A-Brief-History-of-Western-Civilization上课讲义.ppt

单击此处编辑母版标题样式,单击此处编辑母版文本样式,第二级,第三级,第四级,第五级,*,*,*,A Brief History of Western Civilization,Western Civilization:A Brief History,Jackson J.Spielvogel,Beijing University Press,Beijing 2009,Textbook,A Brief History of Western Civilization:the Unfinished Legacy,Mark Kishlansky,Patrick Geary,and Patricia OBrien,China Renmin University Press,Beijing 2008,evergreenxisu,xisu8765,Chapter One The First Civilization,I.The Idea of Western Civilization,1.The West,The West is an idea.,The Ural Mountains the theoretical boundary between East and West,Originally,Europe-central Greece,the whole Greek mainland and the landmass to the north.Roman explorers carried Europe north and west to its modern boundaries.,The West rerfers to the countries of(originally)Europe and(now including)North America and South America.,2.Civilization,first emerged between 5000 and 6000 years ago when people began to live in organized community with distinct political,military,economic and social structures,.,a society or culture group defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in towns and cities.,as a synonym for the broader term“culture”in both popular and academic circles.,“the arts,customs,habits.beliefs,values,behavior and material habits that constitute a peoples way of life”.,The concept of“civilization”is used as a synonym for“cultural(and often ethical)superiority of certain groups.”,Civilization can mean“refinement of thought,manners,or taste”.,3.Western civilization,C.E.-the Common Era/the Christian Era,B.C.E.-before the Common Era,B.C.-before Christ,A.D.(anno Domini)-in the year of the Lord,ca./circa-approximately,The origins of Western civilization go back to the Mediterranean basin,including lands in North Afirca and the Middle east,as well as Europe itself.,We need,to study the political,economic,social,military,cultural,intellectual,and religious aspects that make up the life of that civilization and show how they are interrelated,“Western”cities appeared first outside the“West”,in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins(Iraq and Iran)-the Middle East.,Until the 16th century C.E.,the Near East,the Mediterranean,and northern and western Europe were smelted into a new and powerful alloy.,“the West”expanded by establishing colonies overseas and by giving rise to the“settler societies”of the Americas,Australia and New Zealand,and South Africa.,Millions of people follow the religions of Islam and Christianity,both of which developed from Judaism in the cradle of Western civilization.,Western technology for harnessing nature,Western forms of economic and political organization,Western styles of art and music are dominant influences in world civilization.,Many of todays most pressing problems are also part of the legacy of the Western tradition.,First,the remnants of European colonialism have left deep hostilities throughout the world;,The economic globalization makes much of the wealth of poor countries flow to pay loans from Europe and America.,To a great extent,this has led to hatred of Western civilization,and fueled anti-Western terrorism around the world.,Second,the West faces a crisis.Poor citizens of former colonies flock to Europe and North America seeking a better life but often finding poverty,hostility,and racism instead.,Finally,the advances of Western civilization endanger human beings very existence-pollution of the worlds air,water,and soil,and the threat of nuclear weapons.,the concept of political liberty and the creation of a rational outlook,based on a system of logical,analytical thoughtnn-unique aspects of Western civilization,However,the frightening negation of liberty,individualism,and reason:racism,violence,world wars,totalitarianism form part of the story.,The history of Western civilization is not simply the triumphal story of progress,or the creation of a better world.,it would be equally inaccurate to view Western civilization as a progressive decline from a mythical golden age of the human race.,II.Before Civilization,The first human-like creatures whose remains have been discovered date from as long as 5 million years ago.,Varieties of the modern species of humans,Homo sapiens(“thinking human”),appeared well over 100,000 years ago.,Customs such as the burial of their dead with food offerings indicate that they may have developed a belief in an afterlife.,Around 40,000 years ago,Homo sapiens sapiens(“thinking thinking human”)replaced Homo sapiens.,People of the Paleolithic era or Old Stone Age(ca.600,000-10,000 B.C.E.)worked together for hunting and defense,1.Dominance of culture,During the upper or late Paleolithic era(the old Stone Age),culture was increasingly determinant in human life.,People were able to develop speech,religion,and artistic expression.,In the Mesolithic(Middle Stone Age),people made,1)the bow and arrow and pottery,2)small flints and fish-hooks,3)the gradual domestication of plants and animals and formed settled communities,Around 5000 B.C.E.,two of the most profound transformations in human history:sedentarization(the adoption of a fixed dwelling place)and the agricultural revolution,People built and rebuilt their mud brick and stone huts over generations,which helped reduce infant mortality and raise life expectancy.,2.Social organization,agriculture and religion,population growth put pressure on the local food supply,and demanded more coordination and organization and led to political leadership.,People introduced the species where they occurred naturally into other locations(portable).,Domestication of goats,sheep,pigs,and cattle and cultivating barley,wheat,and vegetables changed humans from passive harvesters of nature to active partners.,religious cults,Sanctuary rooms decorated with frescoes湿壁画,bulls horns,and sculptures of heads of bulls and bears,ancestor worship,Human skulls covered with clay to make them look as they had in life.,Images of a female deity,interpreted as a guardian of animals,suggest the religious importance of women and fertility.,The use of horses and chariots developed 1500 years ago in Mesopotamia had now reached North Africa.Chariots symbolized a new,dynamic,and expansive phase in Wesdtern culture.,III.Mesopotamia:Between the Two Rivers,The north with most of the rainfall,but thin and poor soil;the south hadfertile soil,but little rainfall.,Tigris and Euphrates provide life-giving water but also bring destructive floods usually at harvest time.Agriculture is impossible without irrigation.,Mesopotamias only natural resource is clay.It has no metals,no workable stone,no valuable minerals of use to ancient people.,Around 3500 B.C.E.,towns began to grow rapidly-the need to concentrate and organize population in order to carry on the extensive irrigation systems.,The city had become the dominant force in the organization of economy and society,and the growth of the Sumerian（苏美尔人的）cities established a precedent.,Mesopotamia is generally credited with being the first place where civilized societies truly began to take shape.,1.Urban Life,People developed new technologies and new social and political structures.They created cultural traditions such as writing and literature.,Immigration increased the power,wealth,and status of two groups:the religious authorities,and the military and administrative elites,Mesopotamians formed a highly stratified society:the priests and the rulers-landowning free persons-soldiers,merchants,and workers and artisans peasants-slaves,Urban life also redefined the role and status of women,who in the Neolithic period had enjoyed roughly the same roles and status as men.,By roughly 1500 B.C.E.,the pattern of patriarchal households predominated.,2.Technology and writing,The need to feed,clothe,protect,and govern growing urban populations led to major technological and conceptual discoveries.,Improved plows,sleds,carts,canals and sailing ships-greater agricultural surplus,Metalworkers began to cast bronze for tools and weapons,Cuneiform（楔形文字）is a system of writing called after the wedge shape of the charaters.,Since symbols were liberated from meaning,they could be used to record any language.,function of writing,to achieve greater centralization and conrtol of government,to communicate over distances,to preserve and spread information,and to express religious and cultural beliefs.,reinforced memory,consolidated and expanded the achievements of the first civilization and transmitted them to the future.,3.Gods and mortals in Mesopotamia,Mesopotamians believed that the role of mortals was to serve the gods and to feed them through sacrifice,and a ziggurat,or tiered tower（金字形神塔）dedicated to the god,The most important care was feeding.They believed that through the proper rituals a person could buy the gods protection and favor.,4.Sargon and Mesopotamia Expansion,Sargon(2334-2279 BC)the Semi-legandary founder of the ancient kingdom of Akkad,As representative of the citys god,the king was the ruler and highest judge.,Responsible for the construction and maintenance of religious buildings and the complex system of canals,commanded the army,He created the first great multiethnic empire state in the West-east across the Tigris,west along the Euphrates,and north into modern Syria.,Although a Semite（闪米特人）,he spread the achievements of Sumerian civilization throughout his vast state,5.Hammurabi and the Old Babylonian Empire,Situated in t,he Tigris-Euphrates Valley,Babylonia has been referred to as“the cradle of the human race”-the Garden of Eden was located in it.,After many centuries of conflict,the old empire eventually became subject to the Assyrians,from about 885 to 607 B.C.,Hammurabi promulgated（颁布）the Code of Hammurabi.The Code addresses professional behavior of physicians,veterinarians,architects,and boat builders,.,It creates a picture of a prosperous society of three legally defined social strata:a well-to-do elite,the mass of the population,and slaves.,Much of the Code sought to protect women and children from arbitrary and unfair treatment.Women could practise various trades and even hold public positions.,It aimed to reorganize,consolidate,and preserve previous laws in order to maintain the established social and economic order.,Babylonians developed the most sophisticated mathematical system known before the 15th cen.C.E.-based on a numerical system from 1 to 60,They devised multiplication tables（乘法表）,tables of reciprocals（乘法逆元素，倒数）,tables of squares and square roots,cubes and cube roots,and others.,In about 1600 B.C.E.,the Hittites(赫梯人an Indo-European people)destroyed Old Babylonian state.,The Hittite Empire was the chief political and cultural force in western Asia from about 1400 to 1200 B.C.E.,IV.The Gift of the Nile,The rich soil of the Nile Valley can support a dense populationand the Nile floodplain required little effort to make the land productive.,Each year,the river flooded at exactly the right time to irrigate crops and to deposit a layer of rich,fertile silt（淤泥）.,Egypt knew only the fertile Nile Valley and the vast wastes of the Sahara Desert around it,which limited Egypts contact with outside influences.,By around 3200 B.C.E.,Upper Egypt developed a pictographic script（象形文字）,For over 2500 years,the Nile Valley enjoyed the most stable civilization.Which was divided into 31 dynasties or four periods of political centralization:,pre-and early dynastic Egypt(ca3150-2770 B.C.E.),the Old Kingdom(ca.2770-2200 B.C.E.),the Middle Kingdom(ca.2050-1786 B.C.E.),and the New Kingdom(ca.1560-1087 B.C.E,.),1.God Kings,As divine incarnation（化身）,the king was obliged to care for his people,to ensure the annual flooding of the Nile,which brought water to the parched（干枯的land.,During the Old and Middle Kingdoms,great pyramid temple-tomb complexes were built for the kings.,The cults of dead kings reinforced the monarchy,since veneration of past rulers meant veneration（崇敬）of the reigning kings ancestors.,2.Decline of Royal Power,By around 2200 B.C.E.,Egyptian royal authority collapsed,leaving political and religious power in the hands of provincial governors.,First,the increasing demands for consumption by the court and the cults forced agricultural expansion into areas where returns were poor,thus decreasing the flow of wealth,Second,as bureaucrats tried to supply the greed needs of living and dead kings and their attendants,they neglected the maintenance of the economic system that supplied these needs.,Finally,tax-exempt（免税的）religious foundations removed ever greater amount of the countrys wealth from the control of the king and his agents.,A series of Hyksos,or“rulers of foreign lands”,overran（侵占）the country and ruled the Nile Valley as far south as Memphis for 6 dynasties.,These Hyksos kings introduced their military technology and organization into Egypt,in particular,the light horse-drawn war chariot.,V.Between Two Worlds,Just beyond Mesopotamia and the delta of the Nile lay the world of the Semitic tribes of seminomadic sheperds and traders.,From these,one small group,the Hebrews,emerged to establish a religious and cultural tradition that was unique in antiquity（古代）.,1.The Hebrew Alternative,Sometime after 2000 B.C.E.,small Semitic bands under the leadership of patriarchal chieftains spread into what is today Syria,Lebanon,Israel,and Palestine.,Hebrew history records such Mesopotamian traditions as the story of the flood,legal traditions strongly reminiscent（提示的）of those of Hammurabi,and the worship of the gods on high places.,For these wandering sheperds,urban culture was a curse.In the Hebrew Bible(the Christian Old Testament)the first city was built by Cain,the first murderer.,2.Exodus,Some of the biblical patriarch（祖先）Abrahams descendants must have joined the steady migration from Canaan into Egypt during the Middle Kingdom and the Hyksos period.,Around the 13th century B.C.E.,a small band of less than 1,000 Semitic slaves left Egypt for Sinai（西奈）and Canaan under the leadership of Moses.The memory of this departure was known as the Exodus,.,Moses,a Semite who carried an Egyptian name and who had been raised in the royal court,was the founder of the Israelite people.,3.The Ark of the Covenant,The Israelites forged a new identity and a new faith,and they adopted the god Yahweh as their own.They interpreted their extraordinary escape from Egypt as evidence of a covenant with Yahweh.,By 1050 B.C.E.,the Philistines had defeated the Israelites,captured the Ark of the Covenant,and occupied most of their territory.,4.King Solomon,To consolidate their forces,the Israelite religious leaders established a kingdom.Its first king was Saul,its second king was David,and the third king was Solomon.,David and his son Solomon(ca.961-922 B.C.E.)brought the knigdom of Israel to its peak of power,prestige,and territorial expansion.,David established Jerusalem as the political and religious capital.Solomon built a magnificent temple complex to house the Ark of the Covenant and to serve as Israels national shrine.,Dav