Chapters 7, 8, 10

Chapters seven, eight, and ten of Ways of the World discuss the era of third-wave civilizations (around 500-1500); commerce and culture, China and it’s connections with the rest of the world, and the contraction, expansion, and divisions of Christendom, respectively.

The topics this week were not particularly new to me. I started learning in junior high about the Silk Road, Sea Roads, and Sand Roads, and their spread of not only goods but ideas and religion across Eurasia. What I did not know too much about was the American network of trade. There were many obstacles to trade, though regional trade flourished (307), such as lack of domesticated animals, and something I had never thought of before: the north/south orientation of the Americas verses the east/west axis of Eurasia. It is amazing that I have thought so little about it thus far. The climate changes were very little for Eurasia, as they were on a horizontal axis, but the orientation in America would mean adapting to all of the geographic, environmental, and climatic changes. As the book says, this “delayed the spread of agricultural products” (307). 

The next chapter, which covered China, reminded me of things I had seen in movies or read in books but never really understood. For example, the tribute system: “a set of practices that required non-Chinese authorities to acknowledge Chinese superiority and their own subordinate place in a Chinese-centered world order” (334). This view of themselves (the Chinese) as superior was not surprising in light of their practical devotion to Buddhism, where one strives to be their perfect self. Still, it was a little extreme to me, especially the sentence that the author uses that says, in regards to their view of themselves, that “China was a ‘radiating civilization,’ graciously shedding its light most fully to nearby barbarians and with diminished intensity to those farther away.” It was shocking to read at first, but then I remembered that many other civilizations before and after came to use similar types of thinking in one way or another, in order to create a unified state and justify their actions toward others with such an ideology.

I want to mention real quickly that though I had heard of binding young girls’ feet, and just imagining it makes me cringe, I had never seen a picture of it before. The pictures in the book and reading about it, well, it hurt my soul. And I was amazed how women would go through it and even be proud of it. That is a testament to how intense and pervasive the elements of a culture can be and how it can effect one’s mindset. I know I am effected by my culture for sure. 

The chapter on Christendom shed very little new knowledge to me, as I was not only raised Catholic and have learned about much of this in catechism and in school, but I am also a very curious student so I would ask questions. The chapter did, however, help to reinforce knowledge I had previously been familiar with but had forgotten, and I did learn some new things and a lot more details that I hope can be retained. I saw all the “hierarchical dualisms” that were presented by the faith and talked about in this chapter. Like what a teaching of the church declared “It is the will of the Creator,”…”that the higher shall always rule over the lower. Each individual and class should stay in its place [and] perform its tasks” (428). There are therefore, among other things, connections with Christianity and the subordination of women which extends to the association of women with the earth and the resultant treatment of it, such as deforestation (mentioned in this chapter and now the page escapes me). Together, this made a very fair point about the prominence of the very potentially ecologically damaging paradigm of thought that was Neoplatonism. Yet, I think a good counter argument to this is that Neoplatonism is not found in the Bible itself, but was an idea formed and appropriated by some early Christian theologians. (I know Neoplatonism is not mentioned in this particular history book, but I thought I would say this anyway).

Oh, before I forget, I thought it was nice that the book mentions Hildegard of Bingen, a twelfth century abbess. As a student of music, and as a woman, I find it incredible that she was able to carve out some autonomy for herself and the women that worked with her, and that she is the most famous composer of plain chant, and with a larger surviving body of work than any other composer from the middle ages (Campbell, Nathaniel M., et al. “Music.” www.hildegard-Society.org, International Society of Hildegard von Bingen Studies, 2014.

              www.hildegard-society.org/p/music.html#Symphonia.), and that her work is still being recorded today!

All in all, even though it took what felt like forever to finish, enjoyed this week’s readings.