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Couldn't one say that feudalism caused the break up of the Carolingian empire?
I'd say the Salic law was the cause of this break up, eventually leading to the Treaty of Verdun
I wonder if today China isn't trying to play that role, in an “imperialist” view of course ! Look at their African policy and the way the economy is affected by their currency policy. Although nothing cultural anymore… :-
When it gets right down to it, I am not very interested in discussing causes for terrorism. I care about solutions.
When the house is repeatedly on fire, you look for the cause in order to circumscribe and eliminate it"To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth." Voltaire
Try this link http://www.teachnet.ie/mmorrin/welcome.htm
As to Mid-East peoples attacking America, how ironic is that? By and large it was France and England that colonized and dominated the Middle East and North Africa, not America. It was England that played a significant role in the establishment of Israel (remember the Balfour Agreement). America has mainly bought their Oil except for Iran where we propped up the Shah's corrupt regime. Why then do they hate America so much? I have always been puzzled as to why America is demonized to the extent that it is by Muslims. I am led to the inevitable conclusion that Islam is constitutionally incapable of accepting equality with another religion or moral system. They do not attack the Pest because of politics; it is religion or our lack of it that they refuse to accept. Everything else is just excuses.
America and other western nations are perhaps targeted by terrorists because of imperialism.Imperialism usually refers to territorial acquisitions, but can also cover extensions of power or influence which fell short of that. ?Economic imperialism?, for example, means the process by which an economy extends its financial control over others.Imperialism can also be seen as the control of one or a number of countries by a dominant nation. This control may be political, economic, or both, and indicates a degree of dependence in the subordinate nation.From the US History Encyclopedia:...Concerning America, the years after the Civil War show abundant evidence of Americans expanding their economic, political, military, and cultural control over foreign societies. (e.g. The Spanish-American War and colonisation of the Philippines) The United States needed an overseas empire for its future peace and prosperity.When the United States encountered resistance to its post?Civil War expansion in Asia, the government employed diplomatic and military pressures. In 1866, after the Japanese government closed itself to foreign trade, the United States joined other imperial powers?the British, the French, and the Dutch?in forcing Western access to the island nation over the objections of native interests.Aware of the resistance that the formal elements of American imperialism had inspired after the Vietnam War, policymakers returned to more informal mechanisms for asserting influence abroad. Economic globalization and human rights advocacy took center stage, along with continued anticommunism. The promise of American-style prosperity and individual rights?championed by politicians, businesspeople, and Hollywood writers?triumphed over the gray authoritarianism of communist regimes.By 1991, societies across the globe rushed to attract American investment and aid. Citizens sought out American cultural exports?including McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and Michael Jordan.America's informal imperialism in the late twentieth century was remarkably effective. It did, however, inspire serious resistance. Instead of adopting communist slogans, as they had in the 1950s and 1960s, opponents of U.S. influence after 1991 turned largely to religion. Fundamentalisms of many varieties?Christian, Jewish, and Islamic?arose to challenge the decadence and hypocrisy of American liberal democracy.International terrorism?symbolized most frighteningly by the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?emerged, in part, as a reaction to a long history of formal and informal American imperialism. This observation does not, in any way, justify the abhorrent terrorist activities. American imperialism has produced both positive and negative outcomes, as the contrast between post?World War II Japan and Vietnam makes clear. Nonetheless, the extraordinary overseas influence of the United States, dating back to 1865, has inspired violent resistance. Americans probably will not abandon their liberal imperialist assumptions in the twenty-first century, but they will surely develop new strategies for isolating and defeating foreign challengers.However military historian Max Boot defends U.S. imperialism of past eras:?U.S. imperialism has been the greatest force for good in the world during the past century. It has defeated communism and Nazism and has intervened against the Taliban and Serbian ethnic cleansing. It has also helped spread liberal institutions to countries as diverse as South Korea and Panama."Boot argues that the United States altruistically went to war with Spain to liberate Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Filipinos from their tyrannical yoke. If U.S. troops lingered on too long in the Philippines, it was to protect the Filipinos from European predators waiting in the wings for American withdrawal and to tutor them in American-style democracy. (in Boot, Max. "American Imperialism? No Need to Run Away From the Label". USA Today.2006)I don't blame America, as I wrote above: other western democracies are targeted as well for the same causes !This is only a personal attempt to understand why so much hatred and unjustified murder of innocent people could have occurred.
BTW, it took me less than 15 minutes to find those 3 links. It's not that difficult to present historical fact sometimes. ;D
Agreed 😉
Check this out : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8357279.stm Not only in the UK but everywhere in Europe ...It reminds me about H5N1 aka the bird flu or the SARS ... lot of speaking, few effect ! 😛 Wish it was like in Dr. Strangelove !!! 😛
That is true. And it's too bad that many postmodern historians, when trying to amplify the contributions of Islam, are ignoring real history in the process.
Well Sky, I'm not trying to amplify anything but I like to tickle and tease people until they finally reckon that when they are dealing with History: appearances, news, preconceived opinions make the historian's work "difficult" ...
I have the same feeling about rules and laws decreed here in Europe. Less and less freedom, more and more bureaucracy… 🙁
OK, then name same. Math? That came from the Greeks.Science? GreeksNavigation? GreeksThe western alphabet and writing? Phoenicians, Greeks, then Romans.Anything that Islam did was a continuation and/or copy of Graeco-Roman contributions.I'll give them this (and this was before Islam), the Arabs preserved a lot of ancient text (but so did the Irish and Benedictine monks)So here's a better question. What ORIGINAL contribution did Islam make to western civilization?
Easy:Following the fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the Middle Ages, many texts from Classical Antiquity had been lost to the Europeans. In the Middle East however, many of these Greek texts were translated from Greek into Syriac during the 6th and the 7th century by Nestorian or Jacobite monks living in Palestine, or by Greek exiles from Athens who visited Islamic Universities. Many of these texts were then kept, translated, and developed upon by the Islamic world, especially in centers of learning such as Baghdad with thousands of manuscripts existed as soon as 832. These texts were translated again into European languages during the Middle Ages.Islamic world developed its own sciences, such as algebra, chemistry, geology, trigonometry and more which were later also transmitted to the West. Contributing to the growth of European science was the major search by European scholars for new learning which they could only find among Muslims, especially in Islamic Spain and Sicily. These scholars translated new scientific and philosophical texts from Arabic into Latin. (see Averroes)The chemical and alchemical works of Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan) were translated into Latin around the 12th century and became standard texts for European alchemists.Arabic astronomical and mathematical works were translated into Latin during the 12th century. Arabic numerals are the ten digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). From there they were transmitted to Europe in the Middle Ages.Hospitals began in the Islamic world and later spread to Europe during the Crusades, inspired by the hospitals in the Middle East. The first hospital in Paris, Les Quinze-vingt (15/20), was founded by Louis IX after his return from the Crusade between 1254-1260.One of the most important scientific works to be translated was Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics (1021), which initiated a revolution in optics and visual perception and introduced the earliest experimental scientific method.In the 12th century, Europe owed Islam an agricultural revolution (see Muslim Agricultural Revolution), due to the progressive introduction into Europe of various unknown fruits: the artichoke, spinachs, aubergines, peaches, apricots.Europe adopted a number of educational, legal and scientific institutions from the Islamic world, including the public hospital and psychiatric hospital, the public library and lending library, the academic degree-granting university (e.g. Madrasah :the origins of the college lies in the medieval Islamic world), the astronomical observatory as a research institute.From Islamic Spain, the Arabic philosophical literature was translated into Hebrew, Latin, and Ladino, contributing to the development of modern European philosophy (check Avicenna.) Need more ? 😉The fact that there is some conflicts around the world and especially with Islamic appearance shouldn't mislead our judgement about any civilisation. History is not a valet of politics.
