During the late nineteenth century, Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912) was the best known and highly respected African intellectual in the Western world. Blyden was born on August 3, 1832 in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. His free and literate parents were of Ibo descent. In 1851, he emigrated to Liberia, which had become an independent republic only four years earlier, after the settlement of freed African American slaves.
Unlike his peers in the West, Blyden articulated a vision of African development that profoundly disagreed with conventional views. His often controversial positions were discussed in the numerous books and pamphlets that he published, including A Voice from Bleeding Africa (1856), Liberia's Offering (1862), the Negro in Ancient History (1869), The West African University (1872), From West Africa to Palestine (1873), Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887), the Jewish Question (1898), West Africa before Europe (1905), and Africa Life and Customs (1908).
Blyden, who was a nominal Christian, argued that a legion of Christianized and Western educated “Negroes” would not lead Africa to the promise land of modernity and continental development. He argued that Christianity has had a demoralizing effect on blacks whereas Islam, on the other hand, has had a unifying and elevating impact. He also believed that education was being used as one of the critical instruments to support and continue the colonization and exploitation of Africa. According to him, “All educated Negroes suffer from a kind of slavery in many ways far more subversive of the real welfare of the race than the ancient physical fetters. The slavery of the mind is far more destructive than that of the body.”
As an educator and college president, Blyden waged a battle for what he called the “decolonization of the African mind.” In his 1881 Inaugural Address as the newly installed president of Liberia College, he talked about his vision of independent African colleges producing a new generation of African youth. He declared, “It is our hope and expectation that there will rise up men, aided by institution and culture, …imbued with public spirit, who will know how to live and work and prosper…how to use all favoring outward conditions, how to triumph by intelligence, by tact, by industry, by perseverance, over the indifference of their own people, and how to overcome the scorn and opposition of the enemies of the race…”
Blyden argued that education “…should aim…not simply [for the provision of] information, but [for] the formation of the mind. The formation of the mind being secured, the information will take care of itself. Mere information of itself is not power – but the ability to know how to use that information – and this ability belongs to the mind that is disciplined, trained, [and] formed. It may be a pleasant pastime to store the mind with facts…but if the mind is not trained to apply them, they will lie there like so much useless lumber.”
Through the proper educational curriculum and sensitivity to the value of native African culture, Blyden believed that a generation of African leaders and scholars could be groomed to defeat colonialism and embrace modernity that could be blended with native cultural resources. He maintained that the core of Africa’s educational curriculum should be based upon traditional concepts of education. At its core, this curriculum must acknowledge that, “the African view of the universe is based upon the truth that man, nature, the universe, and God are in harmony. There is no alienation. The basic mode[s] of human action [are] cooperation, peace, and building great projects. Th[ese are] diametrically opposed by the European worldview which sees man as alienated from God, at war with nature, and surrounded by an indifferent universe.”
Blyden was a pioneer in the struggle to liberate and decolonize the African mind, and to establish an independent African educational institution. At the turn of the century, he stood alone with his articulate defense of traditional African cultural institutions and their compatibility with modernity. In 1893 Blyden issued this challenge to the African world:
It is sad to think that there are some Africans, especially among those who have enjoyed the advantages of foreign training, who are blind enough to the radical facts of humanity as to say, ‘Let us do away with our African personality and be lost, if possible, in another race’. Preach this doctrine as much as you like, no one will do it, for no one can do it, for when you have done away with your personality, you have done away with yourselves. Your place has been assigned you in the universe as Africans, and there is no room for you as anything else.
By Ralph L. Crowder, Ph.D.
Monday, June 28, 2010
England and China: The Opium Wars, 1839-60
The Opium Trade, Seventh through Nineteenth Centuries
he Anglo-Chinese Opium Wars were the direct result of China's isolationalist and exclusionary trade policy with the West. Confucian China's attempts to exclude pernicious foreign ideas resulted in highly restricted trade. Prior to the 1830s, there was but one port open to Western merchants, Guangzhou (Canton) and but one commodity that the Chinese would accept in trade, silver. British and American merchants, anxious to address what they perceived as a trade imbalance, determined to import the one product that the Chinese did not themselves have but which an ever-increasing number of them wanted: opium. Before 1828, large quantities of the Spanish silver coin, the Carolus, flowed into China in payment for the exotic commodities that Europeans craved; in contrast, in the decade of the 1830s, despite an imperial decree outlawing the export of yellow gold and white silver, "only $7,303,841 worth of silver was imported, whereas the silver exported was estimated at $26,618, 815 in the foreign silver coin, $25,548,205 in sycee, and $3,616,996 in gold" (Kuo, p. 51). although the Chinese imperial governed had long prohibited the drug except for medicinal use, the "British Hong" (companies such as Dent, Jardine, and Matheson authorized to operate in Canton) bought cheaply produced opium in the Begal and Malwa (princely) districts under the auspices of the British East India Company, the number 150 lb. chests of the narcotic being imported rising from 9,708 in 1820 to 35,445 in 1835. With the British government's 1833 cancellation of the trade monopoly enjoyed by the East India Company, cheap opium flooded the market, and China's net outflow of silver amounted to some 34 million Mexican silver dollars over the course of the 1830s.
As the habit of smoking opium spread from the idle rich to ninety per cent of all Chinese males under the age of forty in the country's coastal regions, business activity was much reduced, the civil service ground to a halt, and the standard of living fell. The Emperor Dao guang's special anti-opium commissioner Lin Ze-xu (1785-1850), modestly estimated the number of his countrymen addicted to the drug to be 4 million, but a British physician practising in Canton set the figure at 12 million. Equally disturbing for the imperial government was the imbalance of trade with the West: whereas prior to 1810 Western nations had been spending 350 million Mexican silver dollars on porcelain, cotton, silks, brocades, and various grades of tea, by 1837 opium represented 57 per cent of Chinese imports, and for fiscal 1835-36 alone China exported 4.5 million silver dollars. The official sent in 1838 by the Emperor Dao guang (1821-1850) of the Qing Dynasty to confiscate and destroy all imports of opium, Lin Ze-xu, calculated that in fiscal 1839 Chinese opium smokers consumed 100 million taels' worth of the drug while the entire spending by the imperial government that year spent 40 million taels. He reportedly concluded, "If we continue to allow this trade to flourish, in a few dozen years we will find ourselves not only with no soldiers to resist the enemy, but also with no money to equip the army" quoted by Chesneaux et al., p. 55). By the late 1830s, foreign merchant vessels, notably those of Britain and the United States, were landing over 30,000 chests annually. Meantime, corrupt officials in the hoppo (customs office) and ruthless merchants in the port cities were accumulating wealth beyond "all the tea in China" by defying imperial interdictions that had existed in principle since 1796. The standard rate for an official's turning a blind eye to the importation of a single crate of opium was 80 taels. Between 1821 and 1837 the illegal importation of opium (theoretically a capital offence) increased five fold. A hotbed of vice, bribery, and disloyalty to the Emperor's authority, the opium port of Canton would be the flashpoint for the inevitable clash between the governments of China and Great Britain.
The Outbreak of the First Opium War
This war with China . . . really seems to me so wicked as to be a national sin of the greatest possible magnitude, and it distresses me very deeply. Cannot any thing be done by petition or otherwise to awaken men's minds to the dreadful guilt we are incurring? I really do not remember, in any history, of a war undertaken with such combined injustice and baseness. Ordinary wars of conquest are to me far less wicked, than to go to war in order to maintain smuggling, and that smuggling consisting in the introduction of a demoralizing drug, which the government of China wishes to keep out, and which we, for the lucre of gain, want to introduce by force; and in this quarrel are going to burn and slay in the pride of our supposed superiority. — Thomas Arnold to W. W. Hull, March 18, 1840
British merchants were frustrated by Chinese trade laws and refused to cooperate with Chinese legal officials because of their routine use of torture. Upon his arrival in Canton in March, 1839, the Emperor's special emissary, Lin Ze-xu, took swift action against the foreign merchants and their Chinese accomplices, making some 1,600 arrests and confiscating 11,000 pounds of opium. Despite attempts by the British superintendent of trade, Charles Elliot, to negotiate a compromise, in June Lin ordered the seizure another 20,00 crates of opium from foreign-controlled factories, holding all foreign merchants under arrest until they surrendered nine million dollars worth of opium, which he then had burned publicly. Finally, he ordered the port of Canton closed to all foreign merchants. Elliot in turn ordered a blockade of the Pearl River. In an ensuing naval battle, described as a victory by Chinese propagandists, in November 1839 the Royal Navy sank a number of Chinese vessels near Guangzhou. By January 1841, the British had captured the Bogue forts at the Pearl's mouth and controlled the high ground above the port of Canton. Subsequently, British forces scored victories on land at Ningbo and Chinhai, crushing the ill-equipped and poorly trained imperial forces with ease. Viewed as too moderate back at home, in August 1841 Elliot was replaced by Sir Henry Pottinger to launch a major offensive against Ningbo and Tiajin. By the end of June British forces occupied Zhenjiang and controlled the vast rice-growing lands of southern China.
The key to British victory was Her Majesty's Navy, which used the broadside with equal effect against wooden-hulled vessels, fortifications are river mouths, and city walls. The steel-hulled Nemesis, a shallow-draft armed paddle-wheeler loaned to the campaign by the British East India Company, quickly controlled the river basins and the Pearl River between Hong Kong and Canton, regardless of winds or tides that limited the effectiveness of Chinese junks. On land, Chinese bows and primitive firelocks proved no match for British muskets and artillery. For leading the Royal Marines to victory General Anthony Blaxland Stransham was knighted by Queen Victoria. His forces utterly defeated on land and sea, Lin Ze-xu in September 1840 had been recalled to Peking in disgrace, and Qi-shan, a Manchu aristocrat related to the Emperor, installed in Lin's place to deal with the foreign devils whose decisive victories were undermining the authority of the Qing Dynasty, which gradually lost control of a population of 300 million.
The Cost of Peace
Qi-shan's first major concession was to ransom Canton in the spring of 1841 from the British for six million silver dollars rather than try to defend it. By the middle of 1842, the British controlled the mouth of the Yangtze and Shanghai, and forced the Chinese to sign the first of a series of "unequal" treaties that turned control of much of the coast over to the West. While Chinese officials earnestly entreated Sir Henry Pottinger to cut the problem off at its source by recommending that the British government ban the cultivation of the poppy in India, Sir Henry argued that, as long as there remained substantial numbers of opium-addicts and corrupt customs officers in China, prohibiting the cultivation of opium in India "would merely throw the market into other hands" (cited by Ssu-Yu Teng, p. 70). Under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking (29 August 1842), signed as seems fitting now aboard a British warship at the mouth of the Yangtze, and a further "supplementary" treaty in 1843, China ceded the island of Hong Kong to Great Britain, opened five "Treaty" ports (Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Shanghai, and Ningbo) to Western trade and residence, granted Great Britain most-favoured nation status for trade, and paid nine million dollars in reparations to the merchants whose 20,000 chests of opium Lin Ze-xu had destroyed. China was compelled to abolish trading monopolies and limit tariffs to five per cent. Finally, and perhaps most important to China's loss of nationhood, the Manchu signatories accepted the principle of "extraterritoriality," whereby Western merchants were no longer accountable to China's laws, but rather to those of their mother countries. (In 1844, the United States and France extracted similar concessions from the imperial government, and the stage was set for the partition of the world's most populous nation by the numerically inferior but technologically superior Western powers.) No sooner had peace been negotiated than merchants began to hawk opium at fire-sale prices, and the conclusion of the Second Opium War (1856-58) removed all residual restraints on the trafficking of the drug as the Chinese themselves began poppy cultivation: by 1880, China was still importing 6,500 tons annually, but by 1900 it was producing some 22,000 tons itself.
The Second Opium War
he outbreak of fresh hostilities under such circumstances was almost inevitable because Chinese officials were extremely reluctant to enact the terms of the treaties of 1842-44. Since the French and Americans had extracted additional concessions since the signing of the Treaty of Nanking, including clauses about renegotiation after twelve years, Great Britain insisted upon exercising its "most-favoured nation status" in 1854. This time, the British demanded that China open all her ports to foreign trade, legalise the importation of opium from British possessions in India and Burma, exempt British goods from all import duties, and permit the establishment of a full embassy in Peking. For two years Qing court officials stalled, trying to buy time. However, events ran out of their control when on 8 October 1856 officials boarded the Chinese-registered but Hong Kong-based merchant vessel Arrow, which they suspected of involvement in both smuggling and piracy. The British trade officials naturally argued that as a foreign vessel the Arrow's activities did not fall under Chinese legal jurisdiction, and that therefore the sailors who had been arrested should be released under the extraterritoriality clause of the Treaty of Nanking.
Having dealt with the temporary distraction of the Sepoy Mutiny in India, in 1857 Great Britain dispatched forces to Canton in a coordinated operation with American warships. France, seething over the recent Chinese execution of a missionary, Father August Chapdelaine, joined Russia, the U. S. A., and Great Britain against China. However, a joint Anglo-French force, without other military assistance, under the command of Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, Lord Elgin, and Marshall Gros seized Canton late in 1857 after valiant but futile resistance by the city's citizens and Chinese soldiers. In May 1858, the Anglo-French naval taskforce captured the Taku forts near Tiensin (Tianjin), effectively ending hostilities. France, Russia, the United States, and Great Britain then forced China to agree to open eleven more major ports to Western trade under the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin (June 1858). When the Chinese once again proved slow to enact the terms of the treaty, Britain order Admiral Sir James Hope to shell the Chinese forts at the mouth of the Peiho River in 1859. The Chinese capitulated, permitting all foreigners with passports to travel freely in China, and granting Chinese who converted to Christianity full property rights.
Since Chinese officials once again refused to enact a treaty provision, namely the establishment of Western embassies in Peking, an Anglo-French force launched a fresh offensive from Hong Kong in 1860, ultimately destroying the Emperor Xianfeng's Summer Palace in Chengde, and the Summer Palace and the Old Summer Palace in Peking amidst wide-spread looting by both troops and civilians.
Under the terms of the Convention of Peking, signed by Prince Gong, brother of the Emperor Xianfeng, on 18 October 1860, the ports of Hankou, Niuzhuang, Danshui, and Nanjing were opened to foreign vessels, as were the waters of the Yangtze, and foreign missionaries were free to proselytize. China had to pay further reparations, this time ten million taels, to each of France and Britain, and another two million taels to British merchants for destruction of property. Finally, China ceded the port of Kowloon to Great Britain, and agreed to permit the export of indentured Chinese labourers to the Americas. Arguably, without such a massive injection of cheap labour the transcontinental railways of the United States and Canada would not have been completed so quickly and economically. On the other hand, China's humiliation led directly to the fall of the Manchu Dynasty and the social upheavals that precipitated the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.
What had begun as a conflict of interests between English desire for profits from the trade in silk, porcelain, and tea and the Confucian ideal of self-sufficiency and exclusion of corrupting influences resulted in the partitioning of China by the Western powers (including the ceding of Hong Kong to Great Britain), humiliating defeats on land and sea by technologically and logistically superior Western forces, and the traditional values of an entire culture undermined by Christian missionaries and rampant trading in Turkish and Indian opium. No wonder the Boxer rebels' chief goal was to purify and reinvigorate their nation by the utter annihilation of all "foreign devils."
he Anglo-Chinese Opium Wars were the direct result of China's isolationalist and exclusionary trade policy with the West. Confucian China's attempts to exclude pernicious foreign ideas resulted in highly restricted trade. Prior to the 1830s, there was but one port open to Western merchants, Guangzhou (Canton) and but one commodity that the Chinese would accept in trade, silver. British and American merchants, anxious to address what they perceived as a trade imbalance, determined to import the one product that the Chinese did not themselves have but which an ever-increasing number of them wanted: opium. Before 1828, large quantities of the Spanish silver coin, the Carolus, flowed into China in payment for the exotic commodities that Europeans craved; in contrast, in the decade of the 1830s, despite an imperial decree outlawing the export of yellow gold and white silver, "only $7,303,841 worth of silver was imported, whereas the silver exported was estimated at $26,618, 815 in the foreign silver coin, $25,548,205 in sycee, and $3,616,996 in gold" (Kuo, p. 51). although the Chinese imperial governed had long prohibited the drug except for medicinal use, the "British Hong" (companies such as Dent, Jardine, and Matheson authorized to operate in Canton) bought cheaply produced opium in the Begal and Malwa (princely) districts under the auspices of the British East India Company, the number 150 lb. chests of the narcotic being imported rising from 9,708 in 1820 to 35,445 in 1835. With the British government's 1833 cancellation of the trade monopoly enjoyed by the East India Company, cheap opium flooded the market, and China's net outflow of silver amounted to some 34 million Mexican silver dollars over the course of the 1830s.
As the habit of smoking opium spread from the idle rich to ninety per cent of all Chinese males under the age of forty in the country's coastal regions, business activity was much reduced, the civil service ground to a halt, and the standard of living fell. The Emperor Dao guang's special anti-opium commissioner Lin Ze-xu (1785-1850), modestly estimated the number of his countrymen addicted to the drug to be 4 million, but a British physician practising in Canton set the figure at 12 million. Equally disturbing for the imperial government was the imbalance of trade with the West: whereas prior to 1810 Western nations had been spending 350 million Mexican silver dollars on porcelain, cotton, silks, brocades, and various grades of tea, by 1837 opium represented 57 per cent of Chinese imports, and for fiscal 1835-36 alone China exported 4.5 million silver dollars. The official sent in 1838 by the Emperor Dao guang (1821-1850) of the Qing Dynasty to confiscate and destroy all imports of opium, Lin Ze-xu, calculated that in fiscal 1839 Chinese opium smokers consumed 100 million taels' worth of the drug while the entire spending by the imperial government that year spent 40 million taels. He reportedly concluded, "If we continue to allow this trade to flourish, in a few dozen years we will find ourselves not only with no soldiers to resist the enemy, but also with no money to equip the army" quoted by Chesneaux et al., p. 55). By the late 1830s, foreign merchant vessels, notably those of Britain and the United States, were landing over 30,000 chests annually. Meantime, corrupt officials in the hoppo (customs office) and ruthless merchants in the port cities were accumulating wealth beyond "all the tea in China" by defying imperial interdictions that had existed in principle since 1796. The standard rate for an official's turning a blind eye to the importation of a single crate of opium was 80 taels. Between 1821 and 1837 the illegal importation of opium (theoretically a capital offence) increased five fold. A hotbed of vice, bribery, and disloyalty to the Emperor's authority, the opium port of Canton would be the flashpoint for the inevitable clash between the governments of China and Great Britain.
The Outbreak of the First Opium War
This war with China . . . really seems to me so wicked as to be a national sin of the greatest possible magnitude, and it distresses me very deeply. Cannot any thing be done by petition or otherwise to awaken men's minds to the dreadful guilt we are incurring? I really do not remember, in any history, of a war undertaken with such combined injustice and baseness. Ordinary wars of conquest are to me far less wicked, than to go to war in order to maintain smuggling, and that smuggling consisting in the introduction of a demoralizing drug, which the government of China wishes to keep out, and which we, for the lucre of gain, want to introduce by force; and in this quarrel are going to burn and slay in the pride of our supposed superiority. — Thomas Arnold to W. W. Hull, March 18, 1840
British merchants were frustrated by Chinese trade laws and refused to cooperate with Chinese legal officials because of their routine use of torture. Upon his arrival in Canton in March, 1839, the Emperor's special emissary, Lin Ze-xu, took swift action against the foreign merchants and their Chinese accomplices, making some 1,600 arrests and confiscating 11,000 pounds of opium. Despite attempts by the British superintendent of trade, Charles Elliot, to negotiate a compromise, in June Lin ordered the seizure another 20,00 crates of opium from foreign-controlled factories, holding all foreign merchants under arrest until they surrendered nine million dollars worth of opium, which he then had burned publicly. Finally, he ordered the port of Canton closed to all foreign merchants. Elliot in turn ordered a blockade of the Pearl River. In an ensuing naval battle, described as a victory by Chinese propagandists, in November 1839 the Royal Navy sank a number of Chinese vessels near Guangzhou. By January 1841, the British had captured the Bogue forts at the Pearl's mouth and controlled the high ground above the port of Canton. Subsequently, British forces scored victories on land at Ningbo and Chinhai, crushing the ill-equipped and poorly trained imperial forces with ease. Viewed as too moderate back at home, in August 1841 Elliot was replaced by Sir Henry Pottinger to launch a major offensive against Ningbo and Tiajin. By the end of June British forces occupied Zhenjiang and controlled the vast rice-growing lands of southern China.
The key to British victory was Her Majesty's Navy, which used the broadside with equal effect against wooden-hulled vessels, fortifications are river mouths, and city walls. The steel-hulled Nemesis, a shallow-draft armed paddle-wheeler loaned to the campaign by the British East India Company, quickly controlled the river basins and the Pearl River between Hong Kong and Canton, regardless of winds or tides that limited the effectiveness of Chinese junks. On land, Chinese bows and primitive firelocks proved no match for British muskets and artillery. For leading the Royal Marines to victory General Anthony Blaxland Stransham was knighted by Queen Victoria. His forces utterly defeated on land and sea, Lin Ze-xu in September 1840 had been recalled to Peking in disgrace, and Qi-shan, a Manchu aristocrat related to the Emperor, installed in Lin's place to deal with the foreign devils whose decisive victories were undermining the authority of the Qing Dynasty, which gradually lost control of a population of 300 million.
The Cost of Peace
Qi-shan's first major concession was to ransom Canton in the spring of 1841 from the British for six million silver dollars rather than try to defend it. By the middle of 1842, the British controlled the mouth of the Yangtze and Shanghai, and forced the Chinese to sign the first of a series of "unequal" treaties that turned control of much of the coast over to the West. While Chinese officials earnestly entreated Sir Henry Pottinger to cut the problem off at its source by recommending that the British government ban the cultivation of the poppy in India, Sir Henry argued that, as long as there remained substantial numbers of opium-addicts and corrupt customs officers in China, prohibiting the cultivation of opium in India "would merely throw the market into other hands" (cited by Ssu-Yu Teng, p. 70). Under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking (29 August 1842), signed as seems fitting now aboard a British warship at the mouth of the Yangtze, and a further "supplementary" treaty in 1843, China ceded the island of Hong Kong to Great Britain, opened five "Treaty" ports (Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Shanghai, and Ningbo) to Western trade and residence, granted Great Britain most-favoured nation status for trade, and paid nine million dollars in reparations to the merchants whose 20,000 chests of opium Lin Ze-xu had destroyed. China was compelled to abolish trading monopolies and limit tariffs to five per cent. Finally, and perhaps most important to China's loss of nationhood, the Manchu signatories accepted the principle of "extraterritoriality," whereby Western merchants were no longer accountable to China's laws, but rather to those of their mother countries. (In 1844, the United States and France extracted similar concessions from the imperial government, and the stage was set for the partition of the world's most populous nation by the numerically inferior but technologically superior Western powers.) No sooner had peace been negotiated than merchants began to hawk opium at fire-sale prices, and the conclusion of the Second Opium War (1856-58) removed all residual restraints on the trafficking of the drug as the Chinese themselves began poppy cultivation: by 1880, China was still importing 6,500 tons annually, but by 1900 it was producing some 22,000 tons itself.
The Second Opium War
he outbreak of fresh hostilities under such circumstances was almost inevitable because Chinese officials were extremely reluctant to enact the terms of the treaties of 1842-44. Since the French and Americans had extracted additional concessions since the signing of the Treaty of Nanking, including clauses about renegotiation after twelve years, Great Britain insisted upon exercising its "most-favoured nation status" in 1854. This time, the British demanded that China open all her ports to foreign trade, legalise the importation of opium from British possessions in India and Burma, exempt British goods from all import duties, and permit the establishment of a full embassy in Peking. For two years Qing court officials stalled, trying to buy time. However, events ran out of their control when on 8 October 1856 officials boarded the Chinese-registered but Hong Kong-based merchant vessel Arrow, which they suspected of involvement in both smuggling and piracy. The British trade officials naturally argued that as a foreign vessel the Arrow's activities did not fall under Chinese legal jurisdiction, and that therefore the sailors who had been arrested should be released under the extraterritoriality clause of the Treaty of Nanking.
Having dealt with the temporary distraction of the Sepoy Mutiny in India, in 1857 Great Britain dispatched forces to Canton in a coordinated operation with American warships. France, seething over the recent Chinese execution of a missionary, Father August Chapdelaine, joined Russia, the U. S. A., and Great Britain against China. However, a joint Anglo-French force, without other military assistance, under the command of Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, Lord Elgin, and Marshall Gros seized Canton late in 1857 after valiant but futile resistance by the city's citizens and Chinese soldiers. In May 1858, the Anglo-French naval taskforce captured the Taku forts near Tiensin (Tianjin), effectively ending hostilities. France, Russia, the United States, and Great Britain then forced China to agree to open eleven more major ports to Western trade under the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin (June 1858). When the Chinese once again proved slow to enact the terms of the treaty, Britain order Admiral Sir James Hope to shell the Chinese forts at the mouth of the Peiho River in 1859. The Chinese capitulated, permitting all foreigners with passports to travel freely in China, and granting Chinese who converted to Christianity full property rights.
Since Chinese officials once again refused to enact a treaty provision, namely the establishment of Western embassies in Peking, an Anglo-French force launched a fresh offensive from Hong Kong in 1860, ultimately destroying the Emperor Xianfeng's Summer Palace in Chengde, and the Summer Palace and the Old Summer Palace in Peking amidst wide-spread looting by both troops and civilians.
Under the terms of the Convention of Peking, signed by Prince Gong, brother of the Emperor Xianfeng, on 18 October 1860, the ports of Hankou, Niuzhuang, Danshui, and Nanjing were opened to foreign vessels, as were the waters of the Yangtze, and foreign missionaries were free to proselytize. China had to pay further reparations, this time ten million taels, to each of France and Britain, and another two million taels to British merchants for destruction of property. Finally, China ceded the port of Kowloon to Great Britain, and agreed to permit the export of indentured Chinese labourers to the Americas. Arguably, without such a massive injection of cheap labour the transcontinental railways of the United States and Canada would not have been completed so quickly and economically. On the other hand, China's humiliation led directly to the fall of the Manchu Dynasty and the social upheavals that precipitated the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.
What had begun as a conflict of interests between English desire for profits from the trade in silk, porcelain, and tea and the Confucian ideal of self-sufficiency and exclusion of corrupting influences resulted in the partitioning of China by the Western powers (including the ceding of Hong Kong to Great Britain), humiliating defeats on land and sea by technologically and logistically superior Western forces, and the traditional values of an entire culture undermined by Christian missionaries and rampant trading in Turkish and Indian opium. No wonder the Boxer rebels' chief goal was to purify and reinvigorate their nation by the utter annihilation of all "foreign devils."
Was Darwin Wrong?
(Courtesy of National Geographic)
The work of the 19th-century English naturalist shocked society and revolutionized science. How well has it withstood the test of time?
Evolution by natural selection, the central concept of the life's work of Charles Darwin, is a theory. It's a theory about the origin of adaptation, complexity, and diversity among Earth's living creatures. If you are skeptical by nature, unfamiliar with the terminology of science, and unaware of the overwhelming evidence, you might even be tempted to say that it's "just" a theory. In the same sense, relativity as described by Albert Einstein is "just" a theory. The notion that Earth orbits around the sun rather than vice versa, offered by Copernicus in 1543, is a theory. Continental drift is a theory. The existence, structure, and dynamics of atoms? Atomic theory. Even electricity is a theoretical construct, involving electrons, which are tiny units of charged mass that no one has ever seen. Each of these theories is an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact. That's what scientists mean when they talk about a theory: not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence. They embrace such an explanation confidently but provisionally—taking it as their best available view of reality, at least until some severely conflicting data or some better explanation might come along.
The rest of us generally agree. We plug our televisions into little wall sockets, measure a year by the length of Earth's orbit, and in many other ways live our lives based on the trusted reality of those theories.
Evolutionary theory, though, is a bit different. It's such a dangerously wonderful and far-reaching view of life that some people find it unacceptable, despite the vast body of supporting evidence. As applied to our own species, Homo sapiens, it can seem more threatening still. Many fundamentalist Christians and ultra-orthodox Jews take alarm at the thought that human descent from earlier primates contradicts a strict reading of the Book of Genesis. Their discomfort is paralleled by Islamic creationists such as Harun Yahya, author of a recent volume titled The Evolution Deceit, who points to the six-day creation story in the Koran as literal truth and calls the theory of evolution "nothing but a deception imposed on us by the dominators of the world system." The late Srila Prabhupada, of the Hare Krishna movement, explained that God created "the 8,400,000 species of life from the very beginning," in order to establish multiple tiers of reincarnation for rising souls. Although souls ascend, the species themselves don't change, he insisted, dismissing "Darwin's nonsensical theory."
Other people too, not just scriptural literalists, remain unpersuaded about evolution. According to a Gallup poll drawn from more than a thousand telephone interviews conducted in February 2001, no less than 45 percent of responding U.S. adults agreed that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." Evolution, by their lights, played no role in shaping us.
Only 37 percent of the polled Americans were satisfied with allowing room for both God and Darwin—that is, divine initiative to get things started, evolution as the creative means. (This view, according to more than one papal pronouncement, is compatible with Roman Catholic dogma.) Still fewer Americans, only 12 percent, believed that humans evolved from other life-forms without any involvement of a god.
The most startling thing about these poll numbers is not that so many Americans reject evolution, but that the statistical breakdown hasn't changed much in two decades. Gallup interviewers posed exactly the same choices in 1982, 1993, 1997, and 1999. The creationist conviction—that God alone, and not evolution, produced humans—has never drawn less than 44 percent. In other words, nearly half the American populace prefers to believe that Charles Darwin was wrong where it mattered most.
The work of the 19th-century English naturalist shocked society and revolutionized science. How well has it withstood the test of time?
Evolution by natural selection, the central concept of the life's work of Charles Darwin, is a theory. It's a theory about the origin of adaptation, complexity, and diversity among Earth's living creatures. If you are skeptical by nature, unfamiliar with the terminology of science, and unaware of the overwhelming evidence, you might even be tempted to say that it's "just" a theory. In the same sense, relativity as described by Albert Einstein is "just" a theory. The notion that Earth orbits around the sun rather than vice versa, offered by Copernicus in 1543, is a theory. Continental drift is a theory. The existence, structure, and dynamics of atoms? Atomic theory. Even electricity is a theoretical construct, involving electrons, which are tiny units of charged mass that no one has ever seen. Each of these theories is an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact. That's what scientists mean when they talk about a theory: not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence. They embrace such an explanation confidently but provisionally—taking it as their best available view of reality, at least until some severely conflicting data or some better explanation might come along.
The rest of us generally agree. We plug our televisions into little wall sockets, measure a year by the length of Earth's orbit, and in many other ways live our lives based on the trusted reality of those theories.
Evolutionary theory, though, is a bit different. It's such a dangerously wonderful and far-reaching view of life that some people find it unacceptable, despite the vast body of supporting evidence. As applied to our own species, Homo sapiens, it can seem more threatening still. Many fundamentalist Christians and ultra-orthodox Jews take alarm at the thought that human descent from earlier primates contradicts a strict reading of the Book of Genesis. Their discomfort is paralleled by Islamic creationists such as Harun Yahya, author of a recent volume titled The Evolution Deceit, who points to the six-day creation story in the Koran as literal truth and calls the theory of evolution "nothing but a deception imposed on us by the dominators of the world system." The late Srila Prabhupada, of the Hare Krishna movement, explained that God created "the 8,400,000 species of life from the very beginning," in order to establish multiple tiers of reincarnation for rising souls. Although souls ascend, the species themselves don't change, he insisted, dismissing "Darwin's nonsensical theory."
Other people too, not just scriptural literalists, remain unpersuaded about evolution. According to a Gallup poll drawn from more than a thousand telephone interviews conducted in February 2001, no less than 45 percent of responding U.S. adults agreed that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." Evolution, by their lights, played no role in shaping us.
Only 37 percent of the polled Americans were satisfied with allowing room for both God and Darwin—that is, divine initiative to get things started, evolution as the creative means. (This view, according to more than one papal pronouncement, is compatible with Roman Catholic dogma.) Still fewer Americans, only 12 percent, believed that humans evolved from other life-forms without any involvement of a god.
The most startling thing about these poll numbers is not that so many Americans reject evolution, but that the statistical breakdown hasn't changed much in two decades. Gallup interviewers posed exactly the same choices in 1982, 1993, 1997, and 1999. The creationist conviction—that God alone, and not evolution, produced humans—has never drawn less than 44 percent. In other words, nearly half the American populace prefers to believe that Charles Darwin was wrong where it mattered most.
Dillon Mini-Gun
A modern adaptation of Richard Gatling's Gatling gun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoPq8QceeZA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoPq8QceeZA&feature=related
Europe (1815-1848)
1814-1815: Congress of Vienna
1815: Corn Law in Great Britain
December 1816: Corn Law riots in London
1817: Buschenschaft holds congress at Wurtburg
1818: Prussian Zollverein created
1818: International Congress held at Aix-la-Chapelle
1818: Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein
1819: Metternich initiates Carlsbad Decrees
1819: Peterloo Massacre
1820: Several members of Cato Street Conspiracy executed
1820s: British Radicalism gets underway
1820: Louis XVIII's nephew (the Duke de Berry) assassinated
1820: Te Congress of Troppau
1822: The Congress of Verona
1823: Munroe Doctrine
1824: Louis XVIII dies, Charles X becomes French king
1825: Decembrist Revolt put down in Russia, Nicholas I comes to power
1825: Robert Owen founds New Harmony, Indiana
1827: Anglo-French-Russian navy destroys Turkish fleet, helping Greek nationalists
1829: Nations of Europe recognize an independent Greece
1829: First truly successful locomotive tested
1830s: Gothic Revival in architecture
July 1830: Charles X passes "Four Ordinances" in France
July 1830: July Revolution in France. Charles X abdicates, Louis Philippe becomes French king
1831: Mazzini founds Young Italy
1832: Goethe completes Faust
1832: Parliament passes Reform Bill
1833: Factory Act restricts child labor (Great Britain)
1834: Poor Laws passed (Great Britain)
1838: Anti-Corn Laws League
1838: Chartist movement begins
1839: Chartist movement gains 1 million signatures
1840: Frederick William IV comes to power in Prussia
1840s: Corn Laws repealed
1840s: Railway construction begins in England and Europe
1842: Chartist movement gains 3 million signatures
1847: Ten Hour Act limits women and child labor to ten hours a day (Great Britain)
January 1848: Marx and Engels publish Communist Manifesto
February 1848: February Revolution in Paris, barricades in the streets
1848: Louis Napoleon Bonaparte becomes President of France
March 1848: Metternich, terrified of unrest, flees Vienna
March 15, 1848: Hungary granted independence within the Austrian Empire, revolutions begin throughout Eastern Europe
June 1848: Pan-Slavic Conference held in Prague
May 1848: Frankfurt Assembly
December 1848: Ferdinand of Austria abdicates, Franz Joseph becomes emperor
1815: Corn Law in Great Britain
December 1816: Corn Law riots in London
1817: Buschenschaft holds congress at Wurtburg
1818: Prussian Zollverein created
1818: International Congress held at Aix-la-Chapelle
1818: Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein
1819: Metternich initiates Carlsbad Decrees
1819: Peterloo Massacre
1820: Several members of Cato Street Conspiracy executed
1820s: British Radicalism gets underway
1820: Louis XVIII's nephew (the Duke de Berry) assassinated
1820: Te Congress of Troppau
1822: The Congress of Verona
1823: Munroe Doctrine
1824: Louis XVIII dies, Charles X becomes French king
1825: Decembrist Revolt put down in Russia, Nicholas I comes to power
1825: Robert Owen founds New Harmony, Indiana
1827: Anglo-French-Russian navy destroys Turkish fleet, helping Greek nationalists
1829: Nations of Europe recognize an independent Greece
1829: First truly successful locomotive tested
1830s: Gothic Revival in architecture
July 1830: Charles X passes "Four Ordinances" in France
July 1830: July Revolution in France. Charles X abdicates, Louis Philippe becomes French king
1831: Mazzini founds Young Italy
1832: Goethe completes Faust
1832: Parliament passes Reform Bill
1833: Factory Act restricts child labor (Great Britain)
1834: Poor Laws passed (Great Britain)
1838: Anti-Corn Laws League
1838: Chartist movement begins
1839: Chartist movement gains 1 million signatures
1840: Frederick William IV comes to power in Prussia
1840s: Corn Laws repealed
1840s: Railway construction begins in England and Europe
1842: Chartist movement gains 3 million signatures
1847: Ten Hour Act limits women and child labor to ten hours a day (Great Britain)
January 1848: Marx and Engels publish Communist Manifesto
February 1848: February Revolution in Paris, barricades in the streets
1848: Louis Napoleon Bonaparte becomes President of France
March 1848: Metternich, terrified of unrest, flees Vienna
March 15, 1848: Hungary granted independence within the Austrian Empire, revolutions begin throughout Eastern Europe
June 1848: Pan-Slavic Conference held in Prague
May 1848: Frankfurt Assembly
December 1848: Ferdinand of Austria abdicates, Franz Joseph becomes emperor
The Industrial Revolution in Britain
Ahh, Spark Notes, the great equalizer:
Summary
Although Western Europe had long had the basic trappings of capitalism (private property, wealth accumulation, contracts), the Industrial Revolution fueled the creation of a truly modern capitalist system. Widespread credit, business corporations, investments and large-scale stock markets all become common. Britain led the way in this transformation.
By the 1780s, the British Industrial Revolution, which had been developing for several decades, began to further accelerate. Manufacturing, business, and the number of wage laborers skyrocketed, starting a trend that would continue into the first half of the 19th century. Meanwhile, technology changed: hand tools were replaced by steam- or electricity-driven machines.
The economic transformation brought about the British industrial revolution was accompanied by a social transformation as well. Population boomed, and demographics shifted. Because industrial resources like coal and iron were in Central and Northern England, a shift in population from Southern England northward took place. Northern cities like Manchester grew tremendously. These changes in social and demographic realities created vast pressure for political change as well. The first act to protect workers went into affect in 1802 (though in practice it did very little). Pressure to redress the lack of representation for the new industrial cities and the newly wealthy industrial manufacturers also began to build.
Meanwhile, industrialists developed an ideology called Laissez Faire based on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) and continued by David Ricardo and Robert Malthus. Based on this, the discipline known as "economics" developed, largely to give the manufacturers a basis for arguing for little or no regulation of industry. Instead of government interference, these economists argued that a free market, in which everyone followed their own self- interest, would maximize the nation's utility.
Britain, with its head start in manufacturing, its many world markets, and its dominant navy, would dominate industry for most of the 19th century. Towards the end of that century, the United States and Germany would begin to challenge Britain's industrial power.
Commentary
Among the Western European countries, Britain was the ideal incubator for the Industrial Revolution because an "Agricultural Revolution" preceded it. After the 1688 "Glorious Revolution", the British kings lost power and the aristocratic landholders gained power. The landholders tried to rationalize their landholdings and started the Enclosure Movement to bring more and more of their own land under tighter control, a process that went on throughout the 1700s. This policy had two main effects: it increased the productivity of the land, and transformed the people who used to work land into an unemployed, labor class of poor in need of work. Thus, the first factories had a ready labor- supply in Britain that was not available in other nations. Important inventions like the "Spinning Jenny" to produce yarn began to be made in 1760s, and soon the British textile industry was booming, aided by Eli Whitney's invention of the "Cotton Gin" in America, which provided a ready source of cotton.
document.write('');
The Industrial Revolution represented a shift in influence away from the traditional power-holders in England. Aristocratic rule was no longer supreme, for "upstart" manufacturers were now often more wealthy and more important to the nation's overall well being than the landed gentry. They also employed a far greater percentage of the national economy. However, the aristocratic landholders did not entirely lose out: they maintained some power, and only grudgingly gave it up to business interests. Often, the aristocracy, trying to take power away from the manufacturers, would ally with the working class. As both sides, aristocrats and manufacturers, competed for the support of the workers, reforms in Britain gradually took place through Parliamentary deal- making without the need for a bloody revolution. In its impact on human societies, the industrial revolution was probably the most important change in its era, more important, perhaps, than any events in the last few thousand years. The Industrial Revolution allowed increasing urbanization and greatly increased the overall wealth and production power of humanity, although not everyone always shared in the benefits of industrialization equally.
Though industrialization was most prominent in Europe, its transformative powers must be seen as a theme through the period of 1815-1848. Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution went hand-in-hand with the Western European countries' liberal traditions. Many of the same principles underlying the French Revolution were being developed via the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Industrializing nations developed middle classes who began to wield political clout. Further, the Industrial Revolution would give Western Europe the economic system and technology to dominate much of the world in the colonial period towards the end of the 19th century. The countries that did not transition to industrial systems very quickly got left behind, and often ended up as satellites to the major powers.
It would be some time before workers developed a counter-ideology of their own. Yet as manufacturing brought hundreds of thousands of workers into the cities, they started thinking about organizing to protect their own political interests. By 1825, the workers in the industrializing nations would become a social and political force of their own.
For more info, visit:
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/1848/section1.rhtml
Summary
Although Western Europe had long had the basic trappings of capitalism (private property, wealth accumulation, contracts), the Industrial Revolution fueled the creation of a truly modern capitalist system. Widespread credit, business corporations, investments and large-scale stock markets all become common. Britain led the way in this transformation.
By the 1780s, the British Industrial Revolution, which had been developing for several decades, began to further accelerate. Manufacturing, business, and the number of wage laborers skyrocketed, starting a trend that would continue into the first half of the 19th century. Meanwhile, technology changed: hand tools were replaced by steam- or electricity-driven machines.
The economic transformation brought about the British industrial revolution was accompanied by a social transformation as well. Population boomed, and demographics shifted. Because industrial resources like coal and iron were in Central and Northern England, a shift in population from Southern England northward took place. Northern cities like Manchester grew tremendously. These changes in social and demographic realities created vast pressure for political change as well. The first act to protect workers went into affect in 1802 (though in practice it did very little). Pressure to redress the lack of representation for the new industrial cities and the newly wealthy industrial manufacturers also began to build.
Meanwhile, industrialists developed an ideology called Laissez Faire based on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) and continued by David Ricardo and Robert Malthus. Based on this, the discipline known as "economics" developed, largely to give the manufacturers a basis for arguing for little or no regulation of industry. Instead of government interference, these economists argued that a free market, in which everyone followed their own self- interest, would maximize the nation's utility.
Britain, with its head start in manufacturing, its many world markets, and its dominant navy, would dominate industry for most of the 19th century. Towards the end of that century, the United States and Germany would begin to challenge Britain's industrial power.
Commentary
Among the Western European countries, Britain was the ideal incubator for the Industrial Revolution because an "Agricultural Revolution" preceded it. After the 1688 "Glorious Revolution", the British kings lost power and the aristocratic landholders gained power. The landholders tried to rationalize their landholdings and started the Enclosure Movement to bring more and more of their own land under tighter control, a process that went on throughout the 1700s. This policy had two main effects: it increased the productivity of the land, and transformed the people who used to work land into an unemployed, labor class of poor in need of work. Thus, the first factories had a ready labor- supply in Britain that was not available in other nations. Important inventions like the "Spinning Jenny" to produce yarn began to be made in 1760s, and soon the British textile industry was booming, aided by Eli Whitney's invention of the "Cotton Gin" in America, which provided a ready source of cotton.
document.write('');
The Industrial Revolution represented a shift in influence away from the traditional power-holders in England. Aristocratic rule was no longer supreme, for "upstart" manufacturers were now often more wealthy and more important to the nation's overall well being than the landed gentry. They also employed a far greater percentage of the national economy. However, the aristocratic landholders did not entirely lose out: they maintained some power, and only grudgingly gave it up to business interests. Often, the aristocracy, trying to take power away from the manufacturers, would ally with the working class. As both sides, aristocrats and manufacturers, competed for the support of the workers, reforms in Britain gradually took place through Parliamentary deal- making without the need for a bloody revolution. In its impact on human societies, the industrial revolution was probably the most important change in its era, more important, perhaps, than any events in the last few thousand years. The Industrial Revolution allowed increasing urbanization and greatly increased the overall wealth and production power of humanity, although not everyone always shared in the benefits of industrialization equally.
Though industrialization was most prominent in Europe, its transformative powers must be seen as a theme through the period of 1815-1848. Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution went hand-in-hand with the Western European countries' liberal traditions. Many of the same principles underlying the French Revolution were being developed via the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Industrializing nations developed middle classes who began to wield political clout. Further, the Industrial Revolution would give Western Europe the economic system and technology to dominate much of the world in the colonial period towards the end of the 19th century. The countries that did not transition to industrial systems very quickly got left behind, and often ended up as satellites to the major powers.
It would be some time before workers developed a counter-ideology of their own. Yet as manufacturing brought hundreds of thousands of workers into the cities, they started thinking about organizing to protect their own political interests. By 1825, the workers in the industrializing nations would become a social and political force of their own.
For more info, visit:
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/1848/section1.rhtml
Monday, June 21, 2010
The Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire
A force of elite infantry loyal to the Ottoman emperor. The Janissaries were christian slaves, taken from their villages between the ages of seven and ten, and raised to be loyal soldiers of the emperor, whose personal property they were. The Janissaries were trained bowmen whose loyalty and lack of political connections within the Empire made them invaluable to the stronger sultans. Their loyalty was gained both through their strict training, which took up to ten years, and the prospect of great rewards for good service. Some two thirds of the Grand Viziers of the Ottoman Empire up at least until the sixteenth century had been Janissaries, as were many other officials of the empire. It was only when the line of Sultans began to weaken that the Janissaries became kingmakers. The first Janissaries were probably recruited by Orkhan, as a personal bodyguard. Their numbers grew, reaching ten thousand in the fifteenth century.
See http://historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_janissaries.html for more info.
See http://historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_janissaries.html for more info.
Niccolo Machiavelli
"One ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved...For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain....Fear is maintained by dread of punishment which never fails...In the actions of men, and especially of princes, from which there is no appeal, the end justifies the means."
Zheng He "Bringing order to the world"
Zheng He, originally named Ma He, was born into a Muslim family just beyond the borders of China (later Yunnan Province in the southwestern part of China) in 1371. His ancestors were the Arabian immigrated into China during the Tang and Song dynasties (618-1279). When he was still young the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) conquered his province in 1378, and he was taken to the imperial Chinese capital to serve as a court eunuch.
However, he distinguished himself by helping Zhu Yuanzhang defeat the Yuan Dynasty, and was rewarded with an official post in the government. During the coup started by Zhu Di, who was the fourth son of the first emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty and later became Emperor Chengzu, Zheng He helped Zhu Di gain the throne and was given command of the Chinese navy. Hence he wielded great influence in court.
In 1402, after Emperor Cheng Zu of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) ascended the throne, he dispatched Zheng He and Wang Jinghong to lead a giant fleet to the Western Sea (today's Southeast Asia), carrying members of soldiers and large quantity of goods. The fleet reached the countries of Southeast Asia, east Africa and Arabia, initiating a feat in the history of navigation and regarded as an unprecedented great historical period in Chinese history of trade and cultural exchanges.
From 1405 to 1433, Zheng He led his fleet to voyage to the Western Sea for seven times. The number of ships of his fleet was from 40 to 63 each time, taking many soldiers and sailors on the voyage, with a total party over 27,000 people. Their ships navigated the wide sea area from Ryukyu Islands, the Philippine Islands and Maluku Sea to the Mozambican Channel and the costal areas of South Africa, developing mutual trade, exchanging culture and technologies, communicating traffic on the sea and promoting social and economic development in such countries and areas. The mighty fleet voyaged on the Indian Ocean, not only astonishing the Arabian navigators, but also amazing the Venice businessmen coming and going between Hormuz and Aden, hence providing a new enlightenment to the European navigation. Zheng He's voyages are 87 years earlier than that of Columbus, 93 years earlier than that of Gama, and 116 years earlier than that of Magellan.
Chinese treasure ships carried a great deal of special Chinese products to foreign countries. As to craftwork, there were brocade, gauze, and skein; as to china, there were newly developed celadon, Xiulihong, as well as the enamelware with Chinese characteristics. By the way, during the Tang Dynasty Chinese people had grasped the technology of sintering glass, but only after Zheng He's voyage, Chinese had grasped the technology of adding borax in glass to resist heat. The Arabian glass artisan came to China with Zheng He's fleet and imparted the new technology to sinter new kinds of glass vessel resistant to sudden changes of temperature. Since then, this kind of glass was produced in large quantities in China and became a common utensil.
Zheng He also brought back building materials, fuels and exotic articles. It was at this time that the so-called kylin and Fulu (African giraffe and zebra) became decorative animals for the Chinese imperial garden. After coming back, Zheng He's subordinates wrote the books as Travel Notes of Foreign Countries, Chorography of Western Countries, etc., introducing the geographic and natural conditions, local customs, as well as production and living of those foreign countries and regions, widening Chinese people's vision and enlarging their knowledge on foreign countries.
Zheng He's expedition was half a century earlier than those of the European navigators. Zheng He died in 1435 at the age of 65. After Zheng He's last voyage no further voyages were launched.
However, he distinguished himself by helping Zhu Yuanzhang defeat the Yuan Dynasty, and was rewarded with an official post in the government. During the coup started by Zhu Di, who was the fourth son of the first emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty and later became Emperor Chengzu, Zheng He helped Zhu Di gain the throne and was given command of the Chinese navy. Hence he wielded great influence in court.
In 1402, after Emperor Cheng Zu of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) ascended the throne, he dispatched Zheng He and Wang Jinghong to lead a giant fleet to the Western Sea (today's Southeast Asia), carrying members of soldiers and large quantity of goods. The fleet reached the countries of Southeast Asia, east Africa and Arabia, initiating a feat in the history of navigation and regarded as an unprecedented great historical period in Chinese history of trade and cultural exchanges.
From 1405 to 1433, Zheng He led his fleet to voyage to the Western Sea for seven times. The number of ships of his fleet was from 40 to 63 each time, taking many soldiers and sailors on the voyage, with a total party over 27,000 people. Their ships navigated the wide sea area from Ryukyu Islands, the Philippine Islands and Maluku Sea to the Mozambican Channel and the costal areas of South Africa, developing mutual trade, exchanging culture and technologies, communicating traffic on the sea and promoting social and economic development in such countries and areas. The mighty fleet voyaged on the Indian Ocean, not only astonishing the Arabian navigators, but also amazing the Venice businessmen coming and going between Hormuz and Aden, hence providing a new enlightenment to the European navigation. Zheng He's voyages are 87 years earlier than that of Columbus, 93 years earlier than that of Gama, and 116 years earlier than that of Magellan.
Chinese treasure ships carried a great deal of special Chinese products to foreign countries. As to craftwork, there were brocade, gauze, and skein; as to china, there were newly developed celadon, Xiulihong, as well as the enamelware with Chinese characteristics. By the way, during the Tang Dynasty Chinese people had grasped the technology of sintering glass, but only after Zheng He's voyage, Chinese had grasped the technology of adding borax in glass to resist heat. The Arabian glass artisan came to China with Zheng He's fleet and imparted the new technology to sinter new kinds of glass vessel resistant to sudden changes of temperature. Since then, this kind of glass was produced in large quantities in China and became a common utensil.
Zheng He also brought back building materials, fuels and exotic articles. It was at this time that the so-called kylin and Fulu (African giraffe and zebra) became decorative animals for the Chinese imperial garden. After coming back, Zheng He's subordinates wrote the books as Travel Notes of Foreign Countries, Chorography of Western Countries, etc., introducing the geographic and natural conditions, local customs, as well as production and living of those foreign countries and regions, widening Chinese people's vision and enlarging their knowledge on foreign countries.
Zheng He's expedition was half a century earlier than those of the European navigators. Zheng He died in 1435 at the age of 65. After Zheng He's last voyage no further voyages were launched.
More on "The Universal Ruler"
"Genghis organized the Mongol soldiers into groups based around the number ten (i.e. 10 (arban), 100 (zuun), 1000(myangan), 10,000(tumen)), and each group of soldiers had a specific leader whom would report higher up in his rank to the rank of tumen. This command structure proved to be highly flexible and allowed the Mongol army to attack en masse, divide into somewhat smaller groups to encircle and lead enemies into and ambush, or divide into small groups of 10 to mop up a fleeing and broken army. The Mongol army also was highly flexible due to the durability of its soldiers. Each Mongol soldier would have between 2 and 4 horses allowing them to gallop for days without stopping or tiring. The Mongol soldier also could live for days off of only his horse's blood and eating dried yak meat if times were hard".
Another interesting fact I came upon was that if 1-2 soldiers were found to have deserted, the entire squad was killed. Well I guess that explains how one effectively quells distention.
Oh, and just to re-iterate how revolutionary an advancement this was, nearly the same organization is in practice today in our military.
Another interesting fact I came upon was that if 1-2 soldiers were found to have deserted, the entire squad was killed. Well I guess that explains how one effectively quells distention.
Oh, and just to re-iterate how revolutionary an advancement this was, nearly the same organization is in practice today in our military.
Anatolia
As found via anatolia.com at: http://www.anatolia.com/anatolia/History/
History of Anatolia
The land of Anatolia has seen many civilizations, signs of which are spread all around, beginning from the earliest ages of humanity.
Paleolithic times dating back approximately 500,000 years ago, constitute the first period from which findings from the lives of oldest humans exist. Discoveries have been made by archeologists at Belbasi and Beldibi near Antalya, bringing this age to light.
The period 8000-5000 BC, saw the Neolithic age, when the first settlements with the first communities occurred. Catal Hoyuk in Konya, which is the world's first town in this sense, is in Turkey. The more sophisticated characteristics of this period are easily observed from the findings at this settlement and in Hacilar.
Next comes the Bronze Age, between 2500-2000 BC, during which the Hatti culture developed, and the Hittites followed from 1800 to 1200 BC. During these two periods, Anatolia witnessed more advanced social systems and the establishment of great monuments. Hattusas, (Bogazkoy) near Ankara, was the capital of Hittites, and at Yazilikaya, another Hittite center, hieroglyphic tablets from this period have been found.
Several centuries later, about 800 BC; the Carian, Lycian, Lydian and Phrygian Empires were established, as well as Greek colonies. The cultural signs from this age still remain all over the Aegean Coast.
Between 33 - 323 BC, the Greeks conquered the Persian states founded in the 6th century BC. The Greek (Hellenistic) Empire spread over the land, from which period city walls, gymnasiums, theaters and stadiums remain.
By 230 BC, Romans were crossing the Aegean towards Anatolia, and from this period onwards, the Anatolian lifestyle influenced the Romans. Many changes took place in the land of Turkey during these times, the Cappadocia region still bearing the imprint of Rome to this day.
After the advent of Christianity, the Roman Empire was divided into two in AD 395; the Western Empire eventually collapsed and the Eastern evolved into the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople (Istanbul) was the capital, which was conquered by the Latin incursion in AD 1204. By this time, Islam had been brought to Anatolia with the invasions of Arab AD 654. They passed their religion onto the Seljuk Turks who occupied most of the land following them and Konya became the Seljuk capital in this period.
After AD 1243, Mongols invaded Anatolia, while soon after, the Ottoman Turks, advanced and founded the Ottoman Empire in 1299. With the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire enlarged its borders in Europe, Africa & Middle East. Until its official end in 1918, this empire saw many periods of growth, retrenchment, and flourishment, leaving its heritage and treasures all around.
In 1923, Republican Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the national hero of Turkey, and after witnessing such a vast parade of civilizations over its land, Turkey now constitutes a modern country, working to attain integration with the whole world.
History of Anatolia
The land of Anatolia has seen many civilizations, signs of which are spread all around, beginning from the earliest ages of humanity.
Paleolithic times dating back approximately 500,000 years ago, constitute the first period from which findings from the lives of oldest humans exist. Discoveries have been made by archeologists at Belbasi and Beldibi near Antalya, bringing this age to light.
The period 8000-5000 BC, saw the Neolithic age, when the first settlements with the first communities occurred. Catal Hoyuk in Konya, which is the world's first town in this sense, is in Turkey. The more sophisticated characteristics of this period are easily observed from the findings at this settlement and in Hacilar.
Next comes the Bronze Age, between 2500-2000 BC, during which the Hatti culture developed, and the Hittites followed from 1800 to 1200 BC. During these two periods, Anatolia witnessed more advanced social systems and the establishment of great monuments. Hattusas, (Bogazkoy) near Ankara, was the capital of Hittites, and at Yazilikaya, another Hittite center, hieroglyphic tablets from this period have been found.
Several centuries later, about 800 BC; the Carian, Lycian, Lydian and Phrygian Empires were established, as well as Greek colonies. The cultural signs from this age still remain all over the Aegean Coast.
Between 33 - 323 BC, the Greeks conquered the Persian states founded in the 6th century BC. The Greek (Hellenistic) Empire spread over the land, from which period city walls, gymnasiums, theaters and stadiums remain.
By 230 BC, Romans were crossing the Aegean towards Anatolia, and from this period onwards, the Anatolian lifestyle influenced the Romans. Many changes took place in the land of Turkey during these times, the Cappadocia region still bearing the imprint of Rome to this day.
After the advent of Christianity, the Roman Empire was divided into two in AD 395; the Western Empire eventually collapsed and the Eastern evolved into the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople (Istanbul) was the capital, which was conquered by the Latin incursion in AD 1204. By this time, Islam had been brought to Anatolia with the invasions of Arab AD 654. They passed their religion onto the Seljuk Turks who occupied most of the land following them and Konya became the Seljuk capital in this period.
After AD 1243, Mongols invaded Anatolia, while soon after, the Ottoman Turks, advanced and founded the Ottoman Empire in 1299. With the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire enlarged its borders in Europe, Africa & Middle East. Until its official end in 1918, this empire saw many periods of growth, retrenchment, and flourishment, leaving its heritage and treasures all around.
In 1923, Republican Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the national hero of Turkey, and after witnessing such a vast parade of civilizations over its land, Turkey now constitutes a modern country, working to attain integration with the whole world.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Caliph Mansur (ruled 754-775)
Okay, so as per Strayer, this guy ordered a separate bridge for women be built across the Euphrates. And here I thought only Christians were intimidated by women.
From infoplease.com:
Mansur, al- (äl-mänsoor') [key][Arab.,=the victorious], d. 775, 2d Abbasid caliph (754–75) and founder of the city of Baghdad. His name was in full Abu Jafar abd-Allah al-Mansur. He was brother and successor of Abu al-Abbas. A vigorous and dominating caliph, he successfully consolidated his empire even though it was threatened by internal strife and foreign wars. He could not prevent the secession of Muslim Spain, however, under the Umayyad prince Abd ar-Rahman I. Mansur lived at first, as his brother had, near Kufa, but in 762 he began to build a new city, Baghdad.
Wiki tells a bit more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mansur
From infoplease.com:
Mansur, al- (äl-mänsoor') [key][Arab.,=the victorious], d. 775, 2d Abbasid caliph (754–75) and founder of the city of Baghdad. His name was in full Abu Jafar abd-Allah al-Mansur. He was brother and successor of Abu al-Abbas. A vigorous and dominating caliph, he successfully consolidated his empire even though it was threatened by internal strife and foreign wars. He could not prevent the secession of Muslim Spain, however, under the Umayyad prince Abd ar-Rahman I. Mansur lived at first, as his brother had, near Kufa, but in 762 he began to build a new city, Baghdad.
Wiki tells a bit more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mansur
"Islamification"
An Age of Accelerating Connections > The Worlds of Islam: Afro-Eurasian Connections > The Making of an Arab Empire > War and Conquest > The Battle of Talas River (751)
http://asianhistory.about.com/od/centralasia/a/BattleofTalas.htm
http://asianhistory.about.com/od/centralasia/a/BattleofTalas.htm
Reason and Faith
In his discussion of classical Greek learning, Strayer turns our attention to the pivotal role that Aristotle's teachings would play later, as the "basis for university education." In the same section, Strayer makes reference to Plato's Academy in Athens, an "outpost of paganism," as it was described by emporor Justinian in 529. He closed it down that same year.
I knew of no such academy prior to reading this. So, in typical fashion, I went looking. Here's what I found:
http://www.greece-athens.com/place.php?place_id=34
Check out the "About Plato Academy" links as well.
I knew of no such academy prior to reading this. So, in typical fashion, I went looking. Here's what I found:
http://www.greece-athens.com/place.php?place_id=34
Check out the "About Plato Academy" links as well.
Heiki Crabs....and the Batte of Dan-no-ura
In reading about China's influence on Japan, I learned of the battle of Dan-no-ura, which took place in 1185 between 2 rival samurai clans. As one who has always been fascinated with the way of the Samurai, I went looking (on the internet of course) for some more info. Aside from the usual wiki-sources, which satisfy my curiousity most times (I know, superficial me), I found this video. Yes, the heikigani are crabs. Yes, that is Carl Sagan. No, I don't know if this is pre- or post- Godzilla (I'm joking!, have a sense of humor). Neverthless, here's what I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiNKt6gcEM8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiNKt6gcEM8
The Tribute System in China
The tribute system, in theory, seemed to echo the greatness of Rome, in some sense. I think Strayer captures the underlying motivation well - pride.
As for its practice, the case definitely is that they were paying protection money. As often as I have criticized other cultures for violent takeovers and harsh conquests, I wonder why the Chinese empire under the Han dynasty didn't deal with the nomads more harshly. I'm sure they were capable. I remember reading about how at one time, they were producing so and so amounts of body armor and arrow tips. I also remember reading how they kept clashing with nomads as a function of their pushing north. Did they realize the raids were merely repercussions to their expansion? Few empires of the time seemed to. Can anyone provide any insight?
As for its practice, the case definitely is that they were paying protection money. As often as I have criticized other cultures for violent takeovers and harsh conquests, I wonder why the Chinese empire under the Han dynasty didn't deal with the nomads more harshly. I'm sure they were capable. I remember reading about how at one time, they were producing so and so amounts of body armor and arrow tips. I also remember reading how they kept clashing with nomads as a function of their pushing north. Did they realize the raids were merely repercussions to their expansion? Few empires of the time seemed to. Can anyone provide any insight?
Foot binding
Okay, so I'm playing catch-up. One finds it necessary at times when he's taking 3 classes during summer term. Anyway, in reading about foot binding in Chapter 9, I gotta admit, I was a little put out. I'd heard of breaking femurs and applying braces to lengthen them (so as to make people taller). But foot binding as "associated with new images of female beauty and eroticism (?) that emphasized small size, delicacy (!), and reticence." Really?
Hmm...brings to mind fetishism, of the foot kind in particular. Gross!
Courtesy of NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8966942
Hmm...brings to mind fetishism, of the foot kind in particular. Gross!
Courtesy of NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8966942
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Thoughts on thoughts
I just finished another reading (for another class, sorry Madeleine!), this time about Women and the Reformation. I learned about the many sects that sprang up during the Reformation, the new, but nevertheless subservient, roles of women, and again (surprise! surprise!) clashes between faiths. As much as I'm enjoying learning about where mankind's been and all, I wonder what fiascoes our generation(s) will be "credited" with.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
In 1492....
Okay, so everyone remembers Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In drawing from one of my other readings, a couple of other major developments happened that same year. Madeleine touched on them briefly. On January 2, "the armies of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (who I'm finding out was not a very nice person) conquered the city-state of Granada and restored it to Christendom." Granada was apparently the last Muslim stronghold in Europe.
The other thing that happened came on March 31, when the "Catholic kings," as Ferdinand and Isabella are known, signed the Edict of Expulsion, which in effect, was to rid Spain of the Jews.
What I found so deeply troubling about all of this is Christianity's "track-record" of forceful adherence/inquisition. We talked about the fact that much of Muslim expansion can be attributed to peaceful, VOLUNTARY adoption of the faith. I guess what I find so distressing is that even centuries later, Christianity, inextricably tied to these waves of inquisitions, is still very much a part of American culture.
The other thing that happened came on March 31, when the "Catholic kings," as Ferdinand and Isabella are known, signed the Edict of Expulsion, which in effect, was to rid Spain of the Jews.
What I found so deeply troubling about all of this is Christianity's "track-record" of forceful adherence/inquisition. We talked about the fact that much of Muslim expansion can be attributed to peaceful, VOLUNTARY adoption of the faith. I guess what I find so distressing is that even centuries later, Christianity, inextricably tied to these waves of inquisitions, is still very much a part of American culture.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Chapter 13
"Sorting out what was gained and what was lost during the modern transformation has been a persistent and highly controversial thread of human thought over the past several centuries."
Indeed so. It's often remarked that "hindsight is 20/20." That said, I'm wondering what the societies of the future will have to say about us once we've made it into the history books. While the Modern Era has brought about numerous technological innovations, it has at the same time ushered in some of the most desctructive manmade forces as well. Among them, nuclear and biological weapons and the advent of the military industrial complex. Taken together, these features of modern life have introduced a danger that previous generations have never had to worry about - aside from the occasional pandemic. In recent years however (the last 70 or so), we have developed the kind of technology that can bring about the kind of mass die-off that bubonic plague caused, overnight. Am I the only one that finds this troubling?
Indeed so. It's often remarked that "hindsight is 20/20." That said, I'm wondering what the societies of the future will have to say about us once we've made it into the history books. While the Modern Era has brought about numerous technological innovations, it has at the same time ushered in some of the most desctructive manmade forces as well. Among them, nuclear and biological weapons and the advent of the military industrial complex. Taken together, these features of modern life have introduced a danger that previous generations have never had to worry about - aside from the occasional pandemic. In recent years however (the last 70 or so), we have developed the kind of technology that can bring about the kind of mass die-off that bubonic plague caused, overnight. Am I the only one that finds this troubling?
Chapter 12
I've written a number of papers on consciousness, which centers on the the concept of subjective experience. In Chapter 12, I was reminded that even history has its own subjective nature. That is, "world" history is shaped according to who's writing it. Strayer reminds us that history is often written by the winners (of battles, technology, and so on). While to a large degree commonsensical, it serves us well to remember, especially in living in a place and time such as ours, where wealth is amassed in the hands of a relatively small number of citizens, how our experiences are governed by that.
Just my thoughts...
American Feminist, Ernestine Rose, said "It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so." While I find this statement holds a great deal of merit, during a conversation I had in my Women in Spirituality class over the weekend, in mulling that over, I came to the conclusion that spirituality (not religion) is to some degree inherent. I'm not talking inherent across the biological landscape so much as I am in terms of one's personal development. I think that even in the case of a "wild child," a term assigned to children raised in the wild and not among civilization, as many tribes were in times past, due to the subjective experience of our conscience, we're in some ways lead to ponder about the nature of things - how things came to be and so forth.
In light of this, in reading about the "cultural encounters" of Islam and Christianity, specifically the Crusades and conquering people with the goal of conversion, I couldn't help but consider the damaging effects that our world's religions, built on much of the same ideology, have played across the human landscape. What's more, these same religions operate today.
I once sat in on a philosophy class in which the professor regarded patriotism as a poision upon the American people. While deeply troubling to me, given my background, I came to understand, and later appreciate, the basis for which he'd made such a proclamation.
In any event, in considering all of this, I began to draw many parallels between patriotism and religion. (Sidenote: I don't use the terms religion and spirituality interchangeably, as I see religion as more of a system of beliefs whereby spiritualilty I consider to be more of an individual relationship with...whatever, whomever, etc.). Getting back, patriotism is defined as "proud support for or in defense of one's country or way of life." It is my opinion that religion calls for the same type of adherence (maybe not of itself, but in it's followers). While neither expressly calls for supremacy (though I'm sure an argument can be made), nevertheless, we need to look no further than the Crusades, that came in succession beginning in 1095 or the conquests of either Imperial Rome or Persia.
As I'll be graduating college and hoping to move into a career whereby I'll make my mark upon this world, I'm left to wonder how I'll do so. As Gandhi remarked, "be that change you wish to see in the world." I'm wondering how exactly I'll do that.
In light of this, in reading about the "cultural encounters" of Islam and Christianity, specifically the Crusades and conquering people with the goal of conversion, I couldn't help but consider the damaging effects that our world's religions, built on much of the same ideology, have played across the human landscape. What's more, these same religions operate today.
I once sat in on a philosophy class in which the professor regarded patriotism as a poision upon the American people. While deeply troubling to me, given my background, I came to understand, and later appreciate, the basis for which he'd made such a proclamation.
In any event, in considering all of this, I began to draw many parallels between patriotism and religion. (Sidenote: I don't use the terms religion and spirituality interchangeably, as I see religion as more of a system of beliefs whereby spiritualilty I consider to be more of an individual relationship with...whatever, whomever, etc.). Getting back, patriotism is defined as "proud support for or in defense of one's country or way of life." It is my opinion that religion calls for the same type of adherence (maybe not of itself, but in it's followers). While neither expressly calls for supremacy (though I'm sure an argument can be made), nevertheless, we need to look no further than the Crusades, that came in succession beginning in 1095 or the conquests of either Imperial Rome or Persia.
As I'll be graduating college and hoping to move into a career whereby I'll make my mark upon this world, I'm left to wonder how I'll do so. As Gandhi remarked, "be that change you wish to see in the world." I'm wondering how exactly I'll do that.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Chapter 4 Review Part II/Continuation
Caesar Augustus (p.112)
- First emperor of Rome (reigned 27 B.C.E-14 C.E)
- Walked on eggshells - in the sense that many subjects believed Rome had betrayed and abandoned its Republican origins; as such, was careful to maintain forms of the Republic and employed rhetoric when dealing with the Roman people
- Despite this, was not reluctant to exercise his sole authority, backed by his command of Rome’s professional army
Pax Romana
- the relative prosperity that characterized the first 2 centuries of imperial Rome, when it was as its greatest extent and authority (p.112)
Qin Shihuangdi
- armed with an effective bureaucracy, a subordinated aristocracy, an army with iron weapons, rapidly rising agricultural output, a growing population, and a political philosophy called legalism, successfully lead a 10 yr military campaign against the other warring states of China to reunite them under 1 empire (p.113)
- laid the foundations for a unified Chinese state, which endures to the present
- Empire formation under him was far more compressed than that of Rome, but no less brutal. Opposing scholars were executed. Aristocrats who opposed him were moved to the capital. Hundreds of thousands of laborers were recruited to construct the Great Wall and his mausoleum. More positively, he imposed a uniform system of weights, measures, and currency and the written form of the Chinese language (p.114).
- The speed and brutality of his policies ensured his dynasty did not last long.
Han dynasty
- 206 B.C.E.-220 C.E (p.114)
- followed in footsteps of Qin Shihuangdi; retained centralized features of imperial state, but moderated the harshness of its policies (p.114)
- It was their rulers who consolidated China’s imperial state and established the political patterns that lasted into the 20th century
- Ended in 220 C.E.; marked the collapse of Chinese empire (p.117)
Mauryan Empire
- 326-184 B.C.E. (p.120)
- 1st and largest of India’s short experiments with large scale political systems (p.120)
- equivalent to Persian, Chinese, and Roman empires; though not nearly as long lasting (p.120)
- population of approximately 50 million (p.120)
- boasted a large military force and a civilian bureaucracy featuring various ministries and a large contingent of spies (p.120)
- Empire broke apart shortly after Ashoka’s [see below] death (p.121)
Ashoka
- Reigned Mauryan India from 268-232 B.C.E. (p.120)
- Began via ruthless consolidation of his own power and vigorous expansion of the state’s frontiers, like many others (p.120)
- Following the battle of Kalinga, reportedly adopted Buddhism and more peaceful ways (nonviolence and toleration) of governing (p.120)
- Urged the “advancement of all sects” and promised to work for “every kind of happiness in this world and the next” (p.120)
- Particularly generous in his support of Buddhist monasteries, ordered the digging of wells, the planting of shade trees, and the building of rest stops, which all served to integrate the kingdom’s economy (p.120)
- His policies signaled good politics as well as good morality; though despite their good intentions, the Mauryan Empire broke apart shortly after his death (p121)
- First emperor of Rome (reigned 27 B.C.E-14 C.E)
- Walked on eggshells - in the sense that many subjects believed Rome had betrayed and abandoned its Republican origins; as such, was careful to maintain forms of the Republic and employed rhetoric when dealing with the Roman people
- Despite this, was not reluctant to exercise his sole authority, backed by his command of Rome’s professional army
Pax Romana
- the relative prosperity that characterized the first 2 centuries of imperial Rome, when it was as its greatest extent and authority (p.112)
Qin Shihuangdi
- armed with an effective bureaucracy, a subordinated aristocracy, an army with iron weapons, rapidly rising agricultural output, a growing population, and a political philosophy called legalism, successfully lead a 10 yr military campaign against the other warring states of China to reunite them under 1 empire (p.113)
- laid the foundations for a unified Chinese state, which endures to the present
- Empire formation under him was far more compressed than that of Rome, but no less brutal. Opposing scholars were executed. Aristocrats who opposed him were moved to the capital. Hundreds of thousands of laborers were recruited to construct the Great Wall and his mausoleum. More positively, he imposed a uniform system of weights, measures, and currency and the written form of the Chinese language (p.114).
- The speed and brutality of his policies ensured his dynasty did not last long.
Han dynasty
- 206 B.C.E.-220 C.E (p.114)
- followed in footsteps of Qin Shihuangdi; retained centralized features of imperial state, but moderated the harshness of its policies (p.114)
- It was their rulers who consolidated China’s imperial state and established the political patterns that lasted into the 20th century
- Ended in 220 C.E.; marked the collapse of Chinese empire (p.117)
Mauryan Empire
- 326-184 B.C.E. (p.120)
- 1st and largest of India’s short experiments with large scale political systems (p.120)
- equivalent to Persian, Chinese, and Roman empires; though not nearly as long lasting (p.120)
- population of approximately 50 million (p.120)
- boasted a large military force and a civilian bureaucracy featuring various ministries and a large contingent of spies (p.120)
- Empire broke apart shortly after Ashoka’s [see below] death (p.121)
Ashoka
- Reigned Mauryan India from 268-232 B.C.E. (p.120)
- Began via ruthless consolidation of his own power and vigorous expansion of the state’s frontiers, like many others (p.120)
- Following the battle of Kalinga, reportedly adopted Buddhism and more peaceful ways (nonviolence and toleration) of governing (p.120)
- Urged the “advancement of all sects” and promised to work for “every kind of happiness in this world and the next” (p.120)
- Particularly generous in his support of Buddhist monasteries, ordered the digging of wells, the planting of shade trees, and the building of rest stops, which all served to integrate the kingdom’s economy (p.120)
- His policies signaled good politics as well as good morality; though despite their good intentions, the Mauryan Empire broke apart shortly after his death (p121)
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Chapter 4 Review Part I
Chapter 4 ‘Eurasian Empires’ Review
Persian Empire
- Largest and most impressive of the world’s empires in 500 B.C.E. (p.99)
- Imperial system drew upon Babylonian and Assyrian empires (p.99)
- Conquests reached from Egypt to India and encompassed approx. 35 million people; immensely diverse with respect to people, states, languages, and culture (p.99)
- Kings were absolute monarchs who ruled by will of great Persian Gods; held titles of nobility such as “Great king, King of kings, King in this great earth far and wide” (p.99)
- Empire held together by conquest, royal decree, and an effective administrative system consisting of governors and lower level officials in 23 provinces (p.100)
- Characterized by widespread toleration for non-Persian cultural traditions (within its subjects) (p.100)
- “there is no nation that so readily adopts foreign customs” (p.100)
- Imperial bureaucracy, complete with administrators, tax collectors, record keepers, and translators, provided a model for all subsequent regimes in the region (p.100)
- Infrastructure included system of standardized coinage, taxes, a canal linking the Nile with the Red Sea, a “royal road” spanning 1700 miles - facilitated communication and commerce (p.101)
- Its immense wealth and power were reflected in the construction of elaborate imperial centers, and other monuments, which served as powerful symbols of imperial authority (p.101)
Athenian democracy (p.104)
- Arose as the product of intense class conflict
- Abolished debt slavery, opened to access to public office to a wider group (though women, slaves, and foreigners were still precluded); also allowed for widespread participation of all citizens in the Assembly (the center of political life)
- Later reforms granted pay to holders of public office (so that even the poorest could serve)
Greco-Persian Wars
- Grew out of respective patterns of expansion (pp104-105)
- Persians 2x in 10 years (490 & 480 B.C.E) launched major military expeditions and were held off; beating the Persians in battle enormous source of pride for Greece (p.105)
- Worldview notion of East/West divide born, with Persia representing Asia and despotism and Greece signifying Europe and freedom (p.105)
- Greeks victory radicalized Athenian democracy (see above), as poorer classes, who had rowed ships to victory, were now in position to insist on full citizenship; Golden Age of Greek culture follows (p.105)
- Athenian leadership in the struggle against Persian aggression spawned its own type of imperialism. After the war, Athenian efforts to solidify its dominant position among the allies led to intense resentment and ultimately, civil war (p.105).
Alexander the Great
- In his 20’s, went on 10 yr expedition that extended Greek empire from Egypt and Anatolia to Afghanistan and India (p.106).
- Hailed as the “king of Asia” (p.107), following defeat of Persian Empire.
- Died in 323 B.C.E (p.107)
- Most significant contribution was the widespread dissemination of Greek culture (p.107)
- Wept when he had no more worlds to conquer (p.121)
Hellenistic era
- 323-30 B.C.E.(p.107)
- Characterized the manner by which Greek culture (monuments, sculptures, theatres, markets, councils and assemblies) was widely disseminated throughout Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, following Alexander the Great’s expedition; one of the greatest cultural encounters of the classical world (p.107)
- Conquest states that emerged were very different from typical Greek city-states. They were imperialistic and forced a divide between Greeks and others such as Egyptians. Periodic rebellions ensued (p.108)
- Nevertheless, cultural interaction and blending occurred; a sizable number of native people were able to become Greek citizens (by getting a Greek education, speaking the language, dressing appropriately, and assuming a Greek name
- Greek cultural influence disappeared as Hellenistic kingdoms that supported it vanished by the 1st century B.C.E.; though in the western part Greek rule was supplanted by the Romans (p.108)
Persian Empire
- Largest and most impressive of the world’s empires in 500 B.C.E. (p.99)
- Imperial system drew upon Babylonian and Assyrian empires (p.99)
- Conquests reached from Egypt to India and encompassed approx. 35 million people; immensely diverse with respect to people, states, languages, and culture (p.99)
- Kings were absolute monarchs who ruled by will of great Persian Gods; held titles of nobility such as “Great king, King of kings, King in this great earth far and wide” (p.99)
- Empire held together by conquest, royal decree, and an effective administrative system consisting of governors and lower level officials in 23 provinces (p.100)
- Characterized by widespread toleration for non-Persian cultural traditions (within its subjects) (p.100)
- “there is no nation that so readily adopts foreign customs” (p.100)
- Imperial bureaucracy, complete with administrators, tax collectors, record keepers, and translators, provided a model for all subsequent regimes in the region (p.100)
- Infrastructure included system of standardized coinage, taxes, a canal linking the Nile with the Red Sea, a “royal road” spanning 1700 miles - facilitated communication and commerce (p.101)
- Its immense wealth and power were reflected in the construction of elaborate imperial centers, and other monuments, which served as powerful symbols of imperial authority (p.101)
Athenian democracy (p.104)
- Arose as the product of intense class conflict
- Abolished debt slavery, opened to access to public office to a wider group (though women, slaves, and foreigners were still precluded); also allowed for widespread participation of all citizens in the Assembly (the center of political life)
- Later reforms granted pay to holders of public office (so that even the poorest could serve)
Greco-Persian Wars
- Grew out of respective patterns of expansion (pp104-105)
- Persians 2x in 10 years (490 & 480 B.C.E) launched major military expeditions and were held off; beating the Persians in battle enormous source of pride for Greece (p.105)
- Worldview notion of East/West divide born, with Persia representing Asia and despotism and Greece signifying Europe and freedom (p.105)
- Greeks victory radicalized Athenian democracy (see above), as poorer classes, who had rowed ships to victory, were now in position to insist on full citizenship; Golden Age of Greek culture follows (p.105)
- Athenian leadership in the struggle against Persian aggression spawned its own type of imperialism. After the war, Athenian efforts to solidify its dominant position among the allies led to intense resentment and ultimately, civil war (p.105).
Alexander the Great
- In his 20’s, went on 10 yr expedition that extended Greek empire from Egypt and Anatolia to Afghanistan and India (p.106).
- Hailed as the “king of Asia” (p.107), following defeat of Persian Empire.
- Died in 323 B.C.E (p.107)
- Most significant contribution was the widespread dissemination of Greek culture (p.107)
- Wept when he had no more worlds to conquer (p.121)
Hellenistic era
- 323-30 B.C.E.(p.107)
- Characterized the manner by which Greek culture (monuments, sculptures, theatres, markets, councils and assemblies) was widely disseminated throughout Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, following Alexander the Great’s expedition; one of the greatest cultural encounters of the classical world (p.107)
- Conquest states that emerged were very different from typical Greek city-states. They were imperialistic and forced a divide between Greeks and others such as Egyptians. Periodic rebellions ensued (p.108)
- Nevertheless, cultural interaction and blending occurred; a sizable number of native people were able to become Greek citizens (by getting a Greek education, speaking the language, dressing appropriately, and assuming a Greek name
- Greek cultural influence disappeared as Hellenistic kingdoms that supported it vanished by the 1st century B.C.E.; though in the western part Greek rule was supplanted by the Romans (p.108)
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