Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by chrisco255 2492 days ago
Oh, sure, I'm not arguing that Europe was less tumultuous than China. There were many, many schisms, and wars however. Had some of these civil wars or invasions from Mongolia, Japan, etc within China had gone a different way, they could have ended up as fractured as ancient Rome.

Here's a few hundred wars that occurred during the past couple millennia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_wars_and_battl...
1 comments
dredmorbius 2492 days ago
Quantitative assessment's a poor qualitative metric at best, and I've not done a tally, but conflict's not been unknown in Europe either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe
link
chrisco255 2491 days ago
I'm not disputing that. I'm arguing that China's history hasn't been some "straight line" since 4000 B.C. It's been a very rocky road.
link
dredmorbius 2491 days ago
And I'm saying it's been a continuous curve, straight or not.

The language, culture, identity, philosophical and religious beliefs, government, urban centres, technologies, currency, writing systems, etc., have persisted in a largely unbroken continuum or chain. There are points at which one or the other makes some jump from one form to another, but there's never been a wholesale wipe of one system to another. Over a period of 4,000 years of recorded history and arguably going back even further.

The West has nothing comparable to offer. Not in Egypt, not in Mesopotamia, not in Rome, not in England, not in France, not in Germany, not in Scandinavia. Maybe in Persia or India. Vietnam may have an older continuous civilisation. Japan does not, though it comes close.

The opening sentence of an arbitrarily selected webpage on ancient China makes this case: "Ancient China produced what has become the oldest extant culture in the world."

https://www.ancient.eu/china/

To be clear: I'm not some defender of the present regime in China. I'm only casually aware of its general history, geography, and culture. But as I study it the vastness of the culture, in both time and space, has impressed the hell out of me. And it seems that this isn't as widly known or appreciated as it could be.

link