Which Civ5 civilisation had the biggest impact on history?

[LoneRebel]

Sigh. We've gone over this before.

China may have invented gunpowder as a curiosity used in fireworks, but it was the Europeans who first managed to create effective weapons using it.

Your other assertions are similarly problematic, such as that pottery was first developed in China and spread to the rest of the world, when the evidence suggests that pottery was developed independently in various parts of the world.

 

[PhilBowles]

While that may be, I don't know that the world would revert so far back. Indeed, contact and trade with China certainly increased the speed that these inventions reached the Western world, but they were also discoveries reached independently by Western nations. Egypt invented the papyrus scroll, if you can count it as paper. (I can, but maybe I don't know enough about papyrus.)

Papyrus lacks many of the functional properties of paper that make it useful - it takes more preparation to produce, I believe is poorer at capturing certain inks, and doesn't survive well in most climates. Paper is important, however using parchment of one sort or another (vellum was widely in use in Europe before the introduction of paper) was certainly well-established without Chinese help, and that's the more important innovation. As with other Chinese developments, the Chinese themselves did not use paper to its full potential and its primary use was not as a material for writing on, but as a domestic substitute for silk.

Rome, Greece and Carthage all used blast furnaces, and bloomeries were used as far back as Hittite times. Pottery seems to have been discovered by everyone across the world independently, so I don't think we can classify that as a Chinese invention. But gunpowder and compass? Sure, but they didn't make nearly as much use of it as the Europeans.

It's not altogether clear that the Chinese compass was the form that made it to Europe - given the coincidence in timing between its appearance in China, then the Middle East, and finally Europe this is considered likely, but there's no good evidence of direct transmission, and the Europeans used many more or less sophisticated navigation devices beforehand (including those the Norse used to reach America, while the Chinese were still using compasses for divination rather than navigation).

It's not completely correct to say that the Chinese made little use of gunpowder, or that it was used mainly for fireworks. The Chinese developed cannon, rockets and grenades and, by the 15th Century, had firearms comparable to those in Europe of the time. Both the Koreans and the Indians also developed rockets as weapons - the former familiar to Civ players in the Hwach'a, however the first use of rockets in naval warfare (much later) was by the Indians against the British.

But the indirect nature of the impact most of these developments had, and the fact that China played a very minor role in disseminating them, raise questions about how one defines "impact". If we knew who had invented the wheel, we still wouldn't consider them directly responsible for the automobile. As I've noted before, much of Greek learning was disseminated by Rome, and would have been lost otherwise. So it's not really fair to say that the Greeks were the more influential of the two even though they came up with the ideas. Similarly, the actual impact of most Chinese innovations can be attributed more to the Arabs, the Persians, the Mongols (who introduced gunpowder to the west) and the Indians (who were the direct target that spurred the Age of Exploration, not the Chinese who created the goods for export) - and of course to the Europeans - than to the Chinese.

As for rice cultivation, to credit that to China as a civilisation because it occurred in the geographical area that is now China is something of a stretch - it's been observed before that China presents an awkward concept in this regard due to its lack of a unified history. Modern China can't even be directly traced to the Han Dynasty - the modern ethnicity takes its name from the dynasty, not the other way round.

 

[True_Candyman]

I voted Greece and China. As much as I dislike America as a civilization, their culture is as English/German/French/Native as the Roman culture was Greek/Celtic/Italic so I abstained from both. England is again Roman/Celtic/Germanic/Norman and IMO, had it not been as powerful an empire, more countries would speak Dutch/French/German but no massive difference on the modern world.

The trouble with that argument is that every single empire on this list can be subjected to that kind of analysis. Empires don't just appear out of nothing, they always develop from precursor civilizations (unless they are part of an alien invasion conspiracy). Greece for example borrowed a huge amount from the Minoans, and the Persians among others. It's even thought now that such famously Greek devices such as the Archimedes screw already existed in Assyria. They very frequently use historical powers to legitimize their current rule too. England has had a gigantic impact on shaping the modern political and social world of course. I would say the biggest impact England has perhaps had on the world is the transportation of peoples throughout the world through slavery and even more due to indentured and convict labour. A huge amount of domestic social conflicts in nations across the world can be traced back to England. Iraq, Palestine/Israel, South Africa and the Apartheid, India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, Australia and the demise of the aboriginals, USA and the beginnings of the native american genocide, etc.

I'm quite surprised that Rome is winning at the moment too. The only reason we attribute so much to the Romans today over other contemporary civilizations is because early modern European empires saw these other civilizations as savage and wanted to be more associated with who they saw as successful and sophisticated conquerors. One thing Rome and China have in common more than anything else perhaps is their tendency to leave behind records that demonstrate how they are surrounded by "barbarians"...

Rome's biggest legacy is perhaps the spread of Christianity throughout western Europe, but really that is a tale of compromise. The name may have spread, but the religion was contorted and deformed because Rome could not displace pagan beliefs, so they met halfway instead.

I ended up looking at large scale political organisation and choosing the Mongols as having the biggest impact on history. Their empire ended up disrupting and displacing powers in West Asia and the Middle East as dominant powers of the medieval era, and that created an environment which led to the rise of Europe that has so heavily influenced the modern world. Not to mention the extensive successor empires of the initial Mongol empire that were established across the old world.

 

[otaman1]

China may have invented gunpowder as a curiosity used in fireworks, but it was the Europeans who first managed to create effective weapons using it.

And thanks to the Mongols, gunpowder was introduced to the Western world.

 

[S.O.T MAHak]

I voted for England.
They created a vast empire that reach every corner of the earth and held it together for a long time. Isaac Newton arguably the greatest scientist in history was English. The English language is de facto the world language and finally the industrial revolution, the most important event in history since the agricultural revolution, started in England.

 

[lolno]

As with other Chinese developments, the Chinese themselves did not use paper to its full potential and its primary use was not as a material for writing on, but as a domestic substitute for silk.

They used it for banknotes. Presumably by full potential you mean for writing or is there something I'm missing? The paper industry in China was so well-developed that hundreds of thousands of rolls of standardized toilet paper were being made a year by Song times at the latest.

And you can make the same statements about fiber optics and cars only substituting the West and bringing in Korea and Japan as the foil - as they consistently have higher speeds and rake in disproportionately more profit with their car designs. It doesn't detract the fact that if not for China, these inventions would have been very much delayed if they were ever to emerge at all. World history would have been unimaginably different. You can't say the same for Rome, who would have simply been replaced by some other West Eurasian power.

It's not altogether clear that the Chinese compass was the form that made it to Europe - given the coincidence in timing between its appearance in China, then the Middle East, and finally Europe this is considered likely, but there's no good evidence of direct transmission

It's highly unlikely that it didn't. Euro revisionism and ego muddy the waters.

and the Europeans used many more or less sophisticated navigation devices beforehand (including those the Norse used to reach America, while the Chinese were still using compasses for divination rather than navigation).

The Norse "discovery" had no appreciable impact on the New World, while Chinese trade up past India definitely did (on the areas within its reach)

But the indirect nature of the impact most of these developments had, and the fact that China played a very minor role in disseminating them, raise questions about how one defines "impact". If we knew who had invented the wheel, we still wouldn't consider them directly responsible for the automobile.

I think you're arguing several different points at a time. The wheel was likely independently discovered at several different places simultaneously. Gunpowder clearly originated with China as did most of its elementary military uses. It's harder to "invent" than disseminate, particularly in the ancient world. If there were no China, all of these developments would have likely been delayed by hundreds of years. Secondary independent inventions tend to come late.

So it's not really fair to say that the Greeks were the more influential of the two even though they came up with the ideas.

Without the Romans the Persians and Arabs would have filled in their place. Rome's credit for disseminating Greek knowledge is of two parts 1) infrastructure 2) geography. They did do well adapting inventions throughout the empire but Arabs (and even Mongols, who were barely literate) have proven themselves equally capable of transmitting knowledge. Therefore the Romans gain this importance by chance and not merit. The Chinese system of governance and the work ethic of its people definitely contributed uniquely and profoundly to humanity and that's IF we're just going by invention alone.

Similarly, the actual impact of most Chinese innovations can be attributed more to the Arabs, the Persians, the Mongols (who introduced gunpowder to the west) and the Indians (who were the direct target that spurred the Age of Exploration, not the Chinese who created the goods for export) - and of course to the Europeans - than to the Chinese.

So the actual impact of the supercomputer (China's are fastest), robots (Japan has the most functional patents) etc should be creditable to the Far East? And China and India both were "targets" for exploration. Porcelain and tea raked in a lot of currency from Europe, though I don't know how much compared to Indian spices and gems.

As for rice cultivation, to credit that to China as a civilisation because it occurred in the geographical area that is now China is something of a stretch - it's been observed before that China presents an awkward concept in this regard due to its lack of a unified history. Modern China can't even be directly traced to the Han Dynasty - the modern ethnicity takes its name from the dynasty, not the other way round.

Modern China absolutely can be traced to the neolithic. Otherwise you'd be hard-pressed to prove Europe didn't die in the 1200s, only to be revived as a sort of Arabized frankenstein given how loosely acquainted they were at the time to their past. The "core" ethnic population of China has had a single species of script and has had the same sense of history over thousands of years. They have a preponderant, unique genetic marker linking people from Yangshao strongly to modern North Chinese. The idea of an unchanging static China is false but so is the counterclaim that China was an ethnically confused, incoherent mass unaware of Chinese history. That was more Europe's provenance.

Speaking of modern China, modern China has produced most of the developed world's consumer goods for the last few decades, so do we attribute the impact of Industrial Revolution innovations to China too?

 

[adwcta]

What did China do between years 1000 and 2000... You know... The time period that most directly shaped our world as we know it.

Not also attributed to Mongols or Manchus.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[PhilBowles]

They used it for banknotes. Presumably by full potential you mean for writing or is there something I'm missing? The paper industry in China was so well-developed that hundreds of thousands of rolls of standardized toilet paper were being made a year by Song times at the latest.

Indeed, for writing - toilet paper and wrapping undoubtedly had a far-reaching impact, but nothing compared to the use of paper for written records.

And you can make the same statements about fiber optics and cars only substituting the West and bringing in Korea and Japan as the foil - as they consistently have higher speeds and rake in disproportionately more profit with their car designs.

The point has nothing to do with trivial differences in the quality of technology, it has to do with application. A rifle is not just an improved arquebus, a howitzer isn't just a cannon facing upwards; moveable type is not functionally the same as Chinese printing, only better. The changes Europeans made were fundamental to both realising the potential of the technologies and disseminating them globally in a way that made them significant. If printing had never left China, or never been combined with an alphabet amenable to the use of moveable type, we wouldn't now be considering it a major invention, just as a way of representing a currency.

It doesn't detract the fact that if not for China, these inventions would have been very much delayed if they were ever to emerge at all. World history would have been unimaginably different. You can't say the same for Rome, who would have simply been replaced by some other West Eurasian power.

Unknowable, but almost certainly not - very few other empires ever matched Rome's combination of both territorial extent and longevity, and in part this was due to cultural factors including a governance system that allowed the empire to maintain its integrity following multiple civil wars, and the central importance given to Rome itself - derived from its history as a city-state. Most empires with Rome's extent never had its lasting impact on the societies that emerged following them, as few were as centralised or had anything equivalent to the Roman senate system that allowed senators to be raised from outlying regions, brought to Rome and inculcated in the culture.

It's highly unlikely that it didn't. Euro revisionism and ego muddy the waters.

There's no 'Euro revisionism' - it's generally assumed by Europeans that the compasses developed in Europe had Chinese origins. There's just no definite evidence, and since lodestones were widely used globally for their magnetic properties and Europe did develop navigation systems that made them capable of crossing oceans (if inadvertently) before the Chinese were using compasses in navigation, an independent origin can't be ruled out. There's no apparent direct lineage as there is for gunpowder or printing.

The Norse "discovery" had no appreciable impact on the New World, while Chinese trade up past India definitely did (on the areas within its reach)

Which is part of the reason Denmark isn't in the poll, but that's irrelevant to the point at hand - which is that the Europeans were capable of equivalent levels of technological development at about the same period. The idea of medieval Europe as a Dark Ages backwater is more revisionism fed by post-colonial guilt than reality, combined with a myth of Eastern wisdom that has itself persisted in the continent since medieval times; no, it wasn't technologically the most advanced area of the world, nor did it originate key technologies that led to its later dominance (although the form of compass that enabled the Age of Discovery was the dry compass, a European development), but nor was it a set of backwards feuding savages waiting for the wisdom of the East to pull them up to the level of everyone else.

I think you're arguing several different points at a time. The wheel was likely independently discovered at several different places simultaneously. Gunpowder clearly originated with China as did most of its elementary military uses. It's harder to "invent" than disseminate, particularly in the ancient world. If there were no China, all of these developments would have likely been delayed by hundreds of years. Secondary independent inventions tend to come late.

You're missing the point of the analogy - which is that the originator (whether singular or multiple) is not the source you ultimately look to for its impact. Had the Mongols not exported gunpowder, it would not have been a world-changing invention: they themselves beat the Chinese when the Chinese had gunpowder weapons and the Mongols didn't. Chinese formulas appear not to have improved substantially over time - it was Europeans who refined the process. It was Europeans who mounted cannon on ships. It was even Europeans rather than the adjacent Chinese who introduced firearms to Japan.

Without the Romans the Persians and Arabs would have filled in their place.

See above.

Rome's credit for disseminating Greek knowledge is of two parts 1) infrastructure 2) geography.

And China's credit for cultivating rice is due to the fact that rice originated in that part of the world. Your point?

Besides which, how can you claim that the infrastructure needed to disseminate Roman ideas isn't a Roman achievement? As above, no other ancient empire was as successful at exporting its ideas - China included.

They did do well adapting inventions throughout the empire but Arabs (and even Mongols, who were barely literate) have proven themselves equally capable of transmitting knowledge. Therefore the Romans gain this importance by chance and not merit. The Chinese system of governance and the work ethic of its people definitely contributed uniquely and profoundly to humanity and that's IF we're just going by invention alone.

Haven't we already established that we aren't going by invention alone? Without the Roman system of governance, Rome wouldn't have survived or transmitted its ideas. Nor are the Chinese by any means the only people with a solid work ethic, either now or historically.

So the actual impact of the supercomputer (China's are fastest), robots (Japan has the most functional patents) etc should be creditable to the Far East?

Once again, impact is judged by what they do, not who has the most or the fastest (and arguably both technologies are too recent to have had a substantial effect on the world's development). Russia has more atomic bombs than the US, and more advanced ones than the US had in the 1940s - that doesn't mean that Russian nuclear weapons have had more global impact than two primitive American bombs in 1946.

And China and India both were "targets" for exploration. Porcelain and tea raked in a lot of currency from Europe, though I don't know how much compared to Indian spices and gems.

Again, you're missing the point. It's where the goods were traded from, not where they came from, that's the point. Most of the spices the Europeans came to obtain from India came from Indonesia; that does not mean Indonesia had the bigger impact on the world. The Age of Discovery did not begin because anyone was looking for Ambon. Nor did it begin because anyone was looking for China (as I noted earlier in the thread, Native Americans don't derive their colloquial name from the Chinese, but from the Indians - those were the people Colombus was after).

As for tea, why is it now the world's most popular drink after water? Not because of the Chinese. And only to a limited extent because it originated in China. As a programme I listened to recently pointed out, the global impact of tea stemmed from it being the first truly globally-produced and disseminated commodity - the British took the leaf from China and added sugar - originally from New Guinea - cultivated in the West Indes by slaves ultimately from West Africa. So China's impact there is on a par with New Guinea's, Jamaica's, and Ghana's. And it was the English concoction, complete with milk and sugar never used in China, that took the world by storm, not the Chinese one (today Chinese teas have caught on as a fashion among the Western middle class, but they're far from ubiquitous worldwide - ironically, the idea that Chinese tea is a major commodity is a modern Eurocentrism).

Modern China absolutely can be traced to the neolithic. Otherwise you'd be hard-pressed to prove Europe didn't die in the 1200s, only to be revived as a sort of Arabized frankenstein given how loosely acquainted they were at the time to their past.

Yes, China can be seen as an entity much like Europe - not one much like any individual European state. Europe has a "single species of script" (though it has variants, such as Cyrillic, it and the surrounding areas of the Mediterranean are the only part of the world where the alphabet is native, and almost all European scripts use variants of the Latinized version), ethnic homogeneity, and a sense of Europe as a coherent entity despite its existence as multiple states throughout most of this period. As such, comparing China with any given European state is misleading, and treating modern Chinese history as the history of 'all China' is akin to adding the European Union as a civilisation to this poll.

They have a preponderant, unique genetic marker linking people from Yangshao strongly to modern North Chinese.

Genetics has next to nothing to do with ethnicity. Genetically, the French are Germanic and most English people are from indigenous groups that we would today call Celtic, despite a Germanic culture and a language derived mostly from a fusion of early forms of German and French. Ethnicity is a construct, and one that changes over time. The idea of a 'core Chinese ethnicity' is a modern adoption - given the name Han because that's the period the Chinese look to as their golden age, not out of any direct descent - presenting a false image of cultural uniformity.

Speaking of modern China, modern China has produced most of the developed world's consumer goods for the last few decades, so do we attribute the impact of Industrial Revolution innovations to China too?

What point is this trying to make? Not only was the impact of the Industrial Revolution concentrated in the 19th and early 20th Century, the impact of modern consumer goods - as with the impact of any development - rests on the way those are used, not their place of origin. Would you say French cinema has had more impact than Hollywood, because the French invented it? Or perhaps Indian cinema has more impact than Hollywood, because the Indian film industry is larger than America's? Your analogies consistently don't work.

 

[reddishrecue]

I suppose that most of the industrial innovations were started out late in Russia for some reason since Hitler was able to take a chunk of western Russian lands for awhile. As 'the bear' slept, the industries still weren't up as early as they were up in the USA. The American industrial revolution came a lot earlier than it did in Eurasia, as well as the railroad connection in Salt Lake City, Utah that connected the east coast to the west coast of the USA. As for the other civilizations in Eurasia which had a much larger landmass than north america itself, I wonder how the railroad system ended up getting connected during those days especially in such a large land mass throughout conflicting countries.

 

[andreafin]

i just want to say this thread is VERY good. i am enjoying how people here can discuss this like adults, without taking offence when people disagree. i guess part is down to good moderation as well.

 

[lolno]

What did China do between years 1000 and 2000... You know... The time period that most directly shaped our world as we know it.

Not also attributed to Mongols or Manchus.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Here's one small thing that happened about 40 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_523

This one single thing has saved tens of millions of people and will save tens of millions more. Ignoring of course movable type, all gunpowder weapons, rocketry, variolation, and today manufacturing more essential industrial product than any country, being the top trading partner of something like half of the other nations on the planet, etc.

Just the tip of the iceberg. Better to deal in facts than myopic historical platitudes.

 

[adwcta]

Here's one small thing that happened about 40 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_523

This one single thing has saved tens of millions of people and will save tens of millions more. Ignoring of course movable type, all gunpowder weapons, rocketry, variolation, and today manufacturing more essential industrial product than any country, being the top trading partner of something like half of the other nations on the planet, etc.

Just the tip of the iceberg. Better to deal in facts than myopic historical platitudes.

Couldn't we say the same, ten times over for American medical / chemical discoveries?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[lolno]

Indeed, for writing - toilet paper and wrapping undoubtedly had a far-reaching impact, but nothing compared to the use of paper for written records.

China wrote volumes upon volumes of texts and reproduced at industrial scales for hundreds of years. If you're saying that the Chinese writing system interfered with the proliferation of literacy in China, you're right, but it's aside from the point. If we want to debate the merits and disadvantages of the system separately that's fine - keep in mind that Chinese characters gave most people in China a means of communicating with people who spoke different languages, which was beneficial to national/cultural unity - as well as cultural identity, as anyone trained in Classical Chinese (as most scholars were throughout Chinese history) had no problem reading something written about 700 years ago, 1,000 miles away.

A rifle is not just an improved arquebus, a howitzer isn't just a cannon facing upwards; moveable type is not functionally the same as Chinese printing, only better. The changes Europeans made were fundamental to both realising the potential of the technologies and disseminating them globally in a way that made them significant. If printing had never left China, or never been combined with an alphabet amenable to the use of moveable type, we wouldn't now be considering it a major invention, just as a way of representing a currency.

One, you're arguing backwards. Presumably you're asserting that some kind of "ends" needs to be served by the discovery in order for it to be "great". That's akin to saying we don't know now who should get credit for the computer or airplane because 1 billion years down the line, when the technology is taken to its most developed extent, some non-existent civ will be responsible. That's patently ridiculous.

Two, the inventions themselves are far more revolutionary given the economic conditions they spawned in. Again, Arabs, Turks, Persians, Mongols and what have you proved themselves perfectly capable of transmitting technology. No culture proved to be as inventive as China from the neolithic up until the 1500's, and even after that China was still an economic powerhouse for 250-300 years.

Unknowable, but almost certainly not - very few other empires ever matched Rome's combination of both territorial extent and longevity, and in part this was due to cultural factors including a governance system that allowed the empire to maintain its integrity following multiple civil wars, and the central importance given to Rome itself - derived from its history as a city-state. Most empires with Rome's extent never had its lasting impact on the societies that emerged following them, as few were as centralised or had anything equivalent to the Roman senate system that allowed senators to be raised from outlying regions, brought to Rome and inculcated in the culture.

I'd attribute this equally to being at the right place and the right time, and simply not facing powerful enemies or enemies who were poorly situated. Crap "starts", if you will.

There's just no definite evidence, and since lodestones were widely used globally for their magnetic properties and Europe did develop navigation systems that made them capable of crossing oceans (if inadvertently) before the Chinese were using compasses in navigation, an independent origin can't be ruled out. There's no apparent direct lineage as there is for gunpowder or printing.

The compass and star charts are completely unrelated technologies; as for lodestone use, that's probably something that can easily be examined in records but it seems highly unlikely given the level of intercourse between the Mid-East and Europe that the Europeans would suddenly independently invent it 50 years after they were in widespread use in the near-abroad.

Which is part of the reason Denmark isn't in the poll, but that's irrelevant to the point at hand - which is that the Europeans were capable of equivalent levels of technological development at about the same period. The idea of medieval Europe as a Dark Ages backwater is more revisionism fed by post-colonial guilt than reality, combined with a myth of Eastern wisdom that has itself persisted in the continent since medieval times

That's supposing post-colonial guilt is genuinely a force anywhere in the West. It is not. Admiration for "the East" died out quite a long time ago, and has been rotting for the last 200 years.

You're missing the point of the analogy - which is that the originator (whether singular or multiple) is not the source you ultimately look to for its impact.

I'm not convinced. The originator is absolutely critical if origin is strictly proprietary. I see absolutely no evidence that other cultures were, for example, anywhere close to discovering gunpowder. Invention is part accident but it's highly involved with economic and social conditions.

Had the Mongols not exported gunpowder, it would not have been a world-changing invention: they themselves beat the Chinese when the Chinese had gunpowder weapons and the Mongols didn't.

They actually didn't, they beat the Jin who were Jurchens and North Chinese with the help of the Tanguts who were Sinicized Qiang and each of these forces combined then whittled down the Southern Song. By the time China was fully conquered their conquerors weren't strictly Mongols anymore. They certainly cut a swathe to the West without much help from gunpowder, however.

Chinese formulas appear not to have improved substantially over time - it was Europeans who refined the process. It was Europeans who mounted cannon on ships. It was even Europeans rather than the adjacent Chinese who introduced firearms to Japan.

All sorts of formulae for explosive and incendiary powders are noted in the Huolongjing, with a number of them very close to modern, standardized black powders. Mounting cannons on ships is rather intuitive and not quite a stroke of genius, and I have my doubts about this specific claim. And I also doubt the Japanese claim, but it should be noted that the Japanese far excelled Europeans in gunsmithing within decades of the introduction of Dutch and Portuguese arquebuses. So at that point in time, were they to be credited with the impact of gunpowder?

Besides which, how can you claim that the infrastructure needed to disseminate Roman ideas isn't a Roman achievement? As above, no other ancient empire was as successful at exporting its ideas - China included.

I say it is one of Rome's striking advantages. Yet, once more, Persians, Arabs and Mongols have proven equally capable of spreading technology. China is perfectly good at exporting its ideas, it's just not good at exporting huge parts of its culturally assimilated territories as new, breakaway nations with limited cultural ties to the progenitor, e.g. Francia, Hispania, Graecia, etc. If Guangdong, Fujian and others fell partially from the Chinese orbit we could likewise say Chinese culture was "exported" to them, as well. Similarly, the slow adoption of Chinese cultural norms by nomads seems to be a form of export if you count human geopgraphy.

Haven't we already established that we aren't going by invention alone? Without the Roman system of governance, Rome wouldn't have survived or transmitted its ideas. Nor are the Chinese by any means the only people with a solid work ethic, either now or historically.

Yet without Rome, some other established power would probably have filled in for them as the West Eurasian historical record shows. If not Rome then Greece, if not Greece then Persia or Arabia, and failing either of them perhaps India. It's a given that fully 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the human population will produce at least one extensive empire somewhere between the Mediterranean and North India, and provided that it's likely that one will come to dominate its neighbors.

Once again, impact is judged by what they do, not who has the most or the fastest (and arguably both technologies are too recent to have had a substantial effect on the world's development). Russia has more atomic bombs than the US, and more advanced ones than the US had in the 1940s - that doesn't mean that Russian nuclear weapons have had more global impact than two primitive American bombs in 1946.

To what end? And yes, they had a great impact as they completely changed the strategic assumptions of the Cold War.

Again, you're missing the point. It's where the goods were traded from, not where they came from, that's the point. Most of the spices the Europeans came to obtain from India came from Indonesia; that does not mean Indonesia had the bigger impact on the world. The Age of Discovery did not begin because anyone was looking for Ambon. Nor did it begin because anyone was looking for China (as I noted earlier in the thread, Native Americans don't derive their colloquial name from the Chinese, but from the Indians - those were the people Colombus was after).

Yet almost all Spanish silver ended up in Chinese coffers, and Europeans scrambled all around Southeast Asia trying to establish trade links with China. It seems like the "Indian" naming is more an artifact of ignorance, and the historical record shows that the China trade was a significant economic prize that at least sustained the enterprises of maritime European states if it didn't inspire them.

As for tea, why is it now the world's most popular drink after water? Not because of the Chinese.

If not for the Chinese, chances are there would be no culture of tea drinking. And yes, before the British arrived Chinese tea culture had long spread through East, Central, South and Southeast Asia - so if your sole determiner of who "really matters" is how they impacted the West today, then I won't argue with you there.

And only to a limited extent because it originated in China. As a programme I listened to recently pointed out, the global impact of tea stemmed from it being the first truly globally-produced and disseminated commodity - the British took the leaf from China and added sugar - originally from New Guinea - cultivated in the West Indes by slaves ultimately from West Africa. So China's impact there is on a par with New Guinea's, Jamaica's, and Ghana's.

For one, Indians and Chinese don't take their tea with sugar. You might be confusing the popularization of tea in England with that in the world at large. The use of cane is rather straight-forward and intuitive, tea culture is not, just as sericulture was not - another thing other cultures never discovered despite having plenty of access to the raw materials.

Yes, China can be seen as an entity much like Europe - not one much like any individual European state. Europe has a "single species of script" (though it has variants, such as Cyrillic, it and the surrounding areas of the Mediterranean are the only part of the world where the alphabet is native, and almost all European scripts use variants of the Latinized version), ethnic homogeneity, and a sense of Europe as a coherent entity despite its existence as multiple states throughout most of this period. As such, comparing China with any given European state is misleading, and treating modern Chinese history as the history of 'all China' is akin to adding the European Union as a civilisation to this poll.

I'd say there are levels of continuity, and China simply has the greatest historical sense of itself, bound together by a script, state philosophy, strategic culture and system of government that drove its "unification" impulse. No such continuity exists anywhere else, but for the sake of simplicity even if I limited what I was saying to only the Han and on most of my points would still stand.

Genetics has next to nothing to do with ethnicity. Genetically, the French are Germanic and most English people are from indigenous groups that we would today call Celtic, despite a Germanic culture and a language derived mostly from a fusion of early forms of German and French. Ethnicity is a construct, and one that changes over time. The idea of a 'core Chinese ethnicity' is a modern adoption - given the name Han because that's the period the Chinese look to as their golden age, not out of any direct descent - presenting a false image of cultural uniformity.

And if people believe 'en masse' this "false image of cultural uniformity" ..? By your own standards that's "ethnicity", and this ethnicity has long and developed sense of itself. There is no real sense of European-ness. It only manifests itself when Europeans try to one-up other civilizations, but falters as soon as Greece wants to borrow some money from Germany to get out of a crisis, or when one of their neighbors is being partitioned by a certain debatably-Western great power.

What point is this trying to make? Not only was the impact of the Industrial Revolution concentrated in the 19th and early 20th Century, the impact of modern consumer goods - as with the impact of any development - rests on the way those are used, not their place of origin.

This is a really novel theory of economics, where supply "doesn't matter". Yes, creation/existence is pretty essential. Without China the world would be that much poorer, period.

Would you say French cinema has had more impact than Hollywood, because the French invented it? Or perhaps Indian cinema has more impact than Hollywood, because the Indian film industry is larger than America's? Your analogies consistently don't work.

Is the existence of French Cinema a condition for the existence of Hollywood? Then yes, it is. Likewise we understand that if one's mother is killed before he is born, he can't exist. He doesn't suddenly stop owing his existence to her when he's 40, or 60, or 80 and on - those considerations matter after the fact. As for the Indian cinema one, that's debatable - but it's completely unrelated to my analogy.

Modern China has created the fastest economic growth in the history of mankind, and their economy truly enriches the world far more than any other does - unlike sketchy "services" offered by some developed nations which contribute nothing to global stability and economic development. I don't understand why this is in any way difficult to understand.

 

[lolno]

Couldn't we say the same, ten times over for American medical / chemical discoveries?

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See the post I'm responding to. You snidely dismissed all Chinese contributions to humanity in the last 1,000 years.

I showed you *one example* spearheaded by Mao Zedong of all people that ended up saving tens of millions of people - in the last 40 years, no less.

 

[adwcta]

See the post I'm responding to. You snidely dismissed all Chinese contributions to humanity in the last 1,000 years.

I showed you *one example* spearheaded by Mao Zedong of all people that ended up saving tens of millions of people - in the last 40 years, no less.

I think for every contribution to society you can come up with for China in recent history, anyone can Wikipedia ten american contributions. This... I don't think is that controversial of a claim. And, American influence isn't even top 5 in the world on most lists.

I'm just saying, this is why your arguments about modern china's world impact is failing to convince most people. China as number 1, 2, and 3? Bit of a homer bias there....

Source: born in Beijing, partially educated there, extensive knowledge of chinese history from 1000 ad plus, was less interested in the earlier stuff.

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[Vitruvius]

What did China do between years 1000 and 2000... You know... The time period that most directly shaped our world as we know it.

Not also attributed to Mongols or Manchus.

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I don't know what China did. But when we talk about Civilization, we talk about Culture. The Mongols and Manchus inherited Chinese culture, legislation, writing, philosophy etc etc, when they conquered their land. So in essence, the Mongols and Manchus ruled as Chinese in China.

 

[adwcta]

I don't know what China did. But when we talk about Civilization, we talk about Culture. The Mongols and Manchus inherited Chinese culture, legislation, writing, philosophy etc etc, when they conquered their land. So in essence, the Mongols and Manchus ruled as Chinese in China.

Uhhh.... I don't think that's how that works. Kublai would likely object to this interpretation.

Culture is only a part of the picture, its not everything. Influence includes physical influences, technological influences, political influences. If England took a bunch of Jews and moved them to Israel, while kicking the Palestinians out.... that's zero English culture transferred, but a HUGE influence on how the world is today.

And even culture, all signs in the forbidden palace are in Manchurian, because the Manchus built it. And Beijing? The Mongols built a small trading town up to be the capital so they can better control their empire. In a city with exactly 1 tiny river, they move the land around in one of the largest canal systems in history at the time (more extensive than Venice, since Venice actually had nature to help it, whereas Beijing was carved out entirely by men). Either way, not very Han Chinese if you ask me.

edit: What most Western people don't know about Chinese history is that China was dominated by outside cultures and influences for the mass majority of the 2nd millennium. As a civilization and a people, the Han Chinese was weaker than Egypt of the time (which, we don't give all that much credit to, because Egypt wasn't terribly influential during this period). It wasn't until the Nationalist Party and then Mao, that the Han Chinese even took back control of the country (save for a very very isolationist and backwards dynasty that contributed little to the world) and it wasn't until 20-30 years after that that China once again started making actual contributions to the rest of the world (due to Mao's + successors' earlier isolationist policies). And even then, the western influence by this point is so strong, the Chinese version of the SATs has a robust English language section. Yes, ENGLISH. I'm going to stress this point again. You cannot go to college in China today, without being proficient in the use of the English language... as in, the language from the English civilization, as spread by England, and re-enforced by America.

There are two ways to look at what "China" as a civilization is. If you take the official PRC view (which is also the Japanese view during WWII, and a quasi-racist view when view from a non sino-centric lens), "China" and the "Chinese people" include some 50+ minority races, and most prominently include the Uighurs, the Tibetians, the Mongols, the Manchu, and the Han. Under this view, you can lump all of these people/civilizations' achievements into the Chinese civilization, because they are one and the same. This is somewhat problematic because Tibet keeps making independence noises, Uighurs have an active terrorist plot for independence (including a slaughter in a major Chinese city only last month, that got very little international coverage), and Mongolia is actually an entirely separate country (Inner Mongolia has about half of the land the Mongols traditionally have always controlled). The Manchus are more integrated with the Han Chinese, but they were a separately politically controlled area (by Japan, then Russia) until after WWII.

The other view, which imo is the less racist and more historically correct view, is that all of these civilizations, from Tibet to Mongolia, including Manchu and Uighurs, are all distinct civilizations, with distinct cultures, which have been rules at different times by Mongolia/China/Manchus together under one political entity. This means, you can't count Tibet's achievements as Chinese, and you can't claim Ghenghis as Chinese. True, they are currently (and even historically to a large extent) a part of the political entity of China. But they are in very little other ways "Chinese". "Chinese" as you typically think of the term, refers to Han Chinese (some 97% of the population of China), and Chinese people of other races are Chinese in some sense, but also part of their own civilizations as well. It doesn't matter that China, as controlled by the Han Chinese, are currently legally, politically, and military in control of these territories, you can't give them full credit in retrospect. You can take credit for the accomplishments DURING your rule (which includes modern period), you can't retrospectively start claiming other civilizations' ruling times (such as the Yuan dynasty).

Anyway, the point isn't that China is weak today, or that it was not important in history. I'm trying to say that to think China was the most important influence on how the world looks today (as lolno was arguing), is incredibly incredibly (and I cannot stress how incredibly) indefensible. Once you separate the Mongols' and Manchu's achievements away from "China", or at least take half the credit away (for example, Kublai commissioned the Beijing canals, but the designer of the canals was Han; the Chinese invented gunpowder, but the Manchus were the first and only successful force to weaponize it for war on large scale at the time the Mongols conquered east asia, and the Mongols in turn were the only reason Europeans ever got their hands on it), you're left with something that until the last 30 years, looks very much like Egypt.

 

[LoneRebel]

This whole idea of Chinese "continuity" from the time of the Shang Dynasty and even earlier is not supported by the facts, but it is very helpful for perpetuating the current Chinese government's grasp on power.

As is the very conception of the "Han people" to begin with. Ethnic groups such as the Hakka were not considered Han until very recently, despite speaking a Sino-Tibetan language, while groups such as the Zhuang, who do not speak a Sino-Tibetan language, were considered Han. It's clear then that the definition of "Han" is constantly changing, and that it has nothing to do with genetic ethnicity or common linguistic classification, but only with popular perception and whatever the Chinese government thinks the definition should be. For that reason I don't put much stock in "official figures" saying that 93 percent or 97 percent or whatever percent of China's population is Han. That number is whatever their government wants it to be. The only purpose of these figures is to downplay the presence of minorities in China, just like how the government encourages "Han" Chinese to migrate to Tibet and Xinjiang in order to outnumber the Tibetans and Uighurs there.

 

[adwcta]

This whole idea of Chinese "continuity" from the time of the Shang Dynasty and even earlier is not supported by the facts, but it is very helpful for perpetuating the current Chinese government's grasp on power.

As is the very conception of the "Han people" to begin with. Ethnic groups such as the Hakka were not considered Han until very recently, despite speaking a Sino-Tibetan language, while groups such as the Zhuang, who do not speak a Sino-Tibetan language, were considered Han. It's clear then that the definition of "Han" is constantly changing, and that it has nothing to do with genetic ethnicity or common linguistic classification, but only with popular perception and whatever the Chinese government thinks the definition should be. For that reason I don't put much stock in "official figures" saying that 93 percent or 97 percent or whatever percent of China's population is Han. That number is whatever their government wants it to be. The only purpose of these figures is to downplay the presence of minorities in China, just like how the government encourages "Han" Chinese to migrate to Tibet and Xinjiang in order to outnumber the Tibetans and Uighurs there.

I think it's just the opposite in terms of what the government wants to do. The PRC has continually made huge pushes to make China seem more racially diverse, as a way to pull in the Uighers, Tibetians, Mongols, and Manchus (combined something like 1/3rd of China's landmass) and keep them happy / feeling included. If at all possible, the PRC will try to classify you as a non-Han race. And you get sooooo many governmental benefits for being an ethnic minority, it makes US affirmative action look like a pittance, especially because actual racism in China toward these "Chinese" ethnicities is not quite as bad as racism in the US.

It's an odd balance. The PRC wants Han culture to spread to all of these areas, and dominate, but while doing that (with actions such as mass migration), they need to officially support and actually spend a ton of money, on keeping these cultures distinct and alive so that the local populations don't have an overly legitimate grievance. At this point most of Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, and Xinjiang are Han-dominated (whereas 50 years ago, Han were a very tiny minority in most of those areas, except Manchuria). The PRC obviously doesn't have a problem with that. But you look at the policies governing these autonomous regions, and the PRC really does bend over backwards to help these areas (otherwise totally powerless politically, scientifically, and militarily) preserve culture and what not (also great for the tourism industry). You just can't beat out the Han's huge population advantage, and it's hardly a crime to head over to underdeveloped areas to develop the area (locals hugely benefit economically, including the ethnic minority locals that don't actively reject non-cultural changes; Uighers, Mongols, and Manchus in cities in their autonomous regions are fairly rich today by China's standards, and certainly much much better off economically than they were even just 20 years ago). I think ideally, for the PRC, these areas would become 90% Han so they can better control policy implementation, but still retain the look and feel of their indigenous cultures for tourism and PR.

Let's not make the PRC sound like an evil racist empire here. Everyone in China knows that the PRC inflates their minority numbers for PR as much as possible, not "downplays" them. They want to control their minorities, not eliminate them.

 

[LoneRebel]

That's an interesting take on the situation, thanks for sharing.

Like you, I was actually mainly interested in countering the "China is the first, second, and third greatest civilization in history" mentality. Certain people speak of "Eurocentrism"; well, there's also a little something known as Sinocentrism.