WHY THE WEST RULES –
FOR NOW; THE PATTERNS OF HISTORY…(New York:
Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2010) by Ian
Morris; HOW THE WEST WON: THE NEGLECTED
STORY…(Wilmington,
Del.: ISI Books, 2014) by Rodney Stark; THE VICTORY
OF REASON: HOW
CHRISTIANITY LED…(New York: Random House
Trade Paperbacks, 2006)
by Rodney Stark
Review by Hugh Murray
In this fascinating book of world
history Ian Morris tries to explain why the West rules – for now. He considers various theories of what he
calls “locked in” views – for example, that Western dominance was destined
because of race or culture or some combination of those factors. He notes the negative assessment of Asian development
by Karl Marx, who concluded that it had stagnated and simply fossilized. Morris is probably closest to Jared Diamond,
who contends that geography and the luck of having domesticable animals and
vegetation in a given area explain the advances in one locale over another.
Morris readily concedes that the
West presently dominates, and since the Victorian era, “the West has maintained
a global dominance without parallel in history.”(11) For his study Morris also creates a scale of
social development (hereafter SD) to assess the growth in the West and the East
and observe who is ahead, and by how much.
As he fills in the 18,000 years covered by his scale, Morris refutes the
locked-in theories of the inevitability of Western dominance. As he surveys his scale, the East has already
led the West in SD for over a millennium.
Because some areas of the globe were
so inhospitable to domesticable animals and vegetation, or because of their geographical
isolation, Morris does not even consider them in his calculations. Thus arctic regions, sub-Saharan Africa,
Australia, and the Americas are ignored until some become part of the West. On the other hand, Morris includes very
little on India, which had a very early core civilization; yet he fails to
explore why India was not in the running for dominance.
Moreover, there is a striking
difference between this volume and several books by Rodney Stark, who raises
some of the same questions and covers some of the same territory surveyed by
Morris. Indeed, the title of one of Stark’s
books is How the West Won. Consider the Roman Empire: by the 1st
century AD, according to Morris’s view expressed in his SD scale, Rome’s
population exceeded that of Alexandria and was probably double that of the
largest contemporary Chinese city. Rome
had higher literacy than ever before in human history, there was increased
trade, prosperity, and less violence.
Though there was decline after a few centuries, the barbarian invaders finally
overran Rome, thereby precipitating a dramatic loss in SD . By AD 541, the East (mainly China) overtook
the West and was more advanced than the West until AD 1773.(Morris, pp. 435,
565)
Stark’s view is a stark
contrast. To him, “The fall of Rome was,
, .the most beneficial event in the rise of Western civilization.”(Stark, West, 69) Rome’s fall “unleashed so many substantial
and progressive changes. . .most of the early innovations and inventions came
in agriculture. Soon most medieval
Europeans ate better than had any common people in history, and consequently
they grew larger and stronger then people elsewhere.”(Stark, West, 69-70)
How does one reconcile this
assertion with the more popular view, maintained by Morris, that Western Europe
had plunged into what has commonly been referred to as “the Dark Ages”? Furthermore, Morris sees the decline in
Western Europe as so overwhelming, that when he compares the highest SD scores
of East and West, the West is no longer represented by Rome, but by
Constantinople, Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad, etc. And even with the movement of the Western core
eastward, the West had still fallen behind the Eastern core (China) on the
Morris SD scale.
A recurring refrain of Morris’s book
is that – all large groups of people are basically the same, each age and core
civilization gets the thought and culture it needs.(Morris, 568, 570) Moreover, the thought reflects the times and
similar times in China or in Europe, all produce similar thoughts, similar
literatures, similar philosophies. Stark
rejects this notion of similarities and instead stresses the differences in
ideas; indeed asserting that it is the different ideas of the West that
prompted the West to invent, develop, and dominate.
Morris writes, “Given enough time,
Easterners would probably have made the same discoveries, and had their own
industrial revolution, but geography made it much easier for Westerners – which
meant that because people [in large groups] are much the same, Westerners had
their industrial revolution first. It
was geography that took…”[the West to the top](Morris, 565) Morris partly explains Asian stagnation, “This hard ceiling sets a
rigid limit on what agricultural empires can do. The only way to break it is to tap into the
stored energy of fossil fuels, as Westerners did after 1750.”(Morris, 560) Morris concludes, “Why the West
rules…geography explains the differences.”(557)
There were Western core
civilizations and Eastern ones too, and they moved over time mirrored in the
Morris SD scale, which reflected climate changes, wars, and invasions. In the West the core began in rough, hilly
regions of the Middle East, expanded to include the Fertile Crescent from
Mesopotamia, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt,
Later it spread to Persia, Crete, Greece, and later still to Carthage
and Rome. By the first century AD when
it reached its peak in the early Roman Empire, it included all of the
Mediterranean and beyond. The Eastern
core moved from northern China to include southern China, and later Japan and Southeast
Asia. The Han Empire in China was
contemporary with the early Roman Empire and there was trade between them.
With the fall of the western Roman
empire, the weakening of Byzantium, and soon thereafter the rise of Islam,
Morris asserts that the Western core moved eastward, to Constantinople, Cairo, Damascus,
Baghdad. Why? Those areas had higher SD scores on his scale
then Paris or London of that time. And
it is at that time, 541 AD, that the Eastern SD rose higher than any SD of the
West. The East began to dominate. The East would retain dominance until 1773
when the invention, improvement and development of the steam engine created the
Industrial Revolution in the West.
Consequently, there were great strides in Western methods of warfare, in
everyday wages, and living standards. By
1800 the West was on the path to dominate most of the world. So argues Morris in his book filled with
details to support his thesis. And the axioms
underlying his thesis can be stated - All people in large groups are basically
the same; all eras and places get the thoughts they require; all respond to
various climatic changes in the same way.
We are all alike except for our geography, and the geography explains
the differences and why the West rules for now.
These are the underlying hypotheses upon which Morris constructs his
theory.
Stark presents a
different view – that different ideas produce different results. He maintains that the Christian view of a
monotheistic creator of the universe in which God is rational and wants men to
discover the natural, rational world provided a framework for science. While in some Eastern and Greek religions
polytheism might provide numerous and contradictory explanations as to why
something occurred – the gods were fighting with each other with lightening or
storms, or astrology was seeking to forecast our lives, or some religions urged
avoidance of this world, meditation, reaching for Nirvana, or simply do what was always done to
satisfy one’s ancestors. This often led
to superstition.
Some centuries after Islam conquered
Egypt, Saladin quoted Caliph Omar, who allegedly had burnt the remains of what
had been the great Library of Alexandria, the repository of much of the
knowledge of the ancient world. Omar had
said that if the works in the Library supported the Koran, then they were not
needed; and if they did not support the Koran, they should be destroyed. Furthermore, Saladin used this as
justification for his own purge of heretical literature. Though Christians had a current of
narrow-minded thought similar to this, - indeed, some of them had previously burnt
part of the Library, - overall Christianity was generally more-open minded and
willing to objectively evaluate the wisdom of the past. Also important, Christianity was more willing
to ponder, reflect, innovate, and incorporate discoveries, even those that
might challenge ancient pagan texts or Christian orthodoxy.
Stark certainly does NOT deny that
invention can happen anywhere, among any people. The Chinese invented gun powder, the printing
press, and paper. Indians developed the zero
and what we in the West call Arabic numerals.
(Meso Americans invented the zero independently). Inventions occurred everywhere. But Stark posits a difference between
technique, mere invention, and a general scientific approach. Stark asserts that the scientific approach
developed in the West in the Dark Ages and this approach was refined at another
unique European invention, the university.
Morris maintains that the West did
not retake the lead from the Eastern core until 1773 AD. But Stark, in an earlier work, The Victory of Reason and the Rise of
Christianity, writes: “When Europeans first began to explore the globe,
their greatest surprise was not the existence of the Western Hemisphere but the
extent of their own technical superiority over the rest of the world. Not only were the proud Mayan, Aztec, and
Inca nations helpless in the face of the European intruders; so were the fabled
civilizations of the East: China, India, and even Islam were backward by
comparison with 16th century Europe.
How had this happened?”(ix) Stark
answers on the next page. “While the
other world religions emphasized mystery and intuition, Christianity alone
embraced reason and logic as the primary aid to religious truth…,Greek
religions. These remained typical
mystery cults, in which ambiguity and logical contradictions were taken as
hallmarks of sacred origins. Similar
assumptions concerning the fundamental inexplicability of the gods and the
intellectual superiority of
introspection dominated all the other major world religions. But from early days, the church fathers
taught that reason was the supreme gift from God and the means to progressively
increase their understanding of scripture and revelation. Consequently, Christianity was oriented to the future, while the
other major religions asserted the superiority of the past.”[Emphasis in
original](x)
If the West, with a few hundred men
could conquer the empires of the Aztecs and Incas, surely that West was ahead
of them militarily. But around the same
time, the West was able, far from its home ports, to establish bases in India,
South Africa, East Africa, the Persian Gulf, Malaysia, and made tiny inroads
into China and Japan. This was occurring
centuries before “the Industrial Revolution” of 1750 that Morris deems decisive
in the West’s drive to dominate.
My purpose here is to raise
questions about the theses proposed by both Morris and Stark. The early Roman Empire was a high point for
the West (and the world of SD, according to Morris, for the world would not
surpass that highmark until about AD 1100,
and it was achieved in the Eastern core, not in the West. By Morris’s calculation, the West would not
reach the height of the early Roman Empire until 1750 AD, with the Industrial Revolution. And Morris attributes that feat to the
development of the steam engine. Water
wheels and wind mills had been invented in Roman times, and used spottily, but
the steam engines and their applications would make the West the unchallenged
rulers of the World after 1800.
Water wheels had been used in Roman-era
Egypt for grinding, and combined with the Greek developed gear system, the
wheels were used in sequence in Roman-era Spanish mines to remove water from
flooded levels so mining could resume.
Elsewhere, the water wheels were also used to grind grain and prepare
cloth. In the 1st century AD,
Heron of Alexandria, who lectured at the Museum/Library, in addition to writing
on geometry and engineering, also invented several objects. One was a wind organ, perhaps the first use
of wind to power a land-based device.
Another was the steam engine. In
addition, Heron also devised a steam-powered contraption to open the heavy
doors of a temple. But there was not
general exploration or development of the use of steam power in the Roman
Empire.
If, as Morris often asserts, people
get the thought they need, either Rome did not need the use of the steam engine
(perhaps slaves could supply all the power necessary), or Rome did NOT get the
ideas it needed to advance. Bottom line -
Rome did not experience an Industrial Revolution. But the same example can be viewed as a
problem for Stark as well. True,
Christians were only a tiny minority of the Roman Empire in the 1st
century when Heron invented. But after 325
they became the religion of the Emperor Constantine, and later, the religion of
the Empire. If as Stark asserts,
Christianity is the religion that promotes reason and science, why was there no
steam-engine propelled Industrial Revolution in the Christian Roman Empire in
the AD 300s? One might answer, they lacked
time because Rome fell (the sack of Rome 410 AD; the last Roman Emperor of the West, 476 AD). There may have been insufficient time in the
western Roman Empire, but Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire were
Christian and they lasted another thousand years. However, other than Greek fire, where were
the great inventions of the Christian empire during that millennium?
To
what extent was the Roman Empire, based in cities, a parasitic one? It did invent poured concrete, built colossal
monuments, arenas, the Hippodrome, the Coliseum, baths, aqueducts, and a navy
that cleared the Mediterranean of piracy.
It built roads that eased land transport, and most importantly,
assembled a Code of Law which would influence much of the world to this
day. Yet Rome seemed stuck, unable to
advance beyond the cities, living on the ever larger agricultural enterprises
wherein the free farmer was reduced to the status of a near slave, with whom he
competed for work.
Stark has a very negative view of
the western Roman Empire. Was there some
inner corrosive factor in the Roman Empire, even at its height, that led
ultimately to its decline and fall by 476?
And in the east in 1453? No
matter how high it rose on Morris’s SD scale?
Perhaps the ideas that Rome really required were best expressed in 1896
at the Democratic Convention – “I
tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies. Burn
down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as
if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of
every city in the country.” But William Jennings
Bryan, who spoke those words, would not have been running for the office of
Emperor in Rome. Over time, the cities
of the Roman Empire became ever more parasitic, living off the grains imported
from Egypt, Tunisia, and Sicily, and the wines and olive produce from rural
Italy. Beneficiaries of a welfare state
might enjoy free wine, bread, and circuses, the daily shows in the Coliseum - shout with delight as an exotic beast,
imported for the exhibition, mauls a human to death. They might wager on one gladiator as he punctures
the leg of another with his sword. They stir
with excitement as they watch blood flow.
Of course, there were other delights, and we still speak of the Roman
baths. But in all those centuries, the
Romans never bothered to invent soap (an innovation of the Germanic
barbarians). At the baths slaves would
occasionally have to shovel out the filth and muck that settled to the bottoms
of the pools. Of course, slavery was
prevalent in the Roman Empire as it probably was in most of the world.
When
Islam rose, it conquered many of the richest areas of the world, Judah, Syria,
Egypt, Tunisia, all of North Africa, most of Portugal and Spain, plus Iraq,
Persia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, part of India, and beyond. If Abdul Rahman had defeated the Franks at
the Battle of Poitiers (Tours) in northern France in 732, “Europe” would have
disappeared, to be known henceforth only as the north-western fringe of
Islam. Charles Martel defeated the
Muslim invaders and saved Europe.
Europe
was the poor periphery, while Islam had conquered most of the richest lands of
the old West core civilizations. And
because Islam was located in the center, between Europe and the lucrative areas
of Asia, it was the center of world trade, which only increased its wealth. It also inherited much of the accumulated
learning of the ancients in the old cities it conquered. But some of the progress made under Islam was
not the creation of the Muslims. The
“Arabic numerals” used in the West and acquired through contact with Islam, were
in reality an Indian invention. Stark
notes that other “inventions” during the glory days of Islam were the inventions
of religious minorities, persecuted minorities – heretical Christians, Jews,
Zoroastrians.
Some
trade continued across the Mediterranean, which was now a theater of potential Christian/Muslim
conflict. But some of this “trade
“consisted of Muslims raiding Europe for slaves. (If the Prophet himself owned, bought, and
sold slaves, how could anyone, other than an Islamophobe, declare that
institution of slavery to be immoral?) Later a most important segment of the Ottoman
military consisted of the Janissaries, young teenaged Greek Christian, enslaved
into the Sultans’ armies. The enslaving
of Europeans by Mediterranean Muslims continued until the United States in the
early 1800s defeated the Barbary Pirates on the shores of Tripoli.
The
Muslims conquered Constantinople in 1453 and reached the gates of Vienna in the
1600s. But to capture Constantinople,
the Muslims had to hire Europeans to cast the cannons which would finally fell
the walls of the Byzantine capital. The
glory of Byzantium architecture, the cathedral of Hagia Sophia, suddenly became
a mosque. The riches of the Muslim world,
based on being the middlemen in world trade, allowed them to purchase the new
technology they were unable to produce – some of it invented in Asia, much
improved in Europe, but the Muslims rarely made the breakthroughs in invention.
Militarily, they did devise the use of hashish by individuals preparing to kill
someone, and we commemorate this achievement with the word assassination. Destroying the printing presses was more symbolic
of the attitude of Muslim “civilization” toward invention. Over time, many of the minority religions
were almost eliminated from Islamic jurisdictions due to heavy, discriminatory
taxes, and the open humiliations heaped upon non-Muslims (not to mention the
difficulties endured by Muslim women!).
According
to Morris, the West did not retake the lead in SD from the East until 1773, and
did not really dominate the globe until the Industrial Revolution, which began
around 1750. By contrast, Stark
maintains that Europeans were eating better and living longer and better than
the rest of the world – beginning in the Dark Ages. If Europe was doing so well, how does one
explain not only the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, but Muslim
attempts to take Vienna in the center of Europe in 1529 and as late as 1683? Morris can readily explain this, for in his
SD system much of Islam is included within his definition of the West. When he compares East and West, especially
during the millennium when the East was ahead, the leading contenders of the
West were the Muslim nations. Western
Europe was too low to compete on the Morris SD scale. Persia, Iraq, Egypt were the leaders of the
Morris “West.” But Stark declares Europe
the leader by 1100 AD, above the East, above Islam, above the former Greece and
Roman eras.
In
1405 China sent out the first of several major navel expeditions, commanded by Admiral Zheng He, a tall eunuch. The largest of these missions consisted of
300 vessels, 27,800 sailors, and 180 doctors.
There were provisions of food, fresh water, and gifts. The fleet sailed from near China’s southern
capital of Nanjing, down the coast past Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma,
India, over to Persia, Oman, and East Africa.
There was trading of gifts, taking in exotic animals and plants, and
then the return voyages. The last such
voyage was 1431-33. Then the emperor
died, a new one installed, and a new policy implemented. Admiral He’s fleet was destroyed, and a law
demanded the destruction of all ocean-going vessels.
Several decades later Spain sponsored a tiny
expedition of 3 small ships and fewer than 100 men under Christopher Columbus,
who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492.
He returned with reports that he had reached the Indies off Asia. Meanwhile Portugal sent another small
expedition under Vasco da Gama in 1497 round the southern tip of Africa, up its
east coast, and on to Calicut in India.
Da Gama began with 4 ships and 170 men.
When he returned over a year later, there were but 2 ships and half his
men were dead. But with the spices with
which he returned, there were enormous profits.
Nothing came of the massive Chinese
expeditions. The much smaller Spanish
and Portuguese ventures changed the world.
Why the difference? Morris
acknowledges that there was a change of Chinese emperors, and the advisors to
the new regime deemed these vast expeditions as wasteful extravagances. They ordered the destruction of the fleet and
all ocean-going vessels in the 1430s, and in the 1470s purposely ‘lost’ and
destroyed all records of the Zheng He explorations (though accounts of some of
the exotic animals he brought back remained).
With the new emperor, China would look inward. According to Morris’s SD ratings of this era,
the East was ahead of the West. China
was rich; it did not require commerce and contact with the impoverished world
outside (and beneath) the Middle Kingdom.
Western Europe, on the periphery of
the world seemed poor, far from the riches of Asia. Western Europe was not even considered on the
Morris ratings at this time, for to him, the “West” was still located in the
Muslim nations. Relative poverty may
alone have provided motive to the lands of Western Europe to set out on these
explorations. But, according to Stark,
Europe was not that impoverished; indeed, Europeans may have been living better
than people anywhere else on the globe. And Stark noted, what surprised the Europeans was
their technical superiority over all whom they encountered. Beginning in 1519 with
about 500 men, 13 horses, and a few small cannon, Cortes defeated and conquered
the odious Aztec empire in Mexico, that could summon tens of thousands of
warriors to its defense. In the 1530s,
Francisco Pizarro overwhelmed the far-flung Inca Empire in South America with
his small European forces. Around the
same time Portugal quickly established bases and forts in India and along the
Indian Ocean trade routes, forcibly overturning the dominance of the Muslim
traders. What would have happened if the
small European fleets had encountered the massive expeditions of Zheng He
sailing from China? Of course, the
Chinese had abandoned ship for 7 decades before the time the Europeans were
encroaching, but what might have happened had the small European ships
encountered the massive Chinese fleet?
Perhaps, we have an answer to what might have occurred? Morris writes, not about the Chinese, but of
something similar: “Their tiny numbers meant that Portuguese ships were more
like mosquitoes buzzing around the great kingdoms of the Indian Ocean than like
conquistadors, but after nearly a decade of their biting, the sultans and kings
of Turkey, Egypt, Gujarat, and Calicut – egged on by Venice – decided enough
was enough. Massing more than 100
vessels in 1509 they trapped 18 Portuguese warships against the Indian coast
and closed to ram and board them. The Portuguese
blasted them into splinters.”(Morris, 431)
And what would have happened to the massive Chinese fleet? The Chinese may have invented the compass
(Stark says Europeans invented it independently) and though Morris asserts the
Chinese used it in shipping, Stark denies that.
Stark maintains the Asians used it more in magic, whereas Europeans used
it to aid in navigation. China invented
gun powder, but did not fully develop its use in weaponry, especially cannon. The small European ships with cannon could
blast enemy vessels to smithereens.
Indeed, had the Portuguese met a massive, hostile Chinese fleet, it
might have been a replay of Athens vs. Persian, and another victory for Europe. To rephrase, even if China had not destroyed
its ocean fleet, even if it sailed on to 1519, had it encountered the
Europeans, the Chinese may well have been badly defeated, and the result would
have been the same as the Portuguese victory over the kings’ and sultans’
fleets.
Morris assures readers that empires
and eras get the ideas and culture they need.
Really? If Heron could develop a
steam engine around 50 AD, why could there not have been an Industrial
Revolution shortly thereafter? Indeed, I
suspect steam engines may have been invented in Asia centuries prior to Watt’s,
also. Perhaps Stark is right – Rome and
other empires may have embraced ideas that stifled innovation, industry, and
progress. They do not necessarily get
the ideas they need. After the first
century, there was much stagnation in the Roman Empire, and the stagnation
fossilized for another thousand years in Byzantium. And in China, even when there was invention
and exploration, a centralized bureaucracy looking inward and to the past could
repress and destroy innovation.
Stagnation and fossilization followed.
Even the major mining and metal industry developed in China in AD 1100s
was destroyed by the imperial government hostile to merchants and
businessmen. Indeed, most of the earth
stagnated most of the time. There might have
been cyclical processions with minor ups and downs. By contrast, Europe led the way in progress,
invention, innovation, exploration, and science. And the creation of universities. Stark would maintain that not all ideologies,
not all religions, are equal. The West
had a great advantage in developing science and making life easier for the
average person, and eliminating slavery.
And this is why the West has ruled for hundreds of years.
Stark has a somewhat contradictory
view of Islam’s approach to science. On
one hand, there is the book-burning side represented by Suleman, that Islam
does not need or want the wisdom of the ancient infidels. On the other hand, Muslims preserved some of
the ancient writings, and held them in such high regard, unfortunately, that they
refused to question the ancient authorities of science, even when the ancients
may have been wrong. Both currents
existed in Christianity, also, but in Christianity there was also a third
approach. One could quote an ancient
authority like Aristotle, but then apply reason and observation to prove him
right, or wrong, as when he asserted that hot water freezes faster than cold,
or heavy objects fall faster than light ones.
This questioning, experimental, logical, “scientific” approach: was much
more likely to appear in Christian Europe than amid other civilizations. And this approach would be implemented ever
more so with the development of the new institution in Europe, the university. Stark’s view of Greek science is less
contradictory, but more surprising. “Greek learning was never lost in
Byzantium, but here too it failed to prompt innovation. The decline of Rome did not interrupt
expansion of human knowledge any more than the ‘recovery’ of Greek learning
enabled this process to resume. Greek
learning was a barrier [emp. Stark]
to the rise of science! It did not lead
to science among the Greeks or the Romans and it stifled intellectual progress
in Islam, where it was carefully preserved and studied.”[Emphasis in original](Stark,
20)
What were some of the innovations of
the Dark Ages that Stark judges so impressive?
A fire place and chimney. Before
this, many homes of common people had a hole in the roof so that the smoke of
the fire when cooking or heating could rise outside. Of course, this could also let in rain or
snow, and the smoke might still blow into the hovel, causing breathing problems
for the inhabitants. The fireplace and
chimney would allow a more comfortable abode with cleaner air and a generally
healthier population. No other people
but Europeans invented the fireplace and chimney.
All over the world people are born
with or develop poor eyesight. Only in
Europe were eyeglasses developed and an eyeglass industry created to help those
afflicted so they might retain proper vision as they aged. Consequently, the older workers who otherwise
might have had to slow down or even beg because
of their eyesight, with glasses could hone their skills as they aged and become
even more effective workers.
In the Dark Ages Europeans invented
a heavier plow with metal that could better turn the soil. They developed a better way to harness a
horse, which greatly increased the power of the animal and the weight it could pull. In Roman times, the harness was connected to
the horse’s neck, which choked the animal if the weight was heavy. Dark Age Europeans discovered a way to
harness the animal so that the weight was diverted to the horse’s shoulders,
making the horse able to pull more and plow faster. The slower oxen began to lose favor to the
horse. There were innovations in the
making of carts, so the 2 front wheels could more easily turn (and avoid many
problems on roads). Horses that could
pull more, and a more maneuverable cart made land trade and transportation
easier. The Roman world used the 2-field
system; plant half the field, keep the other field fallow so it could be used
the following year. In the Middle Ages
the 3-field system developed so that crops were grown on 2/3s of the land,
greatly increasing agricultural production.
To satisfy the Church’s ban on eating meat on Fridays and other holy
days, fish farming also developed.
Water mills were used in the Dark
Ages in cloth making, changing the nature of the process from the extremely
labor intensive occupation of Roman times, to one much less so in the Dark
Ages. Stark places emphasis on the
development of the mechanical clocks, which in time would often show their
faces on church towers so all could see the time. But was it that different or more accurate
from the ancient water clocks, where in Beijing, the time could be heard from
the bell and drum towers? Stark credits
Europeans with inventing the stirrup, which gave the rider much more stability
atop a horse. Along with creation of
new, heavier saddles, Europe moved beyond the light cavalry common elsewhere,
and into the era of the heavy cavalry, where a knight in armor could carry
various heavy weapons to smite an enemy.
Only Europe had such heavy cavalry.
And of course, the technology that could create heavy church bells could
also create cannon, and modify and modernize them once knowledge of gunpowder
was imported from Asia. The large cannon
would rise at the end of the Dark Ages.
European
church architecture developed to house heavy bells, clock towers, and then
higher rooves. The gothic cathedrals
began with smaller windows but as knowledge increased, these churches were
built with higher ceilings, narrower walls with room for large, stained glass
windows, creating colored lit interiors that awe visitors even today. The walls held firm because of the
development of flying buttresses beside the churches proper, to prop up and
reinforce the strength of the walls with windows by transferring some of the
weight from the rooves to these outside additions.
Finally, around AD 1200 universities
began to emerge as centers of higher learning where many early scientists would
teach, research and publish their discoveries.
Only in Europe did one find universities.
There is a problem with some of
Stark’s exposition; some of his enthusiasm for European innovation may have
been his own “invention.” For example,
Stark states that Europeans invented the stirrups. However, most authorities assert that the
stirrups were invented in China or Asia, and arrived in Europe centuries later
through contact with the nomadic horsemen along the Mongolian-Siberian-Russian
route. Stark also asserts that the
magnetic compass was independently invented in Europe; again most think the
invention began in China. Stark declares
that in China it was used in magic to foretell the future. It was.
But how is he so sure it was not used in Chinese navigation? Many authorities think the Chinese did use it
on board their ships. Was it used on
board the nearly 300 ships of one of Zheng He’s many expeditions? The records were destroyed, but those ships
did travel to east Africa. One must take
some of Stark’s assurances of European invention with a grain of salt. There seems little doubt, however, of
European improvements on new devices, no matter who invented them.
Both Morris and Stark ignore a major
difference between West and East – it is much easier for the common person to
learn about 30 letters than the thousands of characters used in Chinese. China had paper and the printing press, but
how many could read the Chinese characters?
In Europe, the printing press arrived about the same time as the
Protestant revolt. Protestants required
reading of and knowledge of the Bible.
Common people were urged to learn to read, and a literate population
would have advantages in other ways. In
China, was the mandarin elite interested in having common Chinamen learn to read? Or should reading be difficult, a hurdle,
limited to the elite? The Chinese also
had a mechanical clock, in a palace, for those in the palace. That was more like the invention in ancient
Roma of a statue that dispensed wine and water for guests at an elite party. These inventions were novelties that changed
neither China nor ancient Rome.
Stark’s citation of Alfred North
Whitehead that Christianity laid the foundation for modern science, and only in
Europe was there a structure for science, is intrigueging. But clearly inventions were made outside the
modern definitions of “science” – all those that originated in Asia, ancient
Greece, Rome, the Muslim world, etc.
“Science” then was not necessary for great inventions. Was it necessary of an Industrial Revolution? Are there other factors that may have been
equally or even more necessary for that revolution?
Stark summarizes the accomplishments
of the Europeans during the Dark Ages: “Perhaps the greatest
achievement of the Dark Ages was the creation of the first economies that
depended primarily on nonhuman power.”(Reason, 38). Stark adds, “Not only did most Europeans eat
far better during the Dark Ages than in Roman times but they were healthier,
more energetic, and probably more intelligent.”(Reason, 42) In addition, Western Europe had essentially
eliminated slavery from its territory in the Dark Ages too. By 1900 the British Empire ruled a quarter of
the globe; the French were not far behind, along with the Belgian, Dutch,
American, Spanish, and Portuguese, - Europe dominated the world. But did this dominance only begin in 1750 or
1800 as Morris and his SD calculates? Or
was this potential dominance brewing far earlier, as Stark contends? Was European dominance the result of geography? Or of ideas, a different ideology, a
different religion, one that inspired innovation, invention, and science in a “poor”
Europe even in its “Dark Ages”?
No comments:
Post a Comment