tarheel91 said:
Kasz216 said:
tarheel91 said:
Kasz216 said:
tarheel91 said:
Mr Khan said:
Yay! Someone else who knows that Columbus was really looking for Cathay, or Mongolia.
1. Jesus. No other individual is still so directly involved in people's lives, considering that about 1/3 of people on earth at least claim to be Christian.
2. Gutenberg. The foundation of the modern world is knowledge through literature, which we would have without him.
3. Edison. He created the demand for electricity with his introduction of consumer goods that used it (lightbulb), and the electrical delivery systems.
4. Mohammed. Same thing as Jesus, just with fewer people.
5. King John and the Chartists: they laid the foundation for constitutional government in England, which would become the foundation for the rule of law pretty much around the world.
6. Ghengis Khan. His empire brought together the great civilizations of the world at the time (East Asia, Middle East, Europe), and the exchange of information created much of the world, and his legacy changed the course of world history entirely.
7. Columbus. Because putting two continents on the map is kinda hard to replicate
8. John Smith. He created capitalism, which has endured as an economic system to this day
9. Marx. His ideas did kind of burn out, but still changed the world remarkably. The 20th century pretty much turned on his ideas.
10. Cardinal Richileu. At the end of the 30-years-war, he helped craft what is the modern notion of the sovereign state that endures to this day
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Gutenburg only invented the printing press in the west. The earliest printed book was found in China, a copy of the Diamond Sutra. It was printed in 868.
Choosing ten people is pretty difficult. Most of these lists are incredibly Western. Even if you only look at Western history, 10 is still pretty hard.
I'd definitely include Jesus. Newton would be there as the foundation of modern physics (and calculus). I'd probably include Martin Luther (where is he in y'all's lists!?), too. In terms of the East, I'd look at Confucius, Mao Zedong, and Laozi. I really don't know who I'd pick to fill the other six spots. We were tasked with picking the 25 most influential people in Western history since 1400 in my AP European History class last year, and that was difficult enough.
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To be fair, lists probably should be westerncentric... considering the general western dominance of the world.
The Karl Marx stuff I don't get though. Had Karl Marx so the world of today, chances are he'd of never written the Communist manifesto in the first place.
The stuff that goes on in the world today in capitalist countries is of the like he'd never expect to see. In such a world it's unlikely he'd think the strong steps he suggested there were worth going through on.
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While today's world is certainly dominated by the West, a lot of the world's most important inventions and progressions came from the East.
The printing press, the compass, anatomy, most modern types of bridges, crop rotation, gun powder, paper were all invented in China.
"Pascal's" triangle and Pi were created or measured first in China.
These are just a very small portion of the achievements of China alone. For more, check out the eleventy seven volumes of Science and Civilization in China. While the individual inventors wouldn't show up on my list, the people who created a society and system of beliefs responsible for such progression of civilization certainly deserve to be recognized (i.e. Confucius and Laozi). Hell, they deserve to be recognized for creating a civilization capable of maintaining control of such a massive area for such a long period of time alone.
Edit: I'm sure you recognize this, but the only reason history seems so Western-centric is that we are Westerners. Of course we're going to focus on our history more.
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They were all invented in the east... but had to be "reinvented" in the west. (most anyway.)
Which is where they had the most application and spread to the most places.
In a way their "reinventions" were more important then their inventions... essentially the printed western world helped lead to western domination, while in the eastern world it didn't do as much.
Though I somewhat disagree on why history seems so Westerncentric. Western domination of culture and proliferation I think a huge part as well. I bet the rest of the world knows more about western culture then the average person here knows about their cultures because of this.
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Because stuff only happened in the West, right? Whatever happened in the East isn't really relevant?
No, they didn't all have to be "reinvented" in the West. A lot of them were simply taken by European explorers back to the West.
Most application, or most application that you're aware of? How much do you actually know about Eastern history? Up until the Renaissance, China was easily the most technologically advanced country in the world. From 2000 BC to ~1400 AD they really were unrivaled in terms of progression as a civilization.
Again, honestly, how much do you actually know about Eastern history? A lot of people unconsciously assume that because they don't know of anything that happened there, nothing really did. Sure, they know there were some emperors and such, whether it be China, Korea, Japan, or some other nation, but they see it as some land off to the side that really wasn't relevant. That's only because they only care about Western history. They falsely assume that because the West dominates today (something that could easily change in the next half century), they have always dominated. Only their progression was relevant to world history. That's simply not true.
I'm not trying to ridicule you or anything; it's just that often times we mistakenly assume something doesn't exist when we simply don't know about it.
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