Despite the world’s intense interconnectedness and constant global interaction, a Eurocentric ideology was born at the height of European colonization that exaggerated the idea of European exceptionalism. With this ideology a great dichotomy was formed between two fictional entities, “the west” and “the rest.” This distinction between two entities soon became a module by which all cultures were measured and compared. The origin of this dichotomy evolved from Europe’s early technological advances, including shipbuilding and railroad industries that helped advance colonization and global trade. Consequently, this advancement gave the Europeans an air of invented superiority believing that Europeans brought with them order and civility to all …show more content…
In the 16th century Europe was believed to be one of the most culturally developed and important regions of the world. The geographic formation of Europe served as the foundation of its so-called political and military success. Due to its “fractured [landscape] with [its] mountain ranges and large forests separating the scattered population centers in the valleys” (Kennedy, 1987:17) Europe existed in “political fragmentation,” (Kennedy, 1987:17) where pockets of societies ruled themselves. This “decentralized power” (Kennedy, 1987:17) sparked military and free-market arm races that forced societies to compete with each other and consequently, produce greater material wealth than that of other regions. Kennedy (1987) states, “France and England had gained an artillery monopoly at home” and the strong ships accelerated Europe’s position of global power as the vessels allowed the control of entire trading routes. Moreover, an idea of European dominance was exercised in colonized populations such as Mexico where colonizers setup “imperial administration, building churches, and engaging in ranching and mining” (27) and treated “Latin America [as] a European Business” (Galeano, 35), exploiting Mexico’s natural resources in order to “[stimulate] Europe’s economic development”(Galeano, 33). Altogether, European success in …show more content…
Primary sources are collected and analyzed in history to gain a better understanding of past events. A primary source is a physical object, including original documents, creative works, or artifacts, which was created during the time of study. These sources provide an insider’s perspective on a particular event. In Ghosh’s In an Antique Land， letters, artifacts and other primary sources were used in to investigate the “slave of MS H.6,” moreover, through his discussions with members living in Egyptian society, Ghosh was able to discover more about slavery in the early 12th century. The language in primary sources is a “highly organized and encoded system, which employs many devices to express, indicate, exchange messages and information, represent, and so forth” (Said, 1995:53), thus the language can alter true fact and include unintentional bias. Moreover, sources including Cortés’s reports of his conquests are “splendid fictions, marked by political elisions, omissions, inventions, and a transparent desire to impress Charles of Spain” (Clendinnen, 68). These documents therefore tell us little about the historical reality, but “may tell us most readily about story-making proclivities, and so take us into the cultural world of the story maker” (Clendinnen:1991: 67). Hence, the idea of European dominance is not objective reality. But the question must be posed; can history be
In Matthew Restall’s book The Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, he argues that many of the widely accepted modern beliefs about the Spanish Conquest are misguided or skewed. These myths more importantly show how dependent history is on the perspective of the one who is writing it, and how the writer perceives the events happening around them. One example, is the myth of white Spaniards going to a foreign land on the decree of a king and finding barbarous natives who are inferior to these so-called great men. Using documentation written from both sides, and taking into account the context of the time period, Restall explores the myths of the Spanish Conquest in order to frame a less romanticized, well-rounded view of what actually happened
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal. "The True History of the Conquest of New Spain." In Sources of Making of the West, by Katarine J. Lualdi, 269-273. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.
European views of non European people reflect the intellectual changes from 1760s to the 1910s. European views of non-European people in the 1760s through 1910s were largely based off of the idea of survival of the fittest, the education of the non-europeans to Europeans, and the thought of Europeans as being superior. These three factors show how intellectual changes in Europe shape the way Europeans viewed non-europeans.
Of the text named Bartolome de las casas: In Defense of the Indians(c.1550) it covers what is to be the Spanish Conquistadores, and talks of the natives to which at the time seen by many are barbaric, ignorant, incapable of learning, just another group of people to be conquered. But to the Catholic missionaries they see the Natives as new people to influence and enlighten. But if at any time the person drops the belief of Christianity they would use deadly force against the person or family. Adding to that Hernán comments that their cities are “ worth of admiration because of its building, which are like those of Venice”(Poole 4). While the argument remain if really would the Natives had stood a chance what
John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe, Volume 1, (London, New York). Class Notes Class Documents HI 4712 Class Readings HI 4712
Looking back into the history of certain events affords the modern researcher the ability to examine a variety of documents and artifacts. It is important, however, to take into account biases, inaccuracies, errors in translation, and overall misinformation when examining primary sources, particularly historical documents. Examining the history of the conquest of the Aztec empire is no different, and in a scenario as tense as it was it is extremely important to consider the authorship of the text. Bernal Diaz’ The Conquest of New Spain and Miguel Leon-Portilla’s The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico offer two distinct looks into the same event in history. Both documents offer differing takes of the same events, so when
The period 1550 to 1660 was a period of extreme dislocation and major change, within which saw periods boom and bust in various regions across Europe. This was followed by a much quieter period in the later 17th century that most economic historians would call recessionary. Along with the religious consequences of the Reformation and Counter Reformation came deep and lasting political changes. Northern Europe’s new religious and political freedoms came at a great cost, with decades of rebellions, wars and bloody
Conquests--- the art of obtaining power and authority through means of military forces--- have been adopted and practiced throughout the history of America for centuries. Similar to how two art paintings have resemblances and differences when replicated by different artists, the conquests of Sundiata and Cortés both share commonalities as well as a fair share of respective distinctions. In Djibril Tamsir Niane’s Sundiata: Epic of Old Mali and Bernal Díaz’s The Conquest of New Spain, the narrator’s arguments within each account display a ray of more similarities in regards to the conquests’ successes of Sundiata and Cortés compared to that of their differences.
“The Conquest of New Spain” is the first hand account of Bernal Diaz (translated by J.M. Cohen) who writes about his personal accounts of the conquest of Mexico by himself and other conquistadors beginning in 1517. Unlike other authors who wrote about their first hand accounts, Diaz offers a more positive outlook of the conquest and the conquistadors motives as they moved through mainland Mexico. The beginning chapters go into detail about the expeditions of some Spanish conquistadors such as Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, Juan de Grijalva and Hernando Cotes. This book, though, focuses mainly on Diaz’s travels with Hernando Cortes. Bernal Diaz’s uses the idea of the “Just War Theory” as his argument for why the conquests were justifiable
The term “ethnocentrism,” meaning the sense of taken-for-granted superiority in the context of cultural practices and attitudes, described the way Europeans looked at their “culture” as though they were superior to all others. Westerns even stated that non-Westerns had no culture and that they were inferior to the culture that was building in Europe.
It is an attempt to assert Spanish power beyond land and in Latin American culture, primarily religion, itself. In this essay, I will discuss how, because most of our history of colonial Latin America is told from the point of view of the Spanish victors, there is an unavoidable bias in our understanding of what results in the change not destruction of Andean culture, but the Andean perspective is not completely
The Great Divergence is term used to portray the gradual shift of dominance that Europe gained by establishing itself as the most powerful world civilization by the 19th century. While a case could be made that the Great Divergence occurred because of the pre-eminence of Europe and Britain, as well as their supposed superiority in invention and innovation above anywhere else in the world, this argument is flawed. A more compelling argument would be to state that it was rather through the geographical advantages that Europe obtained that lead it into eventually becoming the most powerful civilization after 1500 A.D., as this essay will strive to demonstrate.
Analysing The West: Unique, Not Universal. Throughout history, Western civilization has been an emerging force behind change in foreign societies. This is the concept that is discussed in the article, the West Unique, Not Universal, written by Samuel Huntington. The author makes a very clear thesis statement and uses a variety of evidence to support it. This article has a very convincing point.
The Western culture has evolved over a span of several years with various civilizations specializing in specific aspects of life or nature. In essence, Western civilization dates back to the BCE periods when Ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Rome reigned. Each of the Western civilizations came with a clear lineage that portrayed such attributes as property rights, free market economy, competition, personal freedoms, and innovation (Perry, 2013). Besides, the western civilizations came at different periods with some of the attributes evolving or remaining unchanged throughout the lineage. However, the non-western civilizations contributed towards such attributes to a given extent, primarily because of the interactions among
William H. McNeill coined the phrase Rise of the West as a way to distinguish Western countries –specifically Western Europe and the Americas—from the rest of the world. In his book, Rise of the West (1964), McNeill asserts that the West’s technological and military strengths, and aptitude for war were central in shaping global relations during the Early Modern Period (1419-1788). Contrary to Rise of the West enthusiasts, who prioritizes a single, Euro-centric narrative, the study of Global Cultural Encounters investigates the “contacts and confrontations between different macro- or meta- structures of consciousness.” In other words, framing history as a series of symbiotic cultural encounters “acknowledges non-European perspectives on these meetings and weigh their significance more critically and comparatively.” Contrary to McNeill’s central argument, the study of Global Cultural encounter reveals that the West did not dominate in the early modern period and its military and technology strengths were not as pivotal for performing