Which Civ5 civilisation had the biggest impact on history?

[AW Arcaeca]

So why did France and England go to war then?

If you read the Wikipedia article...

The war was driven by the antagonism between the great powers of Europe. Great Britain competed with both France and Spain over trade and colonies. Meanwhile rising power Prussia was struggling with Austria for dominance within and outside of the Holy Roman Empire. In the wake of the War of the Austrian Succession, the major powers "switched partners" with Prussia establishing an alliance with Britain while traditional enemies France and Austria formed an alliance of their own. The Anglo-Prussian alliance was joined by smaller German states (especially Hanover) and later Portugal. The Austro-French alliance included Sweden, Saxony and later Spain. The Russian Empire was originally aligned with Austria, but switched sides upon the succession of Tsar Peter III in 1762 and, like Sweden, concluded a separate peace with Prussia.

With an even more in-depth expalantion:

A further cause for war arose from the heated colonial struggle between the British Empire and French Empire which, as they both expanded, met and clashed with one another on two continents. The formal opening of hostilities in Europe was preceded by fighting in North America, where the westward expansion of the British colonies located along the eastern seaboard began to run afoul of French claims to the Mississippi valley in the late 1740s and early 1750s. In order to forestall the expansion of Virginia and Pennsylvania, in particular, the French built a line of forts in what is now western Pennsylvania in the mid-1750s. British efforts to dislodge them led to conflicts generally considered to be part of the French and Indian War, in which fighting began two years before the onset of hostilities in Europe.

I notice we're starting our own separate conversation here, while everyone is talking about the relevancy of China...

 

[reddishrecue]

Everyone else was talking about something else. If you go back to the posts in this thread before this one, you will see that people weren't talking about China as much as they're talking about now. Since I have questioned, I am thinking that China is being talked about because of its great firewall. I admit that I did find the information about the great firewall in wikipedia. I also did talk about China as well. I don't know why no one replies about how much industry in China has destroyed the Asian environment.

 

[adwcta]

I don't know why no one replies about how much industry in China has destroyed the Asian environment.

Haha, that's an... interesting way to look at world influence. I wonder who's destroyed the planet as a whole more though, US or China (or maybe even England or Russia?). I'd lean toward the U.S. on this one on a historical aggregate basis, although in 2013, China almost doubled U.S. emissions, so they're catching up fast.

Interesting note: the toxic fogs around China's cities these days were commonplace in London during the industrial revolution for a bit, until they cleaned the city up. Killed 4000 people in a month of the fog at its worst. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog

Not sure how you would find this information on an aggregate historical basis though.

 

[lolno]

For future reference lolno, you're probably better off not making your own arguments strawmen with claims like "1, 2, 3 = China yay!"

I think you need to refine your definition of straw men. I did 1, 2, 3 to pull some fanboys out of the woodwork, and it seemed to work - but then again when you think back, it's pretty much true.

And for reference, I am Han Chinese. I am not disparaging anyone, just putting what the Han Chinese have done and did not do in its (imo) proper and objective historical context.

Oh, so you're one of those types. Some advice, you're not winning any points with anyone by groveling and demeaning "your own" people on predominantly "Western" fora. That said, alright, it's just your accounting that I don't agree with. And for reference, I'm not Han Chinese.

One last thing, seriously? Tax base? I'm not sure how to argue with that. I guess Poland was more influential in the world than we thought. The removal test is a laughable test for determining influence.

Nice job picking out a single one of the list appended "etc." So you're saying Chinese literature written in Chinese by Han Chinese during the Yuan is a Mongol achievement? And also that Mongols using Chinese methods (why did Kublai even found the Yuan? Take something out of your notes for us, please) of civil administration (with their own innovations) has nothing to do with China? Laughable. And Poland is fairly influential in world history - ever hear of Curie or Chopin? A good self-proclaimed scholar of East and West certainly would appreciate the both of them, along with the first few Rzeczpospolita and Solidarnosk.

Go read up on the difference between a cause in fact and a proximate cause. Basic analytical logic here. Historical credit goes to the doers of the world.

You're reaching, and also the legal terms you are employing do not really fit well with your argument. This is a discussion about history which requires an ends, we are not trying to prove negligence.

Your re:

Haha, that's an... interesting way to look at world influence. I wonder who's destroyed the planet as a whole more though, US or China (or maybe even England or Russia?). I'd lean toward the U.S. on this one on a historical aggregate basis, although in 2013, China almost doubled U.S. emissions, so they're catching up fast.

The straightforward way to say this: America and the UK trashed the environment far worse than anyone else ever has. "Emissions"? There's still UXO, depleted uranium, Agent Orange on top of the exports being diverted into American markets that are highly polluting with Kuwaiti oil fires as a "proximate cause" "impact" of the United States. And are you sure China is just number 10, and not number negative infinity? You are after all, a humble gentleman and scholar all Westerners would love.

All in furtherance of your intellectual banter.

 

[lolno]

Something for you to consider is that this forum isn't a soapbox for your Sinocentric views.

All is a soapbox for truth argued with reason.

"Sinocentrism!!!" is the feeble knee-jerk defense of the Eurocentric discovered and exposed.

 

[lolno]

No, it's not a question of attribution, it's a question of actual impact ... slightly different, printing or gunpowder could easily have been minor inventions rather than world-changing ones - and likely would have been without non-Chinese intervention.

I don't think the VHS/Betamax analogy applies. Betamax counts for its role in the industry and competition, yet Chinese inventions are definitely the precursor to many essential modern technologies. I didn't mention any dead branches, post-neolithic. As for the necessity of "non-Chinese intervention", that assertion is hard to defend given how much Chinese technology has spread. Gunpowder was readily adopted by just about every non-Chinese civilization that learned how to employ it.

That's irrelevant to the topic of the discussion. The point at issue is the impact a development had, not how impressive it was for the time.

It absolutely is relevant. Chinese culture created the conditions necessary for these inventions and innovations. No other culture showed any signs whatsoever of being close to inventing gunpowder, seed drills (except the proven dead Mid-Eastern variant), pound locks, etc. The world would be unrecognizable if China didn't invent these each at the time they invented them.

Technology, to some degree. Cultural and social developments, to a much lesser extent (aside from the Arabs).

This statement is highly suspect and seems to reflect an unconventional definition of what culture is.

As with your other arguments ... that technological discovery or advancement is paramount (and, of course, that the most important Chinese developments - such as printing and gunpowder - are the ones that were most important to Europeans).

On my arguments? Wrong and wrong, I don't say technological discovery is paramount and I don't elevate those "most important to Europeans". Gunpowder was certainly important to the Arabs and Chinese, and even the Iroquois. Likewise for those on the receiving end. Seed drill, row planting, various ploughs, pound locks are NOT included in the stereotypical four inventions but have had profound impact on the world.

China developed a whole lot of things that were regional novelties and, to a large extent, regional oddities - without other powers to play Rome to China's Greece, most of this would likely have been neglected or lost

Both are statements from ignorance: one, technology proven to have been spread through the world with China as the cited origin are not regional novelties and two, China deliberately spread civilian technology to several neighboring states and then throughout Southeast Asia and anywhere else Chinese labor migrated to.

as it might well have been in Greece without the Romans (and in the case of many Greek developments, was lost regardless - look at steam power or the Antikythera Mechanism).

The comparison of Greece to China is, sorry to say, extremely clumsy. If you want to invoke Eurocentrism, keep in mind that many of these inventions most appreciated by Europeans are those that survived and reached them through the Arabs. No one cares about the turtle seismograph, water clocks or magic mirrors which indeed were novelties. They display the craftsmanship and internal economic conditions of China, not Chinese "impact" on the world at large.

It has rarely been the case historically that the technologically dominant power is the one that has had the most impact on the world of the time.

I'd say it has almost been the rule that the technologically dominant power is the one that had the most impact on the world at the time, even the Mongols adopted military tech rapidly and then used it to great effect throughout the empire. Scientifically? Maybe not.

Portugal went in search of a myth, the kingdom of Prester John ... are as influential as the reality of Chinese silk in the way our world has developed.

I highly, highly doubt that. The Portuguese never invested as much in their search for El Dorado as they did the India/China trade.

the very definitions of "impact" you're using are an artefact of the British Empire, because the first globally dominant power happened also to be both technologically and economically ahead of its rivals, and that trend has continued with American ascendancy in the 20th Century. Historically, this is an anomaly.

I'd say my definition of impact is the most broad of any being discussed here. I consider, say, a Chinese woman weaving silk the Chinese way under the Yuan and receiving silver from Japanese mines in exchange as actually having an impact on history. I don't do the "Great Person" thing and the projection/criticism you're levying at me is bizarre.

Mali was an economic powerhouse for centuries as well, but was never hugely influential over the way the world as a whole developed, or indeed anywhere much outside its immediate vicinity.

If Mali was not hugely influential on the development of the world, it was not an economic powerhouse. Mansa Musa had lots of gold mines, and he wasted a lot of the gold. That's not economic impact.

Much as China was in the right place to cultivate tea and rice.

So were Burma, Thailand, India. But they didn't, they needed to wait thousands of years for the Chinese to transfer it to them. Just as Euros didn't cultivate wheat.

But this is not a "what if" exercise - it's asking what civilisations had the largest impact on history, not which ones might have done if those ones weren't there.

True. I'm just arguing that the "dissemination" argument for impact is subordinate simply because the powers in question are so interchangeable and their "accomplishments" so forgettable as a result. You may as well ask what general geographic area of the world is more statistically likely to produce powerful polities, and stop at that.

Ultimately, every successful society owes its success to being in the 'right place and the right time', and with the right surrounding context.

Partially, yes, so the really interesting stuff is that which isn't a generalizable norm. Particularly why each "culture" excels in some environments whereas others fail miserably in the very same environments.

Few areas of the world have given rise to major powers without fertile lands, access to suitable crops and animals for domestication, the mineral wealth needed to develop economies and manufacturing industries, and a surrounding context that allows trade and provides motives for competition and expansion.

The Mongols, Arabs/Bedouins and Tibetans had just about nothing in terms of fertile land, crops and mineral wealth but managed to make influential and powerful cultures. Why were they so successful? This is where the discussion gets interesting. Yet they had so little to work with that they were hampered.

We have European gunpowder recipes that appear to be direct transcripts of those used in China, and records from battles of Europeans encountering the technology in Mongol armies. There's nothing equivalent for the compass.

Lets concede compass for expedience, then - and stern-mounted rudders. There's still watertight compartments, pound-locks and other innovations that are indisputably of Chinese origin.

You're talking about the societal level - I'm talking about individuals over-attributing 'impact' to China...

There's a difference between real admiration and a few hucksters expropriating cultures they don't understand in order to make money off of gullible non-entities to this discussion.

Intuitive perhaps, but you need both ships capable of ocean transport and mounting the weapons on a stable firing platform, and the motivation to do it. That didn't exist anywhere else. Even the Arabs and Venetians - both with long traditions of both cannon manufacture and navigation - were outclassed by the introduction of the caravel; when the Portuguese first arrived in India, according to contemporary accounts fleets of as many as 100 were defeated by the four Portuguese vessels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Tamao

I'm curious as to how Portugal's famed Caravels were destroyed by Ming junks if indeed the Ming didn't have ship-mounted cannons? I guess there's always wushu.

Once again, who could have done it is irrelevant - at the time, most regional powers in Europe and Asia could have. But only the Portuguese and the Europeans who followed in their wake did.

In terms of who the "disseminator" is, I argue again that it doesn't matter - because why it happens is more a function of geography than anything else. That's why I find it more interesting to separate geography and natural resources from what a culture manages to do with them - but still I count the influence of geography and resources toward this "impact" score we're trying to get at. Still think China is tops.

I'm not sure what basis there is for doubting it - it's well-documented that there was no use of firearms in Japan before the Portuguese arrived, and that the weapons spread quickly once introduced; as with the compass, are you suggesting the Japanese happened to 'far excel Europeans in gunsmithing' within a few decades of the coincidental introduction of weapons they already knew about, or that they waited until then to spread it?

Because gunpowder was used against them by the Mongols. My understanding is that guns died out in Japan, and then had to be re-introduced by the Europeans (emphasis on re-), after which they reverse engineered and improved upon the Dutch and Portuguese designs which were formerly the best in the world.

I've already noted that technological advancement has nothing to do with impact. However technically proficient their guns, they were still limited to basically European designs, and did not develop rifles or other advanced types of gunpowder weapon independently, nor did they spread them.

I don't disagree specifically on this Japan point - it's internal.

As I've noted, that's far from definite, and none of these would have carried with them Rome's most important export, Christianity. As I've also noted it's not relevant who else might have achieved what Rome did - Rome did achieve it.

Are we counting negative or positive impact here? I personally don't think it makes much of a difference whether Christianity or New Age Paganism were to be the world's largest organized religion. I simply don't exalt that religion above all else, so I have my doubts when claims are made that it was instrumental to history aside from destroying countless native cultures and obstructing rational inquiry.

The money was going the other way - you don't sustain a maritime empire on silk. As you've pointed out, Spanish silver ended up in China.

Yet China didn't bother to go out of their way to draw that silver in. It just landed at their feet. If that's not a sign of almost literal economic pull than I don't know what is.

You're also neglecting the reason why trade with both India and China was conducted overseas - there had been a Silk Road for centuries, and Romans had travelled to China. Trade with China was ongoing long before the Age of Discovery. Chinese silk alone was not enough to prompt the Age of Discovery; that required an Islamic monopoly along the land route and, again, the primary importance of religion in providing the motive to break that blockade.

The Turks would have been hostile to Europe if they were Christian or Zoroastrian or anything else, religion has no primary importance there. The whole blockade thing just shows that Chinese goods were such a draw for European merchants that they were willing to field huge expeditions to try to find a new route. Also that the supposed inheritors of Rome were not adept enough to reach some kind of cultural/religious understanding with Islamic Turks, as China did in its own near-abroad which was decidedly more Turkic in character.

Only if you have access to both tea and sugarcane, which only one power at the time did.

Actually China had been trading for cane hundreds of years (nearly a thousand in fact) before the Europeans ever reached Southeast Asia. They even cultivated it themselves and documented diabetes first as a result.

What you're missing is that it's the popularisation of tea in England that spread it throughout the world

I'd say this is debatable on fact and not in principle. I wouldn't argue if you were to say the Spanish made a huge impact on the world by spreading new world crops everywhere. Tea? China spread tea all over Asia with no problem. Even the Tibetans were willing to trade horses for it, 1,300 years ago.

and it was not widely drunk outside the Sinosphere prior to British introduction.

The Sinosphere must have been fairly large then - though I've heard tea culture didn't really spread into India until British times. I mentioned tea in light of the fact that it was the backbone of several international trade-routes, right now it's just a relatively replaceable commodity like salt is. But for hundreds of years it altered the economic lifeways of entire empires.

I'm not sure how you'd define "plenty of access to the raw materials" when the species appears to originate naturally from an area around the China-Myanmar border. Feel free to lord it over the Burmese, however.

And various Indian peoples.

That has nothing to do with any political resentment about financial support for weaker European countries - Greeks don't become any less European.

They're arbitrarily European. I'm dismissing European sentiment, which is paltry compared to Chinese sentiment and a sense of itself. This sentiment is based on shared history, culture, interests and even blood. On all four fronts the European is much less than the Chinese.

And there have of course been numerous efforts at what amounts to European unification from Charlemagne onwards.

More likely they simply wanted to expand their territory willy-nilly and invoking Rome was just an easy way for them to do it. Han Chinese expansion largely started and stopped with "China-proper".

Well, by your criterion it would be, since if the French hadn't invented cinema it might not have been invented until somewhat later somewhere else.

They didn't invent cinema, and second cinema is a cultural institution. I would argue that if the English didn't invent film, it'd probably be a good 10-20 years before some other Europeans did. So the English get credit as is, but not a great deal of credit. However they do get a great deal of credit for the economic and technological predecessors to the film industry.

We also understand that the person who should take credit for Einstein's theories is Einstein, not Einstein's mother, despite the fact that he would never have existed without her.

Except we're using this metaphor as one for civilizations, not people, and as we've established civilizations are far more broad and amorphous. Likewise sentiment and standards of awarding credit are far different, we feel much more obliged to be precise with an individual's achievements.

 

[LoneRebel]

All is a soapbox for truth argued with reason.

"Sinocentrism!!!" is the feeble knee-jerk defense of the Eurocentric discovered and exposed.

Lol, no.

I'm just turning your own words back upon you, seeing as you were the one whining about Eurocentrism on this thread just a while ago. Seems that went right over your head though.

Apparently, anything your opponents say is Eurocentrism, while anything you say is not Sinocentrism. Convenient, isn't it?

By the way, nice try changing my username in your quote of my post a while back. That's really going to show everyone how mature you are.

 

[LoneRebel]

The Turks would have been hostile to Europe if they were Christian or Zoroastrian or anything else, religion has no primary importance there. The whole blockade thing just shows that Chinese goods were such a draw for European merchants that they were willing to field huge expeditions to try to find a new route. Also that the supposed inheritors of Rome were not adept enough to reach some kind of cultural/religious understanding with Islamic Turks, as China did in its own near-abroad which was decidedly more Turkic in character.

You really do seem to be going out of your way to find any reason to extol China, no matter how tenuous the logical underpinnings.

You really believe that the Turks would have been just as hostile to Europeans if they had been Christian? Lol, no. And it's also tangential to the discussion and only serves to lead to your next "point" about how China was supposedly so adept at dealing with Muslims.

On that note, I'm curious as to what this so-called "cultural/religious understanding with Islamic Turks" that you pretend China had was. Was it this by any chance?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas

Yes, the Chinese being defeated by the Muslims would lead to quite an understanding, all right.

Your posts are full of such misinformation and leaps of logic. I just chose one to respond to. I don't really have the inclination to waste too much time dealing with China fanboys.

Moderator Action: Calling others "fanboys" is trolling. Please do not repeat.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[lolno]

Lol, no.

You called?

I'm just turning your own words back upon you, seeing as you were the one whining about Eurocentrism on this thread just a while ago. Seems that went right over your head though.

Actually, while you were whining and moaning, you failed to realize that I didn't use "Eurocentrism" once in any of my posts until you screamed Sinocentrism (right on cue, I might add). Faced with facts? SINOCENTRISM BATTLE OF TALAS CHINA DIDNT INVENT ANYTHING IN LAST 500 YEARS. I wrote Euro revisionism, which is something else.

Apparently, anything your opponents say is Eurocentrism, while anything you say is not Sinocentrism. Convenient, isn't it?

Get your arguments straight.

By the way, nice try changing my username in your quote of my post a while back. That's really going to show everyone how mature you are.

I just copy and pasted what you wrote. If I didn't write LoneRebel I wrote something similar

 

[lolno]

You really do seem to be going out of your way to find any reason to extol China, no matter how tenuous the logical underpinnings.

I just read: something something, personal attack, etc etc etc

You really believe that the Turks would have been just as hostile to Europeans if they had been Christian? Lol, no.

Oh alright. Explain the love-in between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, that's the story I want to hear.

On that note, I'm curious as to what this so-called "cultural/religious understanding with Islamic Turks" that you pretend China had was. Was it this by any chance?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas

Ah, right on cue - Battle of Talas, the favorite of "we were as good as China" Euro revisionists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas#Aftermath_and_historical_significance

I like how your bias prevents you from even scrolling down 20 centimeters on the very page you think counters my argument.

Yes, the Chinese being defeated by the Muslims would lead to quite an understanding, all right.

Yes, "the Chinese" being defeated by "the Muslims" goes to show one's capacity for nuance and understanding.

Your posts are full of such misinformation and leaps of logic. I just chose one to respond to. I don't really have the inclination to waste too much time dealing with China fanboys.

I just read: something something, unsourced argument, personal attack, WAAHHHHH I'm going home!!!

Moderator Action: Enough. This thread has been permitted to remain in this forum, even though it is no longer a Civ V topic and arguably belongs in World History, only because it has stayed civil and discussion has not descended to personal criticism of other posters -- until now. Return to civil discussion or this thread will be closed.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[PhilBowles]

I posted earlier in the thread (had China as 10, as a nod that it's the only civilization that invented things 2 thousand years ago, and are now once again a top 5 power in the world). It went something like England, Mongols, insanely huge gap, Arabia, Rome, America, large gap, France, Spain, Russia, gap, Ottoman, China. As you can tell from the list, I value the spreaders and connectors more than originators, because it is they that control what gets spread and what remains isolated. India, Portugal, Dutch, Germany, Byzantium, Japan, etc would probably be next. Again, not an expert, and not a trained historian. Learned a lot about India from this thread.

The Chinese debate was just being skewed so heavily by Chinese homers that I had to step in. I heavily dislike homers. They are rarely objective, and rarely convincing, and they make others look bad.

I'm undecided whether lolno (location undisclosed) or others pushing China above all are actually Chinese nationals, or Westerners overcompensating by trying to downplay European influence on the world. As I noted, lolno's arguments approach Chinese impact from a perspective heavily focused on the area's importance to Europe, and on judging achievements by European standards.

That doesn't necessarily suggest a Western origin, though - developing countries have been fanatical about pushing the modern Western model of development among their own populations, China perhaps most of all with its push for technological and economic modernisation in recent decades.

 

[lolno]

As I noted, lolno's arguments approach Chinese impact from a perspective heavily focused on the area's importance to Europe, and on judging achievements by European standards.

You noted incorrectly. Rather it's ad(four other letters) who appears to be doing so, as well as you - for example claiming England is responsible for tea culture because they took it with sugar (what?). You are arguing that influence should be judged based on how it served modern European "ends". I'm saying that without China the world would be unrecognizable, which is demonstrably true. I mentioned also that gunpowder warfare transformed the Arab world irrevocably. This is also true of Japan. Then of course rice cultivation, which barely impacts "the West". So on and so forth. Once again you don't seem to be able to follow your own arguments must less mine.

Others include:
1) Artemisinin. Largely irrelevant to the West
2) Seed drill. Universally useful
3) Row planting. Universally useful

But hey, you read what you want to read. I noted China's impact on the West because we have a lot of boosters arguing that England and America are the most influential - it stands that if these civs are influential, then one that strongly draws their interest is likely also economically influential.

That doesn't necessarily suggest a Western origin, though - developing countries have been fanatical about pushing the modern Western model of development among their own populations, China perhaps most of all with its push for technological and economic modernisation in recent decades.

1. The Western model of development is slave labor, foreign conquests both facilitated by genocide, colonization, and dumping their surplus on other nations. The East Asian development model is almost entirely internal and based on reciprocal, contractual dealings. I see no similarity. If technology is the basis for Westernization, then the West has long been Sinicized. Your claim of all of technology and economics as being part of the West are noted, however.

 

[PhilBowles]

I don't think the VHS/Betamax analogy applies. Betamax counts for its role in the industry and competition, yet Chinese inventions are definitely the precursor to many essential modern technologies.

Yet they wouldn't be had they been lost, or credit would have been given elsewhere if they were independently developed later. Again, see steam power - adopted worldwide just as you note gunpowder was, but not as a result of the Greeks who first originated the technology.

I didn't mention any dead branches, post-neolithic.

No, but that misses the point. The point is that the reason these aren't dead branches can largely be attributed to non-Chinese societies. This is particularly evident with printing; you might well be right that gunpowder may have been adopted more widely without Mongol intervention (although as that contact would have been much later, it would have been delayed - ironically, your very argument for giving the Chinese originators so much more credit than the Mongols who disseminated it).

Printing, however, required a more flexible writing system than Chinese to develop into what it is today. An abiguda or an abjad would work as well as an alphabet, but neither the Indians nor the Arabs made the advances in printing Europeans did (perhaps partly because in Europe printing advanced as a result of the need to print Christian texts en masse).

As for the necessity of "non-Chinese intervention", that assertion is hard to defend given how much Chinese technology has spread. Gunpowder was readily adopted by just about every non-Chinese civilization that learned how to employ it.

Eventually, and as a result of Mongol intercession - not just introducing the technology, but as an expansionist warrior empire doing so by demonstrating its application.

It absolutely is relevant. Chinese culture created the conditions necessary for these inventions and innovations. No other culture showed any signs whatsoever of being close to inventing gunpowder, seed drills (except the proven dead Mid-Eastern variant), pound locks, etc. The world would be unrecognizable if China didn't invent these each at the time they invented them.

See above. China invented gunpowder centuries before it spread anywhere else; even Korea didn't obtain it until the 14th Century. It's not very relevant to the way gunpowder use developed whether China had developed gunpowder in the 9th Century or the 12th. Had the Mongols not been there, it might have remained in China and Korea for centuries more - so the Mongols really deserve more credit in that regard.

On my arguments? Wrong and wrong, I don't say technological discovery is paramount and I don't elevate those "most important to Europeans". Gunpowder was certainly important to the Arabs and Chinese, and even the Iroquois. Likewise for those on the receiving end. Seed drill, row planting, various ploughs, pound locks are NOT included in the stereotypical four inventions but have had profound impact on the world.

You also didn't highlight these. Yes, gunpowder was important to the Arabs and to the Iroquois ... but mainly with reference to competitors in or from Europe (the Iroquois certainly wouldn't have needed guns otherwise).

Both are statements from ignorance: one, technology proven to have been spread through the world with China as the cited origin are not regional novelties

Not once they were spread through the world, by definition. My point is that without other cultures to spread them, they would have remained regional novelties. China made no effort to disseminate the technology; legend has it that the Koreans only obtained it because an enterprising Korean visited China and obtained the recipe from a market.

I'd say it has almost been the rule that the technologically dominant power is the one that had the most impact on the world at the time, even the Mongols adopted military tech rapidly and then used it to great effect throughout the empire. Scientifically? Maybe not.

What are you basing this 'rule' on? The Mongols are a good example, as they were not the technologically dominant power but were the dominant power of their time - yes, they adopted one key military innovation from a more advanced subject, but overall they certainly weren't as advanced. Similar cases can be made for European dominance over India, their defeats of the Arabs, or Alexander's over Persia, or the falls of Rome, Egypt or Babylon, among others.

I highly, highly doubt that. The Portuguese never invested as much in their search for El Dorado as they did the India/China trade.

Not El Dorado in the case of the Portuguese - that was the preserve of the later Spanish and English. The Portuguese did indeed invest as much in the search for Prester John as for trade with India; when they first arrived in India they didn't even bring very much to trade, and their first demand was to locate the local Christians they believed to be found there.

If Mali was not hugely influential on the development of the world, it was not an economic powerhouse. Mansa Musa had lots of gold mines, and he wasted a lot of the gold. That's not economic impact.

Spain wasted its silver; China hoarded it. Neither is economic impact either.

So were Burma, Thailand, India. But they didn't, they needed to wait thousands of years for the Chinese to transfer it to them. Just as Euros didn't cultivate wheat.

If we grant that the plant is naturally that widespread, that still leaves only a rather limited number of societies who could have cultivated it. Wheat cultivation in Germany and Spain dates to at least 5,000 BC - it's a rather meaningless comparison.

True. I'm just arguing that the "dissemination" argument for impact is subordinate simply because the powers in question are so interchangeable and their "accomplishments" so forgettable as a result. You may as well ask what general geographic area of the world is more statistically likely to produce powerful polities, and stop at that.

Except that this isn't an exercise in probability, it is - again - a discussion of what happened, and who had the most impact. It doesn't matter how 'interchangeable' the societies that accomplish it. England had the characteristics needed to start the Age of Discovery, but it was Portugal that did so. That doesn't diminish the credit Portugal gets (in fact, Portugal - as a poorer, newer and far more minor European power - should surely deserve more credit if we're weighting the effects of their influence by how relatively impressive they were for the time. Of course that same weighting would play against China: being already more advanced, larger and more urbanised than much of the world at the time, it's only to be expected that it would develop most of its novelties sooner).

Partially, yes, so the really interesting stuff is that which isn't a generalizable norm. Particularly why each "culture" excels in some environments whereas others fail miserably in the very same environments.

Anthropologically interesting, undoubtedly, but that's a very different discussion from the subject of this thread.

There's a difference between real admiration and a few hucksters expropriating cultures they don't understand in order to make money off of gullible non-entities to this discussion.

Yet those hucksters are successful by exploiting the genuine admiration of their clientele. This is not a phenomenon you see associated with 'ancient African wisdom', and no one is looking to Huitzilipotchli for religious guidance. It doesn't even extent to areas of Asia except the traditional European lures of India and China and those countries' associated cultures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Tamao

I'm curious as to how Portugal's famed Caravels were destroyed by Ming junks if indeed the Ming didn't have ship-mounted cannons? I guess there's always wushu.

You might have to remain so, as this piece gives no indication of the Chinese armaments, and I'm aware of no accounts indicating that Ming junks were equipped with cannon - an account I read of the treasure fleets indicated that they carried troops with arquebuses on board, but the vessels themselves appear to have been simply fighting platforms, as was typical for combat-equipped ships in most of the world. This was also of course post-contact with Europeans.

In terms of who the "disseminator" is, I argue again that it doesn't matter - because why it happens is more a function of geography than anything else. That's why I find it more interesting to separate geography and natural resources from what a culture manages to do with them - but still I count the influence of geography and resources toward this "impact" score we're trying to get at. Still think China is tops.

I'm not convinced you're engaging in the same discussion as everyone else on the thread. It has nothing to do with the reasons for impact, purely the fact of impact. Look at the world from a Jared Diamondesque perspective, and at the eastern edge of the Atlantic you'll find a large island with extensive natural deposits of iron, coal and silver, a climate fortuitously warmed by the Gulf Stream with more rainfall that aids in growing crops than most other areas at similar latitude. In comparison with the surrounding mainland it's an extremely large area, while being sufficiently isolated by sea that it's easily accessible only from one or two directions. You can imagine that if its people developed a maritime society, their proximity to the nearby mainland and the straight run westwards would make them nearly ideally placed to spread their culture and products around the world.

And, of course, Britain in one form or another - like France - has been a near-constant of European history, coming and going as a major power and often a desired target for invasion precisely because of many of these natural characteristics. And eventually it founded a maritime empire and later consolidated and expanded it through industrialisation.

The actual impact of Britain on the modern world, however, would be just as large if it had started out in the same position as Portugal, or as Mongolia and achieved what Britain did in reality, it would just be a much more impressive achievement (especially a maritime Mongol empire...) if we hadn't had such a good 'starting position'.

Because gunpowder was used against them by the Mongols. My understanding is that guns died out in Japan, and then had to be re-introduced by the Europeans (emphasis on re-), after which they reverse engineered and improved upon the Dutch and Portuguese designs which were formerly the best in the world.

If you concede that that's a possibility, why do you have such trouble imagining that the same could have happened in China had the Mongols not made an appearance?

EDIT: There's also one important difference between Japan (and Java, which the Mongols also invaded apparently without inspiring the use of guns) and the areas where guns became established, which may relate to the point I made above about the way the Mongols introduced it. In Japan and Java, the Mongols lost. People tend to pick up on the military innovations among their enemies that win battles; they likely don't take as many lessons from their enemies' defeat.

Are we counting negative or positive impact here?

Impact as I, and it seems most others in the thread, are using it is entirely value-neutral: it's just a question of what effect it's had in shaping the modern world. Christianity gave Europe - among other things - a sophisticated calendar, the Copernican revolution, moveable type, geology, a motive for discovery, imperial ambitions, a unified identity, much art and literature, and an entire social structure (including mechanisms of governance for many centuries), not to mention a significant number of the prejudices inherent in modern society and that to a large extent still shape its politics.

I personally don't think it makes much of a difference whether Christianity or New Age Paganism were to be the world's largest organized religion.

Without Christianity there might not be such a concept as an organised religion.

I simply don't exalt that religion above all else, so I have my doubts when claims are made that it was instrumental to history aside from destroying countless native cultures and obstructing rational inquiry.

You don't imagine that destroying native cultures constitutes an impact?

The Turks would have been hostile to Europe if they were Christian or Zoroastrian or anything else, religion has no primary importance there.

What's the basis for this? The Turks maintained good relations with, for instance, Protestant England on purely religious grounds - they and the Protestants were united in opposing Catholicism. Earlier, the Turks had maintained longstanding good relations with Venice - where conflict arose, it was largely or entirely driven by religious intolerance, that mainly from the West (a characteristic particularly pronounced in Christianity - had New Age Paganism been the dominant Western religion it's very unlikely that most of the religious conflict that characterised and spurred Europe's development would have taken place).

The whole blockade thing just shows that Chinese goods were such a draw for European merchants that they were willing to field huge expeditions to try to find a new route.

They didn't need a new route for any economic reason - most could have gone the Venetian route and traded with the Turks to obtain it; the Turks held a monopoly on supply, but they didn't refuse to trade. The reason they didn't comes back, once again, to the religious differences.

Actually China had been trading for cane hundreds of years (nearly a thousand in fact) before the Europeans ever reached Southeast Asia. They even cultivated it themselves and documented diabetes first as a result.

If that's the case, evidently drinking it with tea wasn't so intuitive after all.

I'd say this is debatable on fact and not in principle. I wouldn't argue if you were to say the Spanish made a huge impact on the world by spreading new world crops everywhere. Tea? China spread tea all over Asia with no problem. Even the Tibetans were willing to trade horses for it, 1,300 years ago.

"Even the Tibetans"? The Tibetans adjacent to China, you mean? At least as far as Wikipedia is concerned, tea was confined to China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam until the British arrived on the scene - elsewhere it was used medicinally in the Indian Himalayas, but nowhere was it drunk as a beverage.

The Sinosphere must have been fairly large then

Yes, there's no disputing that China's a big place.

They're arbitrarily European. I'm dismissing European sentiment, which is paltry compared to Chinese sentiment and a sense of itself. This sentiment is based on shared history, culture, interests and even blood. On all four fronts the European is much less than the Chinese.

In Europe there's an overlay, because Europeans have both a national identity and an identity as Europeans, and I suspect this obscures it. Also, in some areas 'Europeanness' is understated now compared with the historical norm - take Britain, for instance, for centuries defining itself in relation to the rest of Europe (many of those colonial authors extolling affinities with fellow Europeans being British), now more often than not considering itself a separate entity in part due to the legacy of 20th Century events. Certainly any European who travels much - even to states that from afar look noticeably similar, like the US - is likely to quickly identify as European, not in opposition to foreign cultures so much as realising the extent of their affinity with others from the same continent.

More likely they simply wanted to expand their territory willy-nilly and invoking Rome was just an easy way for them to do it.

Which works insofar as the subject peoples share a cultural association with Rome and so recognise that as a legitimate claim.

Han Chinese expansion largely started and stopped with "China-proper".

Until the colonial era, Europe also largely stuck to its self-defined borders - it never extended more than peripherally into North Africa, nor did it aim to claim lands to the east once it had defeated the major rivals there.

Except we're using this metaphor as one for civilizations, not people, and as we've established civilizations are far more broad and amorphous. Likewise sentiment and standards of awarding credit are far different, we feel much more obliged to be precise with an individual's achievements.

It's not a question of being precise - we can say with precision that the Mongols spread gunpowder outside China, and that the Chinese didn't. That gives us all the grounds we need to attribute the impact of gunpowder to the Mongols - without them it may never have left China, and certainly wouldn't have left China as early as it did. Without leaving China as early as it did, you've contended yourself its impact on the world would have been very different.

 

[lolno]

Let me try to condense this and let me know if I missed anything:

One, what is your barometer for "impact"? For me whether or not someone drinks tea and with or without sugar or in place of coffee or not really doesn't matter at all. On the point that putting sugar in tea is not intuitive, well it is - it's just that we're talking about preferences now, not something that is an objective improvement. More on tea: the Tibetans near China (and those immediately north of the Himalayas) certainly did trade horses for it.

Mind, impact should mean economic, technological, scientific, cultural and political impact. So this hair-splitting on whether invention or spread of technology is more important is somewhat peripheral.

On continuity and spread: Chinese inventions would have been preserved in China and gradually diffused outward if Europeans or Mongols didn't spread them. Rather I'd say the success of the latter two is partially a passive expression of chance and geography while the originator is actually the actively brilliant exception. That's why I subordinate dissemination to invention as far as impact goes, with point-by-points distilled from historical "noise" for each key invention. The invention process is not a simple random eureka moment but relies on surmounting incredible geographic odds to build a government system, underpinned by a philosophy that has since spread to 1.5 billion people and led to a decades-long economic boom, that managed to consistently make China one of the most economically, technologically and culturally dynamic regions on the earth.

Thus the Chinese civilization including its philosophy and culture are irreplaceable. The succession of Spain/Portugal, Dutch, English, etc goes to show that these Atlantic maritime powers were essentially interchangeable in their function as intermediaries and traders (not so much in other spheres)

For European vs. Chinese sentiment: I'm not saying Europe didn't have a sense of itself. It was just weaker than China's and continues to be much, much weaker than China's.

Regardless, ultimately your argument hinges on what "end" you're trying to meet with impact. Do you mean which civ has most shaped the modern world, or history? Because history hasn't ended yet. And if it's the former, it's a rather arbitrary point to end at.

 

[reddishrecue]

The Americas had many different crops such as tobacco, cotton and another non-crop luxury, furs. As the Europeans came and colonized the Americas, the natives also had knowledge of how to plant these crops or trap furs more efficiently. It was optional for Europeans to learn how to use and produce these raw resources into fine products to eventually get them exported to other places like Asia, Europe or sold to the natives themselves even. Other Europeans that lived in the colony also could copy the ability that the colonial that got taught by the natives or the Europeans in educational facilities like schools, colleges or universities. Exported goods like cigars, or clothes brought in revenues as well as higher taxes. Revenue was important to get people to graduate. This all happened during the 7 years war as it was mentioned earlier. What does that have to do with the present? What about the rest of the world?
We all know about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center(WTC) on 9/11/01 when a group of terrorists high jack 2 airplanes and crash them into the twin towers in New York City. The twin towers were either some of the tallest buildings or the tallest buildings in New York. The attack appeared in the majority of television stations since that is what the newspaper that was used during colonial times ended up as. The planes crashed into the WTC buildings in the early morning (~6 PT/ET) and collapsed later in the morning (~9PT/ET). Helicopters hovered over the WTC buildings that day watching the fire in the buildings for about 3 hours until the buildings finally fell down. Later that day, Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorists claim responsibility for destroying the WTC. Eventually, Osama Bin Laden was caught and killed with no trial since he was found guilty already. The news about the WTC eventually became very popular and had record most viewed news since it was seen by many people. The most viewed news last year was the power outage in the Super Bowl which showed off the BNW sign at the ceiling of the Super Bowl. The power outage lasted for over an hour.

 

[TheMadFiddler]

SNIP



What are you basing this 'rule' on? The Mongols are a good example, as they were not the technologically dominant power but were the dominant power of their time - yes, they adopted one key military innovation from a more advanced subject, but overall they certainly weren't as advanced. Similar cases can be made for European dominance over India, their defeats of the Arabs, or Alexander's over Persia, or the falls of Rome, Egypt or Babylon, among others.

SNIP

Actually in terms of military organization, the Mongols under Genghis were quite advanced. While they certainly lacked in other areas, they were also quick in adopting useful skills of those they conquered. Thus, they are responsible for bringing many innovations to the world.

 

[magritte]

Thus the Chinese civilization including its philosophy and culture are irreplaceable. The succession of Spain/Portugal, Dutch, English, etc goes to show that these Atlantic maritime powers were essentially interchangeable in their function as intermediaries and traders (not so much in other spheres)

Regardless, ultimately your argument hinges on what "end" you're trying to meet with impact. Do you mean which civ has most shaped the modern world, or history? Because history hasn't ended yet. And if it's the former, it's a rather arbitrary point to end at.

The reason Spanish/Portuguese, Dutch, English etc. seem interchangeable is because they are all part of one European civilization. They all derived much of their civilization from Greece and Rome. And although Roman culture leans heavily on Greek roots, I lean toward Rome as most significant because much of the world today follows the state religion of the Late Roman Empire, uses a roman alphabet and speaks a Latin-derived language.

And by definition, history is in the past. The future is not history and is irrelevant to the discussion.

 

[Squirrelloid]

So, I limited myself to a single vote, and I think England wins hands down. Yeah, Rome and Greece were really important. Yeah, the US is dominant now. But net-net, England out-competes them all for impact. (For the sake of argument, I'm considering the entire UK to be 'England' as a civ)

-Birthplace of the industrial revolution (first steam trains, originates patent law, first factories, first to break the dominance of agrarian elites and free peasants from the land, etc...) This isn't accidental either, institutions created the right incentives for rapid technological advance. (See Why Nations Fail by Acemoglu and Robinson for a good explanation of why the industrial revolution happened in England and nowhere else).

-Birthplace of modern democracy and constitutional government (Magna Carta, English Bill of Rights, John Locke and his treatises on government, etc... Also probably relevant: Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mills)

-Probably the most important home of science from the enlightenment through the 19th century (Darwin, Newton, and Maxwell are just the tip of the iceberg, and enough on their own to claim this title. Also importantly: Francis Bacon, James Hutton, Charles Lyell, Francis Galton, William Smith, James Watt, Michael Faraday, John Dalton, Thomas Henry Huxley, and those are just the ones I can recall offhand).

-The impact of their colonial empire cannot be understated. Most of the countries in the world owe their boundaries to the British, right or wrong (many are not natural political units). And the empire spread British legal customs, culture, educational system, language, and values. Not all the consequences of British colonialism are positive, but the impacts are large.

-British colonists founded several nations which today wield significant economic clout, including not only the US, but also Canada and Australia. Shared British cultural, legal, and political traditions are probably partially responsible.

-And of course significant cultural production in literature and music, most importantly William Shakespeare - probably the greatest writer of all time, greensleeves - probably the most successful piece of music ever composed, and the Beatles - generally considered the greatest musical group. English also happens to be one of 4 Opera languages, and London is one of the few cities which maintains a major theatre district.

 

[reddishrecue]

I'm undecided whether lolno (location undisclosed) or others pushing China above all are actually Chinese nationals, or Westerners overcompensating by trying to downplay European influence on the world. As I noted, lolno's arguments approach Chinese impact from a perspective heavily focused on the area's importance to Europe, and on judging achievements by European standards.

That doesn't necessarily suggest a Western origin, though - developing countries have been fanatical about pushing the modern Western model of development among their own populations, China perhaps most of all with its push for technological and economic modernisation in recent decades.

I was a solitary. We had the president of the USA 4 blocks away from the santa Monica college in santa Monica, California the same day that there was an armed gunman shooting unarmed civilians in santa Monica college. I wasn't in college that day but the president of the USA was in an important meeting with the president of China 4 blocks away about 9 months ago.

 

[Krajzen]

Sweet Jesus, this page has the most intelligent discussion I have ever seen on Civilization 5 main forum (which has pretty high level)