Transcript Roots of the West - AdvWorldHistory

Roots of the West
I. What is the West. . .
• Emphasis on Europe and America.
• Includes Western Europe, North America,
Australia, and even parts of South America
belongs to the “Western Tradition”
• Has ideas and elements that are
thousands of years old.
II. Chronology and Periods
"Ancient" "Classical", "Medieval", "Early Modern", and " Modern“
Ancient = all of history before 500 CE {"CE"
means "common era" "BCE" means "Before the
Common Era".)
• Classical = Periods in ancient history which
produced art and literature where later
generations derived its inspiration. It includes
Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, and
Rome in the first century BCE and the first
century CE.
• Medieval = European history between about 500 and
1500 CE
• Early Modern = European history from about 1400 to
1789, and the French Revolution.
• Modern = History since the French, American and
Industrial revolutions in the late 18th century.
• These definitions are centered on Europe. They do not
apply to other parts of the world because other parts of
the world are on their own schedule of development
III. Egypt and Mesopotamia
• Egypt - c. 4000 BC
Longest continuous civilization
• Contributions:
• -Religious ideas- Polytheism
-Architecture
-Math, especially geometry
• Mesopotamia - also c. 4000 BC - in Iraqincludes the cultures of cultures of
Sumeria, Babylonia, and Assyria
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•
Contributions
-Writing- “Code of Hammurabi”- first
written legal code
-Numbers - use of base 12 - in time (we
still use 12 hour periods for days)
-Astronomy and Astrology
These cultures influence us through two
ways
-through the Jews and through the Greeks
IV. The People of Israel
• The Jews are the only ancient people that exist
• Took ideas from Egypt and Mesopotamia
-e.g. the creation story, the flood story.
• Contributions
• Monotheism - Belief in one caring God.
Unity of cult and ethics
• A belief in history – sense of the future
• Jews wrote the Bible (Old Testament specifically- Most read book in
the world -parts are at least 3000 years old.
• The Bible is one of the chief sources of western culture
These IDEAS pass into Christianity and Islam.
V. Greece
• A major source of Western IDEAS.
Ideas more important than details
of its history- survive in literature
and art:-
• From around 750BC.
Homer: The Iliad and The Odyssey
•
The idea of ORDERED COSMOS vital in Western ideas about
science and God.
Invention of writing - for everyone
Greek Contributors
• Thales of Miletus - asked for the first time what the
world was made of - water - SCIENCE
• Athens - The People, Democracy, natural art,
• Socrates: People as morally autonomous
• Plato - Asked most of the Philosophical Questions -how
do we know what we know.
• Aristotle - Introduces observation into science.
• Alexander the Great - c. 300BC. Conquers the whole
Eastern Mediterranean. Greek ideas, and the Greek
language dominate the area.
VI. Rome - Always a Western
city.
• Started to rise in influence around 300BCE
• By year 1 CE, unified the Mediterranean
•
into one state.
All elites spoke either Greek or Latin.
•
•
•
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Contributions
Latin- Alphabet
Took ideas from Greece
Roman Law is still the basis of laws in
most of Europe.
• US law derives from English Law, but that
also is influenced by Rome.
• The ideal of Unity and the Universal state
VII. Christianity
• Jesus Christ. Born c.6BC, d.
c. 33AD.Founder of
Christianity.
• St. Paul, A Greek-speaking
Jew and main apostle of the
Faith. United Jewish and
Greek ideas in Christianity.
• Christianity becomes religion
of Mediterranean area c.
400.
VII. The collapse of the
Classical World
• The Mediterranean was a united cultural
area. When this collapsed it led to the
development of the "West".
• Roman Empire:
– Invasions from the outside
– Economic problems internally.
– Splits into the Western and Eastern Empires in
330CE
Byzantium
• The Empire in the East continued, based in
•
Constantinople.
It was Christian and Roman and Greek.
• Most obvious heir to the culture of the Classical
world- Greek language and artistic style
• The Byzantine Empire lasts until 1453- Invasion of
Constantinople by Islam
• Its culture still dominates Eastern Europe and
Russia, through Orthodoxy.
Islam
• The religion of Arab townsmen.
• Led by Mohammad (d. c. 640, Hijira 622).
• They swept out of the Arabian peninsula.
• Over time took control of all North Africa, Egypt, Anatolia
(under the Turks) and for a time Spain.
•
•
•
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Islam is an heir to Classical civilization.
Mathematics from Mesopotamia,
Philosophy from the Greeks
Monotheism from the Jews.
Western Empire
• Latin Christendom- Dominated by Barbarians
(outsiders)- France, Spain, Italy, Britain, Germany.
• The least developed of the three cultures
• Dominated by the Church of Rome.
• It was a Latin reading and speaking world. i.e "Latin
Christendom."
• This area became the West.
VIII. The Western Middle
Ages
• A. From around 600 to 1000 AD conditions were
fairly bleak.
Around 800 Charlemagne.
Most people lived on the land. Subsistence farming.
No towns larger than around 10,000 .
• B. 1050 - Latin Christendom comes to life.
• States begin to pull themselves together
England, France, Germany (for a time)
Concept of Kingship and what a king should be and do
• Crusades - Westerners attack both Byzantium and Islam
in order to conquer Jerusalem. They succeed for a time.
• -Architecture develops.
• Intellectual Life -
great writers like St. Thomas Aquinas (13th. C.)
• Christianity becomes more like it is today.
– Devotion to Mary
– Mass.
– Development of all the religious orders.
• Art and Music
• Economically - From around 1050 a Commercial revolution.
– Money starts to be used instead of barter
– Trade starts up in local areas and far distant areas.
– Westerners even get as far as China.
• In the Middle Ages- origin of a specifically Western
civilization, based on the Western lands of the entire
continent.