Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Annoying Euro-centrism
I also have a bone to pick with the previous article. It's something I have been meaning to post about for a long time and a wonderfully euro-centric paragraph in that article gave me the perfect excuse.
"There have been very few times in the history of civilization when there hasn't been a war going on somewhere," said Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian and classicist at California State University in Fresno. He cites a brief period between A.D. 100 and A.D. 200 as perhaps the only time of world peace, the result of the Roman Empire's having everyone, fleetingly, in its thrall.
WORLD peace? EVERYONE in its thrall? Does "everyone" include non-europeans? Or doesn't the fact that the VAST majority of the world live outside of Europe matter? Why is there this assumption in the west that the Roman was a world empire? Here is a map of the Roman empire at its greatest extent (it includes Mesopotamia which was in Roman hands for about 20 years and was abandoned by Hadrian). Sure, it includes western Europe and some parts of North Africa. But even a cursory look at the map will tell you that this world empire was in fact a meditteranean empire. Now compare the size of this empire to the empires of the Mauryas, the Hans, Ghengiz Khan, the Mughals etc and you'll see the idiocy of this oft-repeated expression of Roman having ruled the world. To me, Rome's "world" empire sounds exactly like America's "world" series.
"There have been very few times in the history of civilization when there hasn't been a war going on somewhere," said Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian and classicist at California State University in Fresno. He cites a brief period between A.D. 100 and A.D. 200 as perhaps the only time of world peace, the result of the Roman Empire's having everyone, fleetingly, in its thrall.
WORLD peace? EVERYONE in its thrall? Does "everyone" include non-europeans? Or doesn't the fact that the VAST majority of the world live outside of Europe matter? Why is there this assumption in the west that the Roman was a world empire? Here is a map of the Roman empire at its greatest extent (it includes Mesopotamia which was in Roman hands for about 20 years and was abandoned by Hadrian). Sure, it includes western Europe and some parts of North Africa. But even a cursory look at the map will tell you that this world empire was in fact a meditteranean empire. Now compare the size of this empire to the empires of the Mauryas, the Hans, Ghengiz Khan, the Mughals etc and you'll see the idiocy of this oft-repeated expression of Roman having ruled the world. To me, Rome's "world" empire sounds exactly like America's "world" series.
