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EUROPE a cultural history (book summary)
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MKDA cultural history reading guide
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The Cultural Dimension of Europe Summary
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Cultural Dimension of Europe, summary of the Rietbergen book AND slides (for ES students at THUAS, article summary included) 2019-2020
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Before “Europe”the “birth of Europe” and the Greek “world-view”, or how to
define one’s own culture
the Greeks considered the Mediterranean to be, literally, the centre of all
lands. The sea that divided the two-known world: Asia, the world of the
rising sun.
they held certain ideas about their own culture which reflected a mental
mechanism found all over the world; most culture define civilization -
normality and identity-.
The ancient Greeks felt that Africa was black and uncivilized, except for
Egypt. Europe and the islands whose shores are lapped by the sea was
the most civilized and consequently, it was thought, the strongest region.
It was strong because civilization was concentrated in free, independent
and at least according to Greek political and cultural propaganda,
democratic city states which between them maintained a balance of
power. These states, sharing the same language, Greek, and the same
religious and cultural traditions, consisted Hellas, not a political structure
nor, indeed, a specific geographical entity but a cultural community, a
civilization.
The name Europe was coined in a mythical story about the rape of the
maiden Europe, a Phoenician princess, who was abducted by the father of
the gods, Zeus, and taken to Crete.
The alphabet had been a Phoenician invention. And of course, Plato wrote
admiringly about the religious and philosophical ideas of Egypt.
In Africa and Asia, the situation was different: there, temperature was
more even, and warmer, too causing body part were indolent and
inactive, easily led by tyrannical kings and emperors. In short, they were
different, foreign. This was expressed in their language, too: they spoke
no Greek. They were “babblers”, “barbarians”.
For while the Greek poleis (city/castle) acquired their character as
independent powers, several empires came into existence in Asia minor
which threatened that very independence.
As a result of the necessity to militarily confront the Persians greatly
helped to create a national Greek identity. Still, In the end even the great
alliances between the Greek city states set up on Athens initiative were
unable to withstand the force of events, the more so because time and
time again the poleis mutual jealousy opened the way for foreign
influences.
1
,The world of Alexander the Great
in the fourth century BC, a young man ascended the throne of Macedonia.
Alexander the great (356-323 BC) had been raised in the best traditions of
classical Athens by his teacher Aristotle. After succeeding to the throne,
he followed in his father’s expansionist footsteps, conquering not only the
whole of Greece proper but also the Greek world of Asia minor, the trading
cities of the Levant, Egypt and large parts of the Persian empire.
Alexander had founded many cities there and, indeed, had brought the
essence of civilization to these regions, giving them the Greek language
and the values cherished by the Greeks, such as love for one’s parents.
Alexanders empire did not last. After his untimely death, his generals
divided the spoils. This resulted in a civilization which has been called
Hellenistic (a mixture of elements from Greek culture and the pre-existing
traditions of those regions). Through the stability alexander created,
future generations would continue to travel (to absorb new ideas). Thus,
from the fourth century BC onwards, the life of the urban elites in the
world around the eastern Mediterranean was altered. Many adopted both
the Greek language and the Greek literary tradition as well as Greek art.
The world of the polis was past. The time of the “cosmopolitan”, the
“citizen of the world”, had come. A new culture emerged. From its birth in
331 BC, Alexandria, in the Nile delta, became an international port, the
most prosperous city in the Mediterranean.
From the third century BC, trade from the Persian Gulf across the deserts
of the near east, but even more though the Indian ocean and up the red
sea, brought the wealth of Asia to Alexandria. In Alexandria, this
interference between cultures, in this cosmopolis, where great riches were
stored, the phenomena known as libraries and museums first came into
existence. It was precisely the threat “museion”, museum, library and
university at the same time, the Homeric tradition was first researched
and where Euclid (300 BC) wrote his textbook on mathematics, elements.
It was the town whose school of medicine was famous all over the
Hellenistic world.
Galen → first doctor to describe the circulation of the blood.
Politically, this Hellenistic world was soon threatened by the armies of the
nascent roman empire which, starting in the second century BC, crossed
the borders of the Italian peninsula and within two centuries conquered all
lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Being a “free men” remained a
powerful background thought.
2
,Rome and its empire
In the twenty-second century BC, when the first Greeks settles on the
Peloponnese, tribes speaking an Indo-European language and probably
coming in from the near east or central Asia had entered Italy, settling in
the centre of the peninsula. They are now called Latins.
Their societies developed in the fertile region between present-day
Florence and Rome; they organized themselves in independent city-states
in which a warrior aristocracy ruled the older, indigenous population. In
the eighth and seventh centuries BC, they succeeded in expanding both
toward and southward. Their power was result of their wealth, which was
based on trade in metalwork and pottery; the quality of their
craftsmanship was such that their products were in great demand all over
the Mediterranean. The Etruscan elite, eager for the products of Greek
culture in southern Italy, soon adopted alphabetic writing as well.
Aristocracy is a form of government in which the rule is in the hands of
the most important in society, the so-called "aristocrats". Generally,
within an aristocracy, membership is hereditary. The Greek origin of the
word suggests the meaning: ruled by the best.
Etruscan-kings rules Rome for more than a century is an often-tense
partnership with a local aristocracy which was united in an advisory board,
the Senate. By the sixth century BC, the Etruscan-roman community
became fully urban, adopting the characteristics of the southern Italian
Greek poleis. Aristocrats, known as patricians, based their power on
property ownership; as “patrons” they relied on the backing of their
“clients”, a group of dependent farmers. The remaining population of free
citizens, mostly traders and artisans, were known as plebeians.
The Etruscans formed a population group with its own language, Etruscan
and its own religion and culture.
In about 500 BC – the official date given is the year 509 – the patricians
forcibly expelled their Etruscan overlords. Rome became an oligarchic
republic, ruled by two magistrates, or consuls, chosen annually from the
ranks of the patricians who, assembled in the senate, now formed the
republic’s governing body. Rome was certainly not a democracy of equal
citizens. Indeed, the Roman Republic mainly guaranteed the rights
(liberates) and the property of the aristocracy their retainers enjoyed only
limited rights.
Rome began to establish colonies in strategic positions in conquered
areas, partly to relieve the pressure of a growing population in the city
itself. Thus, in the fifth, fourth and third centuries BC, a process of
romanization began, which imposed both the language and other cultural
elements of the “URBS”, “the town”, as it proudly called itself, on the
entire region.
3
, Rome itself political and social tension grew with expansion. Not only did
wealthy plebeians demand access to power, the whole non governing
population now insisted on written laws to protect them against
magisterial arbitrariness. Power lay in the hands of the de facto
administrators, the nobles, who continued their oligarchic government
through their experience in and monopolization of bureaucracy
manipulating the electorate with all available means.
When the elder Cato (234-149 BC), one of Rome’s most influential
statesmen, decided to throw a handful of ripe figs at the feet of his fellow
senators, he did so to underscore the message he had been proclaiming
for some time: “cartage must be destroyed”, both for its wealth as the
centre of north African agriculture and for its commercial and political hold
over the western sea. From 264 BC onwards, the two cities had been at
war. The prize was supremacy over the Mediterranean, over trade and the
riches that consolidation and further expansion would bring. In 202 BC, a
decisive, though by no means final battle was fought; the Carthaginian
general Hannibal was defeated, and the road now lay open for Rome’s
rule over the western Mediterranean. This only provided a challenge for
further expansion. Its expansion brought about the growing power and
wealth of the city that was its centre and its symbol. More and more
people migrated to the Urbs in search of fame and fortune. The majority
of the town’s population was poor, the more so as the roman economy
remained largely artisanal, not branching out into large-scale industries.
This led to new tensions, especially manifest in food supply. The
aristocrats took advantage of this situation. Some were principled in their
use of such “bought votes, sincerely wanting to bring about political ad
social change; other only seemed intent on increasing their own power in
122 BC, it was decided that the state was to subsidize food supplies for
the population and in 58 BC free distribution of food was instituted.
From 91 BC, civil wars raged almost uninterruptedly, coming to an end
only when the aristocratic general Gaius Julius Caesar took power. Having
appointed himself as a dictator, however, he was murdered in 44 BC by a
group of aristocrats who, as as to be expected, wanted to regain their
class’s precious position. Chaos ruled until power was seized by Gaius
Octavius, who had the support of the army, which honoured him as
Caesar’s cousin and adoptive son, and of a sizeable proportion of the old
aristocracy, who were not willing to trade their former independence for
law and order but also hoped to retain some of their power under an
aristocratic leader. Yet, in 27 BC, he let himself be “forced” by the Senate
to accept the tile of Augustus, the “Exalted one”. His successors are
simply known as the Roman emperors.
Form an informal to formal empire
The empire’s weaknesses slowly began to appear. The countryside was
covered by army camps and fortified villea, manor houses that were also
4
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