![]() ![]() When I was growing up, the technical superiority of China up until about 1500 CE was never mentioned, hardly even known. Now no longer as sure about where we’re heading, we want to look again, afresh, at where we have been, if only to provide us with some clues. History is a bit more interesting, a bit more open, a bit more unpredictable. A few enthusiastic prognostications aside, the rise of China, and the political convulsions and economic stagnation of the West over recent decades have seen history veer off the path that so many - especially twentieth-century Westerners - believed it was stuck on. First, history is no longer in the business of converging on London or Washington. There are any number of reasons for this turn in historical events, but two strike me as particularly relevant. Their efforts sell well, if not quite in biblical proportions. Of late, however, this sacred mantle has been assumed by historians whose narratives like to begin with the origins of life, the formation of the earth or even the moment of the Big Bang. For millennia, holy texts and epic poems have led listeners from horizon to temporal horizon, explaining who we are, where we came from, and where we’re going. Humans have always liked the big picture. ![]()
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