3.4 How Knowledge Was Transmitted                                           Version 1.2 March 2012

 

 

 

This brief summary will be updated after more work and review against the experts, and over the longer term it can be updated as we learn more, but it will only be replaced by a better story.

About 200 BCE several large empires with better technologies of war and government arose across Eurasia: the Han Dynasty in China, the short lived but extensive Mauryan empire in India, and the Roman empire in Europe. 

Some empires (such as the Chinese) established strong, centrally controlled states.  Others (such as the Roman) were loose collections of governors, vassal states, war lords or nobles.  The idiosyncratic environment of Europe contributed to it becoming a diverse set of independent nation states.  Western Europe was dominated by the Catholic Church, which minimized clannish kinship ties in favour of allegiance to the Church.

Some states promoted people in the military and government based on family ties, clans and connections; in others it was based on merit (in China selection into the bureaucracy was often by an examination), and eventually these became more successful. 

In some states the local religion conferred legitimacy on the rulers; in others there were no limits to the rulers’ authority.  Some rulers callously exploited the people for their family’s or clan’s benefit – as some still do today.  Other rulers were partly guided by a duty to their people, or accepted that the local nobles, and perhaps even ordinary folk, had some rights. 

Many empires (Roman, Hun, Mongol) split up or collapsed due to disputes about leadership succession.  Empires with longer living rulers or clear lines of succession had more stable governments and they flourished, like the Song Dynasty (from about 1000 CE to 1300 CE) in China and Elizabethan England (1558 CE to 1603 CE).

All major Eurasian civilizations needed to deal with nomadic tribes from the steppes of central Asia, who periodically conducted raids into the “civilized” (settled) areas, and many empires fell because they failed to properly handle this issue. 

Many societies overpopulated and stretched or polluted their resources, while their leaders failed to adapt, and an otherwise manageable crisis (an invasion, epidemic or some bad seasons) caused the collapse of society: the breakdown of order, homes to be abandoned, knowledge and skills lost, and the environment destroyed.  Sometimes people remained but lived a poorer life, other times they moved elsewhere or simply died out.

(see 3.4 How Knowledge Was Transmitted)

 

·         The Han Dynasty collapsed about 220 CE and after a period of disruption China flourished under the Song dynasty from about 1000 CE to 1300 CE, leading the world in government, widespread affluence, science, technology and culture, including high rates of literacy and numeracy, until it collapsed because of epidemics, invasion and leadership failures.

·         After 300 CE the Roman empire became “Christian”, then split, about 400 CE, into the Western and Eastern halves largely because of leadership succession disputes, and subsequently collapsed, leaving the western half “Catholic” and the eastern half “Orthodox”.  Christianity spread by the sword into the less settled parts of Europe, such as Germany. 

·         Around 400 CE the Huns from central Asia created a large but short lived Eurasian empire from the Pacific to eastern and northern Europe. This empire eventually split due to fights over the leadership succession and evolved into local principalities.

·         Around 600 CE the Muslim Caliphate spread from Arabia, also initially by the sword, through the Middle East and northern Africa into Spain. becoming the centre for scientific and cultural development in western Eurasia until about 1600 CE.  Decades after their military defeat, the conquered populations gradually, voluntarily, converted to Islam.  Islam split into Sunni and Shiite branches shortly after Mohammed’s death because of a dispute over the leadership succession.

·         From about 1200 CE the Mongolian empire begun by Temujin (Genghis Khan) spread out from the Eurasian steppes across China to eastern Europe, devastating many cities, cowering many into submission.  By the late 1300s this empire was splitting because of disputes over succession and the Mongols assimilated into the native culture of their captured territories.

·         In the late 1300s the Timurids (another group of Mongols initially led by a Muslim Timur the Lame) established an empire in central Asia, and one of its offshoots was the Mughal empire in northern India which lasted from around 1500 CE until the British occupied India. 

·         The Ottoman empire began in Turkey around 1300 CE, spread across the middle east, north Africa and eastern Europe, then gradually contracted in the 1800s and collapsed in the 1920s after World War I, leaving Turkey as its heritage.