>No question the success of the west is due to too many contingencies for
>any theory (that isn't more than a vacuous laudatio or rationalization for
>abuses) to really manage to properly grab hold of them all.
Probably not, but I do think that someone must have made a spirited and
informed attempt. Does anyone have the name of any books worth reading? I
suspect there are multiple ideas, parts of all of which are correct: I'd
like the chance to judge them for myself.
>One possible
>influence that interests me is that in the aftermath of the decline and
>fall of the Roman Empire, Western Europe was never able to reconsolidate
>itself into a polity with that kind of cohesion and yet was haunted by the
>memory (or at the least the fantasy) of it.
But that, of course, begs the question: how did the Roman Empire come in to
being? Does this, I wonder, lead back to the 'cradle of civilization' in
the Middle East? What puzzles me is how tool-use occurred throughout
humanity, but at some point stopped developing for some people, whilst
others continued to develop more and more advanced technology. And, in some
ways, more advanced societal structures (although that is open to debate).
Sarah
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