meanlittlechimp
04-28-2008, 12:39 PM
Can anyone here who was educated in India, China, Japan etc, tell me what you've been taught that you think Westerners wrongly get credit for?
I always assumed everything was pretty much invented in the West, except for gunpowder, paper, etc, But beyond these cliches, almost everything else is given credit to the West during the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
I was surprised to learn, after high school, that Copernicus was NOT the first to discover the revolves around the sound, and rather Indian astronomer Aryabhata did thousands of years earlier. Steel was invented in China over 1,500 years earlier than the west. de Gama was not the first to sail around Cape Horn, several Muslims and Chinese did it regularly and a Muslim navigator actually guided him throughout the process.
Can anyone here add to this? or debunk anything else?
Started this book yesterday that is pretty interesting and wondered what people educated in other parts of the world are taught...
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The argument that is becoming more common amongst historians, is that China went through an industrial revolution before Europe did, which lead to a global economy that stretched from Japan and Malaysia all the way to Italy and Egypt; and many of the "western" ideas were actually diffused from the East. There is significant evidence that these ideas like printing, heliocentric model of the solar system etc, were simply passed through the Europeans, rather than being re-invented or re-discovered. Memes used to travel more slowly back then, but they did move in a global fashion; and there was significant contact between East and West, even before the Silk Road, according to many historians. There is evidence of fairly large Jewish settlements in China before 1000AD.
Printing was not invented by Guttenberg as is typically claimed, and was invented in China 700 years earlier, and metal moveable type was invented in Korea 100 years before Guttenberg. Iron clad ships were invented before the Merrimac and Monitor.
The superiority of their agricultural technology led them to have urban areas with 2 - 5 million people in the 6th century. While Paris didn't have more than 1 million until the 20th century. Asia had cities that numbered over 600,000 in 300 BC, while the entire Roman empire was barely over 100,000 at the same time.
The typical paradigm for modern science is Greece -> Rome -> Europe/America.
This above view seems like a simplistic one and discounts pre-Greek contributions to Greek thought (Persian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, Bablyonian etc) as well as Eastern thought on "western" development in more modern times.
Here are some links for anyone interested:
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Ok since no one else is interested in topic, I'll just post for posterity's sake. Some intj will stumble across this site, who will.
I met this kid in college who transferred from the US Naval Academy who told me about these "turtle" ships. In the 16th century, the Korean Navy defeated the much larger Japanese Armada of over 1,000 ships (each one 5 times larger than the largest British ships during the 18th century); with a handful of boats (which held less than 50 men each), who's design sounds inspired from a cartoon.
These turtles ships had several unique features:
[] first iron clad ship
[] spikes on the exterior turtle "shell" to impale enemies when attempting to board
[] A steel dragon head at the helm that was used to ram enemy ships, and sink them by knocking holes in their hulls
[] Flame thrower weapon that shot out of the same dragon head - to burn down enemy ships made out of wood. A dragon head breathing fire? The extra work to make the elaborate dragon head is superfluous, but cool in a comic book kind of way.
[] modified canons that shot large ballista type projectiles that had more range and accuracy than the typical canonballs of the era (that the Japanese and Chinese used)
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
I always assumed everything was pretty much invented in the West, except for gunpowder, paper, etc, But beyond these cliches, almost everything else is given credit to the West during the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
I was surprised to learn, after high school, that Copernicus was NOT the first to discover the revolves around the sound, and rather Indian astronomer Aryabhata did thousands of years earlier. Steel was invented in China over 1,500 years earlier than the west. de Gama was not the first to sail around Cape Horn, several Muslims and Chinese did it regularly and a Muslim navigator actually guided him throughout the process.
Can anyone here add to this? or debunk anything else?
Started this book yesterday that is pretty interesting and wondered what people educated in other parts of the world are taught...
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
The argument that is becoming more common amongst historians, is that China went through an industrial revolution before Europe did, which lead to a global economy that stretched from Japan and Malaysia all the way to Italy and Egypt; and many of the "western" ideas were actually diffused from the East. There is significant evidence that these ideas like printing, heliocentric model of the solar system etc, were simply passed through the Europeans, rather than being re-invented or re-discovered. Memes used to travel more slowly back then, but they did move in a global fashion; and there was significant contact between East and West, even before the Silk Road, according to many historians. There is evidence of fairly large Jewish settlements in China before 1000AD.
Printing was not invented by Guttenberg as is typically claimed, and was invented in China 700 years earlier, and metal moveable type was invented in Korea 100 years before Guttenberg. Iron clad ships were invented before the Merrimac and Monitor.
The superiority of their agricultural technology led them to have urban areas with 2 - 5 million people in the 6th century. While Paris didn't have more than 1 million until the 20th century. Asia had cities that numbered over 600,000 in 300 BC, while the entire Roman empire was barely over 100,000 at the same time.
The typical paradigm for modern science is Greece -> Rome -> Europe/America.
This above view seems like a simplistic one and discounts pre-Greek contributions to Greek thought (Persian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, Bablyonian etc) as well as Eastern thought on "western" development in more modern times.
Here are some links for anyone interested:
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ok since no one else is interested in topic, I'll just post for posterity's sake. Some intj will stumble across this site, who will.
I met this kid in college who transferred from the US Naval Academy who told me about these "turtle" ships. In the 16th century, the Korean Navy defeated the much larger Japanese Armada of over 1,000 ships (each one 5 times larger than the largest British ships during the 18th century); with a handful of boats (which held less than 50 men each), who's design sounds inspired from a cartoon.
These turtles ships had several unique features:
[] first iron clad ship
[] spikes on the exterior turtle "shell" to impale enemies when attempting to board
[] A steel dragon head at the helm that was used to ram enemy ships, and sink them by knocking holes in their hulls
[] Flame thrower weapon that shot out of the same dragon head - to burn down enemy ships made out of wood. A dragon head breathing fire? The extra work to make the elaborate dragon head is superfluous, but cool in a comic book kind of way.
[] modified canons that shot large ballista type projectiles that had more range and accuracy than the typical canonballs of the era (that the Japanese and Chinese used)
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.