within the Roman Republic and Empire for centuries. During that period, Gaul had a large and growing population of Roman citizens. Three emperors were born there. And eventually, by 212 AD, Roman citizenship was extended to everyone living within the borders of the empire. It wasn’t until the fifth century until Rome finally lost control of Gaul, which was conquered by Germanic barbarians. One of those tribes was called the Franks, hence the name “France”. But by that point, it had been part of Roman civilization for 500 years.

* The Roman province of Brittania—modern day England and Wales—was conquered in 43 AD after decades of invasions dating back to Julius Caesar. It remained part of the Roman Empire until 410–in other words, it was part of Roman civilization for almost 400 years. It was also subject to the 212 decree granting Roman citizenship to all inhabitants. Even as late as the early to mid 500’s, we have British writers such as Gildas who still considered themselves and their fellow Britons to be Roman citizens. Like France, England was conquered by tribes of Germanic barbarians, one of which (in this case, the Angles) gave the country its modern name. But even after this point, Britonnic culture persisted in the Welsh frontier.

> Urban civilisation is new to NW europe. 200-500 years old.

Paris was founded in the first century as the Roman city of Lutetia. It persisted as a Roman city until the fifth century, when it was renamed to Paris and used as the capital of the Merovingian kingdom. It has remained a major city ever since—not for 200-500 years, but for nearly 2000.

Yes, European thought is simply colored by the fact that Rome was the first civilizing empire in Europe. For people in the fertile crescent and the Levant, it was just another empire in a long line of empires. We shouldn't discredit how important that empire was, however. For most of the world, empires came and went with an average state of terminal stagnancy. The fall of Rome was like a springboard for the successor states to industrialize and colonize the entire world. That's impressive for a place with little previous history of civilization.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com