Reasons for European dominance (1 Viewer)

[Dave2007]

For my history extension I'm investigating historical perspectives on why "Eurasian cultures and societies tended to dominate and outlast those of other cultures" between the roman empire til ww2.

It's something I'm interested in, a good question I think as there are lots of perspectives, debate between historians and its controversial. I'm looking at it from the perspectives of different "types" of historiography, e.g. why economic historians think it happen, to why racist aryans think it happen, to "social historians" who challenge it happened at all as societies have different values. I became interested in it after reading Diamonds "Guns, germs and steel".

ANYWAY, after that boring description, what do people think? Will it work? Does anyone have any ideas, books they have read, etc... that will help me? Want to discuss it? And fianlly does anyone have any tips for the "proposal" which is due just after start of term?

Cheers

 

[hitachi88]

First of all, I'm sure you realise the area you are covering is MUCH TOO BIG.
But then at this stage, this is PERFECT as you should be aiming for BIG, and then slowly refining it down to EXACTLY what you want.

I'm a little confused about your description of Eurasian; are we talking about the Chinese Dynasty, the Russian Republics (such as Novograd Republic, etc), Hungary, Poland, OR are we talking about BOTH Europe and Asia; in which case you will also be focusing on the traditional Catholic countries like France, England, HOly Roman Empire, Italian states and so on.

Which culture are you saying Eurasians OUTLAST??? And what does Outlast exactly mean?
ARe we talking about political outlast? Because the Egyptians may be an 'old civilization', but their political structure has long been torn apart and ruled by foreign leaders.
Or are we talking about social outlast? Because although the Romans are long dead and buried, their culture influences our 21st century society in a wide variety of ways.

Surprisingly, the best place to start is not to start digging at literature/historical masterpieces such as Machiavelli's The Prince, but rather, start reading everything you can on Wikipedia.

OF course, you should also make a Word Document, and save it as 'vital reading list', and start storing the titles of good books you need to read once you have refined your research area little better.

An excellent and fun idea.

 

[Dave2007]

You seem to have hit the nail on the head that, yeah, I'm keeping things pretty general.

When I say "Eurasian" and "outlast" I'm referring to what is sort of the common consensus - that it wasnt the people of europe and asia having particularly good societies or being genetically superior that led to them (generally) being the societies that have survived the longest, or conquered other societies when they came across each other. Most argue it was geographic factors - such as the better ground for agriculture, the fact some places had horses and dogs etc... that led to these societies sticking around the longest (either physically, or their social structures).

So basically "Eurasian" refers to the societies on the eurasian continent with these advantages - from the roman empire, to china, to the western european nations. And "outlast" refers to their ability to defeat other peoples they come across, and to stay around for the longest period of time (physically, or their society/art/culture etc...)

Where the historiography comes in is how other people argue against this basic tenent, and why.

For example all those coutnries you mentioned, like China, or Rome, people have different opinions on why they became dominant. Some people would argue Han China was really kick-ass in terms of technology, progress, happiness etc... due to the geographic advantages. However they barely conquered any other societies when they could have. Some historians may argue this is a "waste" (and then you may find those historians were brought up, in, say british colonies) while others that it was just part of thier society not to ride off into the middle east conquering nations (and you may find that person is a hippie social historian)

So anyway thats why i think itll work.

Also, you say its too big....how so? Should i just focus on one sort of really contentious issue ? (colonising middle america is one)

And yeah, i have done a fair bit of wikipedia reading lol.

 

[hitachi88]

When you are at this stage, it's always fun to think you are KING and can do everything; but as you start researching in DEPTH you realise theres a LOT, and when you actually start writing/drafting your essay, you will soon realise it's unmanageable.

It is MUCH BETTER to focus on ONE TINY topic and go extremely deep, then to go do a VERY BIG topic, and only offer a brief analysis.

Let me share with you a bit of experience. Personally, I did my essay in 2006 on

A study into the interpretations of German Blitzkrieg employed during Operation Fall WeiB and Operation Gelb

And that started off as an extremely general:

Army Tactics World War II and World War I
Tank Tactics of WWII
German Tank Tactics of WWII
German Tank Tactics of WWII, Early Campaign
German Tank Tactics of WWII, Against Poland France Low Countries

And that's how I arrived at my topic;; and then of course theres the whole process of selecting sources. I ended up analyzing about 250; 50 historians, about 200 primary sources. Of course, so many sources not necessary at all, and infact when I finished my essay it was about 50,000 words. I then had to cut it down EXTENSIVELY, meaning my final work I had to simplify many of my arguments while cutting out others completely.

And this of course meant LESS DEPTH.

And depth is preferred to breadth.