--------- Begin forwarded message ----------
From: Ernest Hamilton <ehhu@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
To: kpmoseley@juno.com
Subject: Re: "compciv" <compciv@email.msn.com>: World systems and
worldviews
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 05:30:42 -0400 (EDT)
I (kpm) really did not follow the earlier posting on the ancient near
east, but posted it to someone who did:
Ernest Hamilton responds:
By the way, is that
from a list? That is how I perceive history. one of these days, i'll put
it on the internet.
The first world was constituted of Egypt and Sumeria.
then Iran became ascendent and initiated the idea of a world
culutre--Cyrus' dream. In the 6th century he united Eastern Greece,
Egypt,
the Middle East, and India into a single world empire.That's where
Alexander got his notion of what later is known as Hellenism. Alexander
wanted to rival the Persians, being brought up under Persian controlled
Macedonia. Europeans all but omitted the persian ideal of a world
culture--basically to replace it with Hellenism, simply to establish an
antiquity for themselves! It is now being more openly talked about that
Greece saw itself as Asian and as part of the Middle Eastern-Egyptian
world--south and eastward, not northward. Persia dominated this world
from the 8th century b.c to the the 7th century ad, til it was destroyed
by the Arabs. It is in this period that Persia played the role of
introducing Indian philosophy, religion, and science into the
greek-egyptian-iranian world, beginning from the 7th century. This is
what
gave Pythagoras (socrates, plato, and aristotle following), the essenes
in
Palestine, Mani in persia, st. Augustine in Africa their
philosophies--although later the Indian be monism of the Upanishads
became
mixed with zoroastrian dualism to produce neo-platonism.
Later on, with regard to Europe, fron 1560 onwards, Europe comes
increasingly under the infuence of China--its inventions and its
political
theories--leading to a centruy or so, particularly in the 18th century,
of
admiraion and emulation of the non-european cultures til 1860, by which
time the europeans begin to colonize most of Asia and Africa, leading to
the 19th century full-fledged imperialism, and what i call, the century
of
hatred of the non-european peoples and cultures. by the way, to see how
important chin was in making the modern world (through Europe) you can
turn to my file on China on the internet! Let's get together and soon.
cheers, EH.
--------- End forwarded message ----------
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