This nasty white conquest stuff really does leave a foul taste. It’s a fascinating history but a Eurocentric one. I can imagine different books written by a Tom Benjamin from a country in Africa or from China, Japan or Persia. Of course trade routes link the stories, the Silk Road or the spice one but how different would we feel as peripheral characters in some other grand history? The African and Persian stories are ones most written in lost civilizations, so to the pre Colombian sagas of South America but the South Asian ones, particularly China’s are narratives of the future. How will our Eurocentric tale unfold alongside that Chino centric one? Which has more vitality, more stamina for the second half?
Interesting point. I did consider 'widening the net' for completeness purposes, but decided against it. People seem to me much the same everywhere - the sum of internal and external narrative. As for the Chinese, their genius has been their resilience (not least due to a philosophical tradition emphasising the collective over individualistic) and while their identity is clearly shaped by the past (Mongol invasions, Opium Wars, Japanese invasion, Cultural Revolution), they clearly have a different concept of time. I suspect past, present, and future co-exist for them (which Einstein would argue is spot on). While European civilisations are characterised by constant change, the Chinese is more akin to the I Ching, the Book of Changes, a permanent artefact.
This nasty white conquest stuff really does leave a foul taste. It’s a fascinating history but a Eurocentric one. I can imagine different books written by a Tom Benjamin from a country in Africa or from China, Japan or Persia. Of course trade routes link the stories, the Silk Road or the spice one but how different would we feel as peripheral characters in some other grand history? The African and Persian stories are ones most written in lost civilizations, so to the pre Colombian sagas of South America but the South Asian ones, particularly China’s are narratives of the future. How will our Eurocentric tale unfold alongside that Chino centric one? Which has more vitality, more stamina for the second half?
Interesting point. I did consider 'widening the net' for completeness purposes, but decided against it. People seem to me much the same everywhere - the sum of internal and external narrative. As for the Chinese, their genius has been their resilience (not least due to a philosophical tradition emphasising the collective over individualistic) and while their identity is clearly shaped by the past (Mongol invasions, Opium Wars, Japanese invasion, Cultural Revolution), they clearly have a different concept of time. I suspect past, present, and future co-exist for them (which Einstein would argue is spot on). While European civilisations are characterised by constant change, the Chinese is more akin to the I Ching, the Book of Changes, a permanent artefact.