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The campaign of smearing the AfD candidate has begun.
Noah Smith either is so stupid that he doesn't know how to read a simple bar chart, or more likely, he simply ignores the chart in his eagerness to bash China.
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Noah Smith either is so stupid that he doesn't know how to read a simple bar chart, or more likely, he simply ignores the chart in his eagerness to bash China.
The modern perspective on history is quite biased not only because countries that were powerful 50 years ago wrote the textbooks that are in use today and glorified their own history over those of others, but also because of biased archeology and historical research. Places like Egypt and Mesopotamia saw a huge influx of western archeologists during colonial times, who then proceeded to steal antiquities and bring them to the west. That's why we now think that these were some of the greatest ancient civilisations. Whereas areas that remained free, like the majority of China and a few other places, have had much less international archeology, so we don't even know what might be buried in the ground
I don't think the Roman empire is overrated, what many just fail to realise that it wasn't more advanced than other empires at the same time. The Persian, Indian and Chinese empires of that period were at a similar level of cultural and military development, but you can't blame Europeans for being most interested in European history. It's the task of everyone else to promote their own history
This is just a bad take on history.
The Byzantines are just about the second-most overrated empire.
Americans and the west would have you believe that the Byzantines prospered as the most powerful empire in the world an additional 1,000 years after Western Rome fell. The truth is that by as early as the year 1000 AD they had become a non-player in just the Eastern Europe/Asia Minor region alone. Much less as a world power. Local warlords and minor regional powerholders were openly defying Constantinople and doing whatever they please.
The one called Emperor in Constantinople had no real power, and the city was left alone solely because the cost to take it never outweighed the benefits of simply focusing your efforts elsewhere.
Mr. Roman Emperor in Constantinople was already openly submitting and kowtowing to Atila the Hun and paid him tributes so that he wouldn't sack Constantinople...he just sacked, looted, pillaged, plundered, and destroyed all the cities and towns right in the immediate vicinity of Byzantium itself (Constantinople).
We now know that the Huns are just the Xiongnu whom the Han Dynasty BEAT THE LIVING FUCK OUT OF so badly and so embarassingly that they fled their homelands of north eastern china and modern-day mongolia all the way to Rome, Italy.
French historian Etienne de la Vaissiere makes a good case that the Origin of the Huns theory starts with the Xiongnu and he's not the only one who accepts this. Many other scholars do too.
Ask the retards on Reddit and those cringe fake historians on TikTok (those of you who hang out on there know EXACTLY who I'm referring to) and they'll all say that the Roman Empire would either beat the Han Dynasty outright or that "tHere'S No WaY to TeLL" as a copout for the ones who aren't either completely brainwashed or simply possess at least a speck of integrity. But the real truth is that this question was long since resolved in history.
The Romans were humiliated, both eastern and western roman empires, by a couple of runaway slaves from China whom weren't even a faint shadow of what they used to be if they had tried to take on the Han we would've just obliterated them like sand in a tornado. For further proof of this see how pathetic Roman legions performed against so-called "h0rsE BarBarians" throughout all of their history. They never succeeded in conquering the Parthians because even 1,000 of so-called empire building and they didn't know that in order to counter enemy cavalry you either get better at cavalry warfare yourself or you force the enemy into an engagement where being on horseback is no longer an advantage. For similar reasons they struggled and had close victories or near-losses against Dacians, Scythians, Sarmatians, etc. All of whom were nobodies in both history and in their own regions and their own times.
This whole thing about Westerners sucking ball sacks against h0rSE BARBarianS still rang true more than another 1000 years later when the Mongols VIOLENTLY ANALLY RAPED (METAPHORICALLY) westerners, and they only stopped their rampage over Europe because their Khan died of dystentry (leading theory) and Mongol culture dictates that the leadership must reconvene to both honor the dead and select a new leader.
The Mongols got as far west as Croatia and Legnica, Poland...barely 60 miles/100 KM from the border with modern-day Germany. And no they wouldn't have lost just because they fought some blonde-haired, blue-eyed knights hospitaliers (they already fought those guys along with the Knights Templars and all those other knights of the holy crusades orders...and won). They would've annhiliated them just like everyone else in Europe, the Middle-east/Arabia, etc.
What about debunking any supposed Roman Military superiority. Just off the top of my head even the insane western brainwashing I got in American schools and their trash-tier history classes still admitted that Romans came close to being completed annihilated multiple times. Hannibal crossed all of Africa, Spain, France, the Swiss Alps with AFRICAN troops and ELEPHANTS even and then defeated Rome at their own city. So if even they admit to these things then the real truth is that Roman military performance was far worse in terms of actual combat effectiveness.
I guess I could've chosen a different set of words that would make my point about being overrated easier to understand.
Americans and Westerners absolutely and wholeheartedly believe that the Romans were not just the number 1 empire of all time, but that they stand so far vastly ahead of everyone else that it could be like comparing an Elder God boosted by an Infinity Gauntlet next to an average city cop.
They truly believe that.
That if it weren't for the Roman Empire (and the subsequent western empires) that the whole world would be stuck somewhere in either the bronze age or iron age.
This is what I mean by overrated.
Sure I'll concede the Rome is still inside of the top-tier of empires. But the truth is that Rome is like the Dartmouth or the Cornell of empires. Not the Harvard, Yale, or Stanford of empires. Still in the overall 'group' for being the best, but towards the bottom of the best.
But if you ask the westeners they would say that Rome is more like the university of a hyper advanced civilization tens of thousands of years in the future whereas everybody else is just a normal college. This is obviously just beyond ridiculous.
This Arctic is several years old. Russia has more to offer now that some basic infrastructure is created and foreign investors have confidence in implementation. even UAE is part of investment.
sorry man i'm not working on comparative history projects... yet. So far, I think most people understand that Chinese mainly focus on Chinese history which has also become full of Western revisionism. When you see such articles presenting evidence against the distortions, maybe it is government-linked, maybe it isn't, but remember that there are definitely patriotic (or sympathetic non-citizen) humanities majors working on it.
As for Romans and China, the comparison is like apples to oranges haha, the Romans were primarily a war machine, i.e. very high iron production, large standing armies, but fueled by distributing conquered farmlands to soldiers and selling captured slaves. And the early Empire (until 284AD) was governed jointly by the emperor and the Senate aristocrats, the former governing the outer provinces and the latter the inner provinces. The moment the empire could not find anymore easy conquests (Dacia, Germania and Parthia either being too united or too inaccessible) which you see happening around 180AD, the whole empire came crumbling (235AD) and the legions and the Senate began elevating their own emperors, with the last one standing getting to pillage the rest. Emperors destroyed the economy raising taxes and debasing the currency to pay off the army. After that date every emperor except Aurelian and Constantine had to divide the empire into parts for different emperors to rule, or face civil war.
Han China in contrast was a civil state that succeeded in creating a powerful central government. War with the Xiongnu, open steppe warfare, depended on horse not iron/manpower supply. It was only winnable through co-opting some of the horse tribes by providing generous financial and material benefits, while preventing the Chanyu from co-opting Han vassal kings to cut off his grain/silk supply. All these processes need political consolidation at a level unknown in Rome which never had a clear system of succession and heavily relied on the emperor's personal presence for many aspects of justice and warfare.
Another thing about white history is that colonists in North America struggled against natives well until industrial age. It is not like "white man technology gun beats spear" like it is British maxim gun vs Zulu. Musket was not very effective without being fielded in large formation, and ineffective in harsh terrain. Bow and arrow had better accuracy and rate of fire. Bow simply needs more training.
In short the early success of colonists were due to exploiting infighting among natives, not technology advantages.