Lessons learned from the history of the world
Autor: Bruno T. C. | Publicado: 2017-02-16T18:46:00-02:00


I have recently read these two books by Susan Wise Bauer. They are amazing books. Above all, I loved how she organized them in short chapters that follow a chronological order but jump geographically from one civilization to the other. So, for example, you get a view of how Guptas in India were faring at the same time Constantine was at the helm of the Roman Empire.

I also loved the wealth of sources cited. I wonder how it was even possible to use those sources in the most diverse languages. The story is well written in a captivating way, with just the right touch of humor.

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Beyond the amusing reading experience, covering such a long span of time, covering the whole planet allows to reach a few conclusions about human communities:


Leadership matters: it is remarkable how the alternance of power means that a thriving civilization or state starts declining with a number of mistakes by the new leader. A string of weak leaders can lead to the complete demise of an empire. Constantinople almost fell to the Persians under emperor Phocas, but Heraclius was able to rally the people in an impressive reaction. It was very rare to see an empire that created an effective administrative structure to maintain stability regardless of the ruler - my only memory of such structure in all the books is in some moments of Imperial China.
Culture matters: Christianity in Constantine's Rome, Hinduism in India, Buddhism in Asia, Islam across much of the Old World - faith was routinely enlisted to create a sense of community to the peoples under one ruler. Founding myths in China or Japan or several other peoples everywhere, even when clearly invented (as one of the books describes Japan's) also serve the same purpose. Royal blood lines proved incredibly effective at unifying a people around a ruler, even when he was very weak or ineffective or even catastrophic.
From the combination of the two, people create the weirdest power arrangements: common strong military or political leaders climbed to absolute power. Fine. But across geographies, across civilizations, they lacked legitimacy and had to resort to figurehead rulers with the right royal lineage. Examples include: Mayors of the Palace as regents to Frankish king; Turkish slaves to caliphs; generals to Chinese emperors; Shoguns and Shinkens and cloistered emperors to the seating emperor in Japan.
The world is a brutal place: across the two books how many children with royal claims do we see brutally mutilated or killed? How many cities razed, with tens or hundreds of thousands of dead? Bodies covering waterways after a battle? We may get the sense that the post-WWII period is the new normal for mankind, but that is too short a period to reach such permanent conclusions. History is full of peaceful periods that suddenly end with new wars.
Peace drives intellectual progress: caliph Rashid, Charlemagne, the Southern Song dynasty oversaw periods of calm and peace and relative scientific and cultural progress.
Nations fail, sometimes they rise again: rulers go to war and lose territory, lose lives of thousands and even their own. Above all, they burn money like crazy and make their states bankrupt. Enemies conquer their territories. Civilizations end. The Romans fell in Rome and Constantinople. Sometimes they rise again. The Southern Song were conquered by the Mongols but the Ming drove them back and restored the Chinese civilization.