Columbus Day Reflections

Happy “There Goes the Neighborhood Day.” Before Christopher Columbus crashed the party on this day 519 years ago, the people who really discovered America were doing just fine. This comes out loud and clear in two books: Jack Weatherford’s 1989 “Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World,” and Charles Mann’s 2005 “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.”

Essentially, say both authors, Indian society was far more populous and sophisticated than the white man’s histories would have us believe. For starters, most of the food we consume derives from Indian plant husbandry and processing (potatoes, corn, beans, peppers, tomatoes, squash, and chocolate, just for starters), as does countless ways of preparing it (such as barbeque). As for the shirts on our backs, you have Indian cotton technology to thank for that.

Food and clothing - pretty major accomplishments. Throw in advanced astronomy, mathematics, road-building, monument-building, terra-forming, urban planning, metallurgy, pharmacology, and - oh, yes - democracy, and suddenly we are left with the stunning proposition that Indian society was not only a lot more advanced than we thought, but may have attained a higher level of civilization than European society of the day.

Okay, the wheel was unknown to the Indians (though there are exceptions), but likewise personal hygiene was unknown to the Europeans. The bottom line, says Charles Mann, is your typical Indian living in 1491 was better off than your typical European living that same year. Better fed, better clothed, better housed, better looked after. Taller, healthier, with a degree of personal freedom unknown in the Old World, with a voice in his (and in a lot of instances her) society’s affairs.

Get ready for the eye-opener: Both authors contend that the democratic values we take for granted today derive from the Indians. No one in Europe was even talking about such things prior to first contact. Then, Thomas More came across Amerigo Vespucci’s reports of his life amongst Indians, and - surprise, surprise - the 1516 publication of Utopia.

Soon after came the Enlightenment, with thinkers such as Rousseau idealizing the “noble savage.” But while Europe was merely talking about representative government and the rights of man, Indian society was actually doing it. Your average white settler took note. So did our Founding Fathers. Both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were profoundly influenced by the Iroquois Confederation.

The stupidest idea in all history - an Old World concept - is that nearly all men and women are born decidedly unequal. That it is the natural order that just about the entire human race be exploited and condemned to lives of overwork, hardship, and squalor, all in the service of a select few. There was no way either Europe or those who settled in the New World would have turned that thought around - much less put something less stupid into practice - without first bearing witness to a society that actually practiced more civilized values.
 
New World ideas and technology, not to mention loot, would transform the Old World and kick-start the Industrial Revolution, contends Jack Weatherford. The Indians were not so lucky. According to the accounts of the first European adventurers, the Mississippi Valley, the eastern seaboard, the Amazon basin, Mexico, and the Andes were densely populated. These were flourishing and highly developed agricultural societies that could have easily swatted away any white man incursions.

The next waves of Europeans encountered something radically different. The white man’s diseases had preceded them and fanned out. The Mississippi Valley was virtually devoid of human life. The eastern seaboard lay largely empty. Nature reclaimed the Amazon basin. The great empires of the Aztec and Inca collapsed in the onslaught of European microbes, easy prey for the Spanish.

The Indians that these Europeans encountered were survivors of the greatest catastrophe in human history. The few, the traumatized. We have no way of knowing how far Indian society would have advanced on its own. A strange new race of people was setting up camp on abandoned Indian settlements and plantations. White man would be writing the history books.  

Rerun - Thinking Outside the Box: Lessons From History - The Pax Mongolica

I'm still head down, ass up mucking out the Augean Stables of mcmanweb. In the meantime, this blast from the past from Nov last year ...

I just finished reading Jack Weatherford's "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World." The author, a professor who knows how to write, doesn't exactly present a kinder and gentler Genghis from the one we imagine. But he does make a very strong case that, contrary to popular belief, the net effect of his conquests proved extremely beneficial. Basically, Europe was far too backward to boot up from feudalism to the Renaissance on its own, even with an assist from nearby civilizations.

At the time of his death in 1227, Genghis Khan's holdings extended from the Caspian Sea to the Sea of Japan, embracing virtually all of central Asia, down into China, up into the remote northern steppes. The sheer immensity of his conquests makes Alexander the Great look like a neighborhood bully by way of comparison. Likewise, the Roman Empire and Muslim Caliphate come across as mere subdivisions. Not to be outdone, his successors overran eastern and central Europe, much of the Middle East, and coaxed the rest of China into the fold. In the process, the Empire split into four separate Khanates, but nevertheless kept operating as a fairly cohesive entity.

Historians refer to the 13th and 14th centuries as the "Pax Mongolica." While Europe was contending with war and religious intolerance, Mongolian-ruled Eurasia was enjoying a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity, thanks to the vision of its unlikely founder. Against all odds, young Genghis survived a brutal childhood as part of an outcast family before going on to unite his feuding klansmen into a force to be reckoned with. A brilliant organizer and visionary, he applied the lessons of the remote and inhospitable steppes to managing the world, continuing to learn as he faced new challenges.

The legacy he passed onto his successors included rule of law, secular government, religious toleration, cultural diversity, promotion of learning, free trade, patronage of the arts, the spread of technology, paper currency, appointment by merit, administrative accountability, and much more - one people under one sky.

Suddenly, a seller in China could find a buyer in Europe. Over a now secure Silk Road and new sea routes, goods and ideas flowed in all directions while the standard of living kept improving. The printing press, paper, gunpowder and the compass came west while Arabian science and other advances diffused everywhere. On and on it went, the best of all worlds nurtured by a strange new ruling class unfettered by old conventions.

As Jack Weatherford explains it, "most empires of conquest imposed their own civilizations on the conquered." By contrast, the Mongolians came to the table empty-handed but open-minded. "They did not have to worry about whether their astronomy agreed with the precepts of the Bible, that their standards of writing followed the classical principles taught by the mandarins of China, or that Muslim imams disapproved of their printing and painting."

Likewise, the rulers of the new Mongol Empire had nothing in common with the parasitic aristocracies of the lands they conquered, keepers of the old prejudices. These they killed off wholesale at the slightest pretext.

Of course, nothing lasts forever. Universal ideals were already yielding to the inadequacies of human nature when the largest empire in history was brought down by the humble flea. The bubonic plague broke out in China in the 1330s and spread throughout the rest of the known world on the very trade routes the Mongols had opened up. One-third of China succumbed to the Black Death and anywhere from a quarter to a half of Europe's population met their untimely end.

The plague hit hardest in populated urban centers, literally wiping out the brains of the empire. Commerce and communications ceased. Lands near and far lost touch. The Mongols lost control of their empire and became absorbed into the populations they once ruled. The old order reasserted itself, insular and intolerant, walling the rest of the world out, themselves in.

The Pax Mongolica became a distant memory, but enough after-effects remained to inspire new generations to start thinking outside the box again and shake things up. Ironically, the winds of change blew hardest in backward Europe. History would never be the same ...

Thinking Outside the Box: Lessons From History - The Pax Mongolica

I just finished reading Jack Weatherford's "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World." The author, a professor who knows how to write, doesn't exactly present a kinder and gentler Genghis from the one we imagine. But he does make a very strong case that, contrary to popular belief, the net effect of his conquests proved extremely beneficial. Basically, Europe was far too backward to boot up from feudalism to the Renaissance on its own, even with an assist from nearby civilizations.

At the time of his death in 1227, Genghis Khan's holdings extended from the Caspian Sea to the Sea of Japan, embracing virtually all of central Asia, down into China, up into the remote northern steppes. The sheer immensity of his conquests makes Alexander the Great look like a neighborhood bully by way of comparison. Likewise, the Roman Empire and Muslim Caliphate come across as mere subdivisions. Not to be outdone, his successors overran eastern and central Europe, much of the Middle East, and coaxed the rest of China into the fold. In the process, the Empire split into four separate Khanates, but nevertheless kept operating as a fairly cohesive entity.

Historians refer to the 13th and 14th centuries as the "Pax Mongolica." While Europe was contending with war and religious intolerance, Mongolian-ruled Eurasia was enjoying a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity, thanks to the vision of its unlikely founder. Against all odds, young Genghis survived a brutal childhood as part of an outcast family before going on to unite his feuding klansmen into a force to be reckoned with. A brilliant organizer and visionary, he applied the lessons of the remote and inhospitable steppes to managing the world, continuing to learn as he faced new challenges.

The legacy he passed onto his successors included rule of law, secular government, religious toleration, cultural diversity, promotion of learning, free trade, patronage of the arts, the spread of technology, paper currency, appointment by merit, administrative accountability, and much more - one people under one sky.

Suddenly, a seller in China could find a buyer in Europe. Over a now secure Silk Road and new sea routes, goods and ideas flowed in all directions while the standard of living kept improving. The printing press, paper, gunpowder and the compass came west while Arabian science and other advances diffused everywhere. On and on it went, the best of all worlds nurtured by a strange new ruling class unfettered by old conventions.

As Jack Weatherford explains it, "most empires of conquest imposed their own civilizations on the conquered." By contrast, the Mongolians came to the table empty-handed but open-minded. "They did not have to worry about whether their astronomy agreed with the precepts of the Bible, that their standards of writing followed the classical principles taught by the mandarins of China, or that Muslim imams disapproved of their printing and painting."

Likewise, the rulers of the new Mongol Empire had nothing in common with the parasitic aristocracies of the lands they conquered, keepers of the old prejudices. These they killed off wholesale at the slightest pretext.

Of course, nothing lasts forever. Universal ideals were already yielding to the inadequacies of human nature when the largest empire in history was brought down by the humble flea. The bubonic plague broke out in China in the 1330s and spread throughout the rest of the known world on the very trade routes the Mongols had opened up. One-third of China succumbed to the Black Death and anywhere from a quarter to a half of Europe's population met their untimely end.

The plague hit hardest in populated urban centers, literally wiping out the brains of the empire. Commerce and communications ceased. Lands near and far lost touch. The Mongols lost control of their empire and became absorbed into the populations they once ruled. The old order reasserted itself, insular and intolerant, walling the rest of the world out, themselves in.

The Pax Mongolica became a distant memory, but enough after-effects remained to inspire new generations to start thinking outside the box again and shake things up. Ironically, the winds of change blew hardest in backward Europe. History would never be the same ...