Kosmo

I've read the book and it was captivating, but not smart. It seemed to me like a bad imitation of Umberto Eco. It's a book like a movie scenario so it will be easy to make a movie after it. The plot it's quite dumb when you find "who did it" This succes it's all a media fuss with nothing to back it. Something like Paris Hilton. Everybody knows her but nobody knows why.

What makes my hypotheses more "hare-brained" then yours? You did not used your vast knowledge of "hundreds of years of data on the causes and consequences of technology" to prove anything. You just made a statement (that I find impossible to accept because it compares different things and draws conclusions from a particular case) and stopped. And this was the first time when I clearly presented my hypotheses, so you grew weary from the begining not as I go along. To go back on topic one fine (and classic) example of how political and economic rivalry between Europe's states directly led to developement of science and technolgy it's the history of navigation and shipbuilding from the times of Prince Henry of Portugal onwards.

There are some very nice studies, but first how good it's your knowledge of romanian language? Edit: Actually, acces to romanian hitsory books in other languages it's a problem for many who are interested in our long and troubled history. Some books were published before ww2, but are obsolete. Few have been published during the comunism, and this few were published some in english, others in french or german. The economic crisis after the fall of comunism was a nice excuse to publish just a few. Romanian arheolgy made lots of digs and studies so, for any period you have an ample bibliography in romanian and a few books in other languages. As we discussed in another topic I'll try to copy here some titles and publishers for english. Internet it's infested by groups that claim that dacians where the belly button of the world, so be cautios with online sources.

I like the catastrophic, apocaliptic images. War it's around us since the darkness of time and will continue to be for a long, long time. And it's not neccesary a bad thing for mankind. Survival of the fittest animal, political structure, religion, ideology etc.

The most important reason for the relative stagnation of Rome was the unity of her civilisation. Conflict and competion are the engines of development, but after conquering all of the civilized and half civilized world Rome found herself alone with no one to compete with. No serious threat and no exterior model was presented to Rome. In Middle Age Europe a civilisation as large as the empire of Rome was made from thousends of competing kingdoms, sovereign nobles, cities and church possesions. To survive one had to adapt to ever changing conditions and to develop new ways to defend, to attack or to enrich what he had. This competion was inside a civilisation that shared language, religious beliefs and ierarhy, art, miths, laws and customs making communication and adoption extremly easy. For a city like Venice things like glassmaking, shipbuilding and mapmaking were vital. Any new tehnolgy, regardless how small, was rewarded and coveted by other cities. It's well known how the glassmaking tehnologies were protected and how the secrets of Murano were stolemn and taken to Cehia. Other remarcable civilisations had a similar history of superiority over the neighbours and stagnation. Ancient Egipt and China are the most obvious examples of advanced civilisations that close themselves from the outside focusing to the inside because it's nothing important around them. Until they are conquered by some barbarians. This isolation leads to stagnation and conservatorism, so to a slow rate of development of any kind. Rome had unified the Mediterranean and spread tehnologies, plants, methods, crafts and arts from one end to the other. After this it was unable to create new tehnologies, but it created new religion, philosphy, ethics and art. More advances were made in science during the troubled times of the hellenistic kingdoms then during the "pax romana" This it's another evidence that human creativity it's better in times of change and conflict then in times of quiet peace.

No way! Greco-roman culture it's not a descendant of dacians and thracians. The dacians developed their culter later then the greeks and never used much writing. They dont have many similarities other the greek influence on dacians and thracians. Never heard before that persians come from Europe. They spoke an indo-european language like most europeans, but they went from Central Asia directly to Persia.

US agriculture in NW benefited from all aspects of an industrial economy: mechanized transportation by railway and steam boat, complex banking, scientific approach to agriculture, free labour and an intercontinental network of free trade that promoted regional specialization. Not to mention a lot of land and lots of labour. This is hardly the case of Rome were Annona was based on forced contributions from provinces, the transport was expansive, there was no proper banking and a traditionalistic agriculture. Of course, most agriculture was made in US by free man and in Rome by colons and peasants. Industry did not led to unemployment in industrial countries, but in agricultural societies like eastern Germany, South Italy, Ireland, China etc. They forced the former craftsman out of bussines and destroyed the home industry that was an important source of income for peasants. "Think about the needs and resources in a pre-industrial society: manufacture of farm equipment (whether by blacksmiths versus more efficient tool-and-dies), waterworks (whether by open wells or by more efficient wind-driven pumps), metalworks (whether by ovens or by more efficient blast furnaces), mining (whether by surface mining or more efficient shaft mines), etc, etc. " None of those things evolved greatly in W Europe in the Middle Ages (except water and wind mills and a greater use of the horse in agriculture), but tehnology evolved in other areas, like I already pointed out, many from import and development of tehnology (silk, glass, paper, gun powder, carpet weaving) and other by local development (clockmaking, full plate armors, arch arhitecture, map making, submerged rudders etc.) Only in Reinessance we see small improvements in agriculture (first in Italy, then in Holland), but many in mining and metalurgy (a metal revolution with large efffects on everything) shipbuilding, printing, textiles, carriages etc. There is no major difference between the gold mines made by dacians and later by romans in the Carpathians and those made by saxons in the middle Ages in the same areas.

Believe me or not, but I live in Romania so I know where the name cames from Dacians spoke a form of thracian, but during the roman conquest the latin became the most important language. Romanian it's a latin language with a thracian substratum and a slavic adstratum (and a ton of neologisms if you ask me)

@ Ramses the Great I have no ideea what are you taking about. Everything you say it's wrong. Dacia was in today Romania not Switzerland. Dacians were dacians not Gauls or Romans. Dacia was influenced by greeks from pontic colonies, less and later were influeced by romans. Thracia was to the E and NE of Macedonia. Tharacians had no "stay" in Dacia. Dacians were the northen brunch of thracians. Dacians, getae and moesi spoke the same language of thracian origins. Dacian weaponry was quite original. @ filthy_peasant If you are interested I'll post a bibliography of books on thracians and dacians in english. If you are interested in something specific will be easier. It will take some time as I post from work.

Lithuanians are indo-europeans related only with letonians in a group called leto-lithuanians. They were the last pagans of Europe and created a large state with Bielorussia and most of Ukraine. They created a union with Poland that lasted until the divisions of Poland. Mindaungas was the first duke of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the creator of the powerfull Jaggellon dinasty.

I might be wrong, but you did not convinced me yet. In my mind there it's a big difference between the economy of the Ancient Rome and the booming industrial, capitalist economy of XIX centruy USA with her specialized areas. Of course, slaves were used in USA in farming even more then in Rome. And when slavery ended all Atlantic slavery centers opened to imigrants driven from their countries in Europe or Asia by population growth and unemployment caused by industry. Another unproven issue it's what drives tehnology in a traditional society (not in a industrial one!) and what impact slavery had on this factors to reduce the development of tehnology. A third objection is the difference between slavery in the ancient world, with their huge difference in status and on modern Atlantic areas. The last thing it's that maybe you need labour saving devices before the end of slavery not after. After all in in late antiquity slavery was greatly reduced in Europe and tehnolgies were lost in that time rather then developed. In antiquity, in Europe, the most developed areas were those where was ample slavery and not those without slavery. So, if you'll be kind enough to answer my objections and not present the particular case of XIX US as a rule we might get somewhere and this is what I want as I'm interested in both slavery and the history of tehnolgy, but never before thought on their connection. PS I'm familiar with US econmic history, but I was never interested in depth about the impact of slavery on US economy. Of course I know the basic, but not everything about it.

Western Europe developed many tehnologies in the same time in which it was using slavery on an unprecedented scale. Even if this slavery was mainly at perifery it was in the same economic system. Tehnology and science evolved while using slaves. The effect on ending slavery on the tehnology in a tradional economy can not be cuantified as this never happened. All traditional societies used some form of forced labour: slaves, serfs, indebtured servants etc. By the time slavery was ending in the first places the world was in the middle of the Industrial Revolution and mass production was rapidly changing the world sending milions of people in unemployment and creating labour markets with a very low price for labour. Ending slavery was a result of the broad development of a civilisation, not of some needs in a particular aspect of social life.

I don't think will see again holy wars (islamic or christian). Those were made to convert some infidels now war it's made to exterminate a different group (bosnian, tutsi, serbian, south sudanese, kurdish) And everybody apolgises and nobody cares. History never repeats herself for her victims. I'm glad about the low profile of the West in world politics so nobody could say that what happened in Rwanda and Sudan it's the fault of the West. Let the japonese, chinese and indians do some peacekeeping and third world relife. So we don't have enymore guilty conscience and Save the World concerts with Bono and "sir" Elton.

Dear Octavianus The story of young Radu the Beautifull it's about those biblical cities of the plain. After he got older he was sent by his friend to rule Valachia. This made angry his neighbour from Moldova, Stefan The Great, that had hired Vlad's gipsy impaler, so Stefan invaded Valachia defeated Radu and captured his daugther that, after he got the divorce from his preavious marriage, he married. This romantic chap did never apolgized for this.

I should apologize to Dickens for my strong dislike of him but I won't apolgize because of my strong dislike of him. Vlad Tepes impaled lots of turks, but also many romanians, bulgarians and germans. As a revange, his brother Radu the Beautifull was impaled often by Mehmet II Fatih. Speak of decaDance.

I think that the attitude of romans/greeks towards tehnolgy it's based on their bias against manual labour. Only theory was dignified enough for the attention of high status people. In ancient Greece even to be a Phidias or Praxiteles was seen as a "low status job". Greeks were reluctant even against miltary strategy as a skill, but this changed during the hellenistic age. The only practical knowledge that gave high status in Rome was the law and this because of the connection with political activity. Sometimes arhitects had high positions like Appolodor, but this was not often. There was little reward for innovation and an inventor could not became a Siemens or a Edison. It's true that during the Middle Ages the situation looked similar, but it was a period of rapid tehnological advance. It may be that in both cases professional associations/guilds restricted innovation, but during the Middle Ages and Reneissance advances were made in areas of activity not covered traditionaly by guilds like glass working for eyeglasses, clockmaking, gun production and printing or in areas where guilds could not control their members like mining and metalurgy. Maybe a more developed world was later in favor of Europe so it could import tehnologies like gun powder and paper mills, silk production and carpet weaving from other areas.

It is easier to hide somewhere today where you'll be out of sight for enemy and officers then to not fight with gladius when a big barbarian it's hiting you with a sword or when a line of soldiers fire their muskets at you. In WW1 not to fire was the problem but to go "over the top" against machine gun fire.

The plan was to bring a visigoth catholic prince to the visigoth throne. As they failed they kept what they already conquered. I don't think that public opinion knew much about Spain as it's proven by a debate about the conquest of Africa when some advisors say to Justinian that Africa it's six months sailing away.

After Constantin the word "hellenic" was not used anymore meaning pagan. The byzantines refered at themselves as "romans" regardless of ethnicity. The greeks chenged their name from "romanoi" to "hellenes" only during the War of Independance when other christians did not join the plan for the rebirth of the byzantine emire, but the West was philohellen. A fascinating case of inventing a nation.

Workers in early industrial Britain had a high status. Only those unqualified and undisciplined had a tough life, but it was better then the life of landlles peasants

In US Civil War they still used the line in open field? I think the prussian-austrian war of 1866 was the first one in which they fired from ground position.

It's main use was political. They used it for pressure against the arians and because the large majority was catholic it was very dangerous for visigoths. It was one of the things that forced the visigoths to convert to catolicism

You have a good point Virgil, I think we should extend our field. Slavery did not end in Europe with the fall of the empire. Venice was in the middle age a large slave trader. Most of the mameluk army of Egipt was brought from the Black Sea and sold in Egipt by venetian tradesman. Venice, like other mediterranean cities, had a large slave population estimated to 30% of total population. In the same time it was a major inovation center. Venetians developed shipbuilding and glass making and influenced banking, insurance, overseas trade, mathematics, painting, arhitecture, fashion and medicine. As a republic it was an important political model and her broad interests made it the first to use diplomacy on a grand scale. All this were possible despite slavery, but, of course, we cannot presume what would have happened if they freed the slaves. Romania ended slavery in the mid XIX century, a period of great political and economic advance. There is no proof that ending slavery brought tehnological progress as slaves did not have jobs in agriculture or mining, but it's obvious that the general progress determined the ending of slavery. Maybe a comparison with the effect of ending slavery in China will be usefull given the similarities between the two empires, but I have no ideea of the impact of slave liberation on chinese society. I don't doubt the positive effect of ending slavery on modern industrial societies, but I don't believe that for the traditional ones ending slavery led to tehnological progress.

If ancient soldiers were heavy armored and today soldiers dig and disperse the most nerve breaking was the musquet fight when lines of unprotected soldiers fire at each other, slowly reload and fire again. This is why the drill was invented in this era and why it played such a vital part. And, I believe, this is why the french soldiers of the Revolution and Empire with very high morale were almost invincible.

I don't have a GDP history of Jamaica, but most sources agree to the general economic downfall. Banks were closed and trade slowed down. The opening of british market for tax free sugar in 1846 was the last blow to a weak economy. The case of US growth it's more complex and I don't think a general law can be made from just one case. The northen states had almost no slavery having a quite different style of economy. If the areas that were anexed from Mexic in 1840' became more prosperous by the time of the Civil War this means that the slavery introduced after they joined the US it's superior to the non slavery sistem of Mexic that they had before? An economic sistem in industrial era it's very different from a traditional one.