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| Why is history so Euro-centric? |
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| VitalOne |
 Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 8:14 pm Post subject: Why is history so Euro-centric? |
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What's the reason that history usually only mentions European mathematicians, scientists, inventors, etc...even though the scientific method, writing systems, and most of mathematics were invented by non-Europeans?
Is history just a form of racism? Shouldn't history just be about actual past events? |
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| mathman |
| Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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| History as taught in Europe (or offshoots) tends to be Eurocentric. History taught in China tends to be Sinocentric. History taught in India would tend to focus on India. Get the point? |
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| ishmaelblues |
| Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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| History is often the story of "us" or "we" and the direction of that narrative depends on who fits these definitions, when teaching history i sometimes refer to the English as "us" when i in fact am not English. All in all there is no shame in learning centric, unless you flat out manipulate the truth, such is the case of Clyde Winters, do not even bother looking him up, but he is a rabid afrocentrist. |
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| Ophiolite |
| Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 1:34 am Post subject: Re: Why is history so Euro-centric? |
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| VitalOne wrote: |
| What's the reason that history usually only mentions European mathematicians, scientists, inventors, etc...even though the scientific method, writing systems, and most of mathematics were invented by non-Europeans? |
I'm wholly comfortable that you are completely wrong on the first point. I have strong reservations about the second point. Would you like to justify your assertions?
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| JennLonhon |
| Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 5:51 am Post subject: Re: Why is history so Euro-centric? |
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| VitalOne wrote: |
What's the reason that history usually only mentions European mathematicians, scientists, inventors, etc...even though the scientific method, writing systems, and most of mathematics were invented by non-Europeans?
Is history just a form of racism? Shouldn't history just be about actual past events? |
Because Europe represents the cradle of civilization and the entire history of USA starts from Europe.
P.S. the biggest scientist and eminent historical people WERE indeed in Europe.... Einstein, Hitler, Faraday, Stephen Hawking, Newton, Maria and Pierre Kiri, Huygens, Alexender The Great, Nobel, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Plato, Tesla, Pushkin....etc
P.P.S. Why do you say history isn't based on actual past events?
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| Ophiolite |
| Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 6:03 am Post subject: Re: Why is history so Euro-centric? |
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| JennLonhon wrote: |
| P.P.S. Why do you say history isn't based on actual past events? |
It is important to recognise that history is based upon our current interpretation of what we know of actual past events. That is quite different from saying it is based upon actual past events.
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| JennLonhon |
| Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 6:11 am Post subject: Re: Why is history so Euro-centric? |
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| Ophiolite wrote: |
| JennLonhon wrote: |
| P.P.S. Why do you say history isn't based on actual past events? |
It is important to recognise that history is based upon our current interpretation of what we know of actual past events. That is quite different from saying it is based upon actual past events. |
My bad.... True.... I expressed myself badly. But my question remains, @VitalOne why do you say that
| VitalOne wrote: |
| Is history just a form of racism? Shouldn't history just be about actual past events? |
What do you base that on? How is history racism?
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| i_feel_tiredsleepy |
| Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 1:28 pm Post subject: Re: Why is history so Euro-centric? |
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| JennLonhon wrote: |
| VitalOne wrote: |
What's the reason that history usually only mentions European mathematicians, scientists, inventors, etc...even though the scientific method, writing systems, and most of mathematics were invented by non-Europeans?
Is history just a form of racism? Shouldn't history just be about actual past events? |
Because Europe represents the cradle of civilization and the entire history of USA starts from Europe.
P.S. the biggest scientist and eminent historical people WERE indeed in Europe.... Einstein, Hitler, Faraday, Stephen Hawking, Newton, Maria and Pierre Kiri, Huygens, Alexender The Great, Nobel, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Plato, Tesla, Pushkin....etc
P.P.S. Why do you say history isn't based on actual past events? |
While I don't agree with most of VitalOne's points. Your post does display a clear Eurocentric bias.
When you say "biggest scientist and eminent historical people", this is a subjective interpretation based on your own cultural upbringing. Mao is much more important to the Chinese people than any of those figures are.
I could name a slew of important non-Europeans. It is perhaps valid to say most of the more important scientific discoveries have come out of the West in the last 400 years, it is nonsense to place writers, musicians, and philosophers on any pedestal. You grow up exposed to nothing but Western art so you assume other form of art simply doesn't exist. The artistic history of the rest of the world goes just as deep as anything Europe has produced. Sometimes deeper, with works like Gilgamesh and the Book of Songs predating any surviving Western writings. |
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| Impactor |
| Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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Well, the modern world as we know him today was basicllay "designed" by europe- the model of state, liberalism, nationalism and etc. Most of the sceince "invented" in europe, but there were many discoveries of non-european- for example, the number zero first began to use in india. Many of the modern medicine is based on the medicine of the Arabian Empire in the the 9th-11th century.
The European Nations began to explore and conquer the world, so the map designed that europe is the center. Christianity was very popular in europe, so in a religion world- europe is the center.
Because of all this reasons, we are Eurocentric
By the wat, before europe "raise to power"- the middle east was the great power- look at the 1500 B.C to 500 B.C and you will see many middle east empires. |
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| JennLonhon |
| Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 2:38 pm Post subject: Re: Why is history so Euro-centric? |
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| i_feel_tiredsleepy wrote: |
| JennLonhon wrote: |
| VitalOne wrote: |
What's the reason that history usually only mentions European mathematicians, scientists, inventors, etc...even though the scientific method, writing systems, and most of mathematics were invented by non-Europeans?
Is history just a form of racism? Shouldn't history just be about actual past events? |
Because Europe represents the cradle of civilization and the entire history of USA starts from Europe.
P.S. the biggest scientist and eminent historical people WERE indeed in Europe.... Einstein, Hitler, Faraday, Stephen Hawking, Newton, Maria and Pierre Kiri, Huygens, Alexender The Great, Nobel, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Plato, Tesla, Pushkin....etc
P.P.S. Why do you say history isn't based on actual past events? |
While I don't agree with most of VitalOne's points. Your post does display a clear Eurocentric bias.
When you say "biggest scientist and eminent historical people", this is a subjective interpretation based on your own cultural upbringing. Mao is much more important to the Chinese people than any of those figures are.
I could name a slew of important non-Europeans. It is perhaps valid to say most of the more important scientific discoveries have come out of the West in the last 400 years, it is nonsense to place writers, musicians, and philosophers on any pedestal. You grow up exposed to nothing but Western art so you assume other form of art simply doesn't exist. The artistic history of the rest of the world goes just as deep as anything Europe has produced. Sometimes deeper, with works like Gilgamesh and the Book of Songs predating any surviving Western writings. |
Well, yes, I did say "the biggest" and maybe I went a little too wide with that, but be realistic and compare European and North American "great people". I think you'll find I'm right about some things. And considering Gilgamesh and similar world achievements, I was kind of speaking mostly about the relation Europe-US. But yes, Asia has an enormous influence in world history, I do not deny that, all I am saying is that Europe took all those peaces if world history and sewed them together....
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| Pong |
| Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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What history do we value to look at? Of course Europe rightly steals the spotlight if we value concertos and formations of riflemen. I think it fair to say the whole world has learned to value basically what Europe was and is about.
On the other hand, we now know that thanks to brutal genocidal policy and superhuman harem/rape system, approximately 1/200 people today descend from Genghis Khan himself, and most of us probably carry some genes of his soldiers. Compare dickless little men like Alexander or Napoleon. Europeans must convince the world that Gengis didn't really accomplish anything of lasting value.
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| icewendigo |
| Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 11:52 am Post subject: |
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1- Where did the first man to calculated the circumpherence of the world come from?
2- Where did the first man who's ship to circle around the world come from?
3- Where did the first global(and evil) world empire, whose armies occupied other people's lands on all inhabited continents and on which the sun never set come from?
4- Where was the airplane invented? And where did the frist man to fly around the world come from?
5-Where did the engineers that started the Panama canal and Suez canal come from?
6- Were did the first and second World wars that killed or affected people around the world start from?
7- The first man to Orbit the world(Yuri gagarin)?
Are we being sexist by covering more breakthroughs made by men thoughout history, or is it that we cover what was, and that old societites happen to be sexist?
If you study the pre-1000 BC history, how much book material do you have about Europe's history compared to Egypt and messopotamian civilizations? Is that anti-European racism that there happens to be a lot to cover in the near east regions but not much to new stuff to go with in Europe during the same time period?
This being said, history is also written by the victor, and/or a local people, according to political considerations of a given time.
If the Axis would have won WW2 we would know all about the jewish declaration of war against Germany in the early 30s, how the US strangled Japan in economic warfare, be comemorating the evil bombing of Drezden and denouce the detention of japanese in US concetration camps, etc, etc, basically some of the same events would be cover differently and some events would be covered while they are not today, while others would not be covered while they are today |
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| VitalOne |
| Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 8:48 am Post subject: Re: Why is history so Euro-centric? |
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| Ophiolite wrote: |
| VitalOne wrote: |
| What's the reason that history usually only mentions European mathematicians, scientists, inventors, etc...even though the scientific method, writing systems, and most of mathematics were invented by non-Europeans? |
I'm wholly comfortable that you are completely wrong on the first point. I have strong reservations about the second point. Would you like to justify your assertions? |
No, I am completely correct
al-Haytham, an Arab from Egypt, born in Iraq was the one who invented the modern day scientific method
His Book of Optics got translated into Latin in the 1200s and Roger Bacon read it. Roger Bacon cites Ibn al-Haytham by name in his texts, and Ibn al-Haytham texts detail the scientific method, as well many other things.
This is a confirmed historical fact, but al-Haytham is not really ever mentioned in history class at all, instead Roger Bacon, Galileo, and other Europeans are mentioned
The base 10 system, number zero, trigonometry, parts of calculus, and nearly everything in mathematics were invented by non-Europeans, mostly Arabs, Indians, and the Chinese. In my Number Theory class that I'm taking right now, a lot of the things come from non-Europeans, like the Egyptian fraction formula and Chinese Remainder theorem. Even the words algorithm and algebra come from Arabic.
Without the number zero and the base 10 system doing math is a lot more difficult. |
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| VitalOne |
| Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 9:22 am Post subject: Re: Why is history so Euro-centric? |
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| JennLonhon wrote: |
| VitalOne wrote: |
What's the reason that history usually only mentions European mathematicians, scientists, inventors, etc...even though the scientific method, writing systems, and most of mathematics were invented by non-Europeans?
Is history just a form of racism? Shouldn't history just be about actual past events? |
Because Europe represents the cradle of civilization and the entire history of USA starts from Europe.
P.S. the biggest scientist and eminent historical people WERE indeed in Europe.... Einstein, Hitler, Faraday, Stephen Hawking, Newton, Maria and Pierre Kiri, Huygens, Alexender The Great, Nobel, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Plato, Tesla, Pushkin....etc
P.P.S. Why do you say history isn't based on actual past events? |
If history wasn't Eurocentric then Ibn al-Haytham would be as famous as Newton or Galileo, he is not, and usually never listed nor mentioned when people mention the "greatest scientists"
If history wasn't Eurocentric then Zhu Shijie would be more famous than Blaise Pascal
If history wasn't Eurocentric then Aryabhata would be as famous as Archimedes
This is what I mean when I say history is Euro-centric, and not about actual past events, about "whites only" past events |
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| Impactor |
| Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 11:28 am Post subject: Re: Why is history so Euro-centric? |
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Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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| VitalOne wrote: |
| Ophiolite wrote: |
| VitalOne wrote: |
| What's the reason that history usually only mentions European mathematicians, scientists, inventors, etc...even though the scientific method, writing systems, and most of mathematics were invented by non-Europeans? |
I'm wholly comfortable that you are completely wrong on the first point. I have strong reservations about the second point. Would you like to justify your assertions? |
No, I am completely correct
al-Haytham, an Arab from Egypt, born in Iraq was the one who invented the modern day scientific method
His Book of Optics got translated into Latin in the 1200s and Roger Bacon read it. Roger Bacon cites Ibn al-Haytham by name in his texts, and Ibn al-Haytham texts detail the scientific method, as well many other things.
This is a confirmed historical fact, but al-Haytham is not really ever mentioned in history class at all, instead Roger Bacon, Galileo, and other Europeans are mentioned
The base 10 system, number zero, trigonometry, parts of calculus, and nearly everything in mathematics were invented by non-Europeans, mostly Arabs, Indians, and the Chinese. In my Number Theory class that I'm taking right now, a lot of the things come from non-Europeans, like the Egyptian fraction formula and Chinese Remainder theorem. Even the words algorithm and algebra come from Arabic.
Without the number zero and the base 10 system doing math is a lot more difficult. |
"If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants" - Isaac Newton
even if the giants are non-european, most of the last inventions(1500 A.D-This Moment) had been invented by europeans, and that is what we remember. and considering the fact the you are learning about those non-europeans scientists, I won't say that history ingores those people.
Right now I am learning in high school(I am not in UK/USA). In the last year we learned about the Arabian Empire- inculding the scientists that you menthioned. So I guess it's depends on the education system and it's contents.
Many of the Arabian science is based on european science- for example, After the war between the Arabian Empire and the Byzantine Empire(around 830 A.D), many books translated into arbian from greek- those books, which transferred to Baghdad's library were the foundations of the Arbian Science. In addition, many of the arabian writings were based on the greek writings.
and all this I know from my high school lessons. So history does not ignore them- your country does. |
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