Why I read this book: With ascent of Chinese economy, a lot of discussion are centered on how china will evolve its political structure, following the foodsteps of western democracy or continuing single party structure. And I think there are a lot of history lessons we can learn from reading the eternal enmity between east and west, which is the focal theme of this book. For an China-centric view, check this one out
李世默:兩種制度的傳說 Eric X. Li: A tale of two political systems
What is this book about:
This dome is 600+ pages long and ambitiously tried to cover a span of 2500 years history of conflicts between East (Asia) and West (Europe), starting from Persian invasion of Athens by Darius and continued to Alexander the Great conquer of Asia and goes all the way to America's invasion of Iraq in 2002. I am still long way to go to finish it, but just want to add some thoughts while I am still reading it.
1. The author seems to think East (Asia) always prefer despotism or oligarchy and West (Europe) prefers individualism and democracy. Not sure it is a widely held belief but looking back in Chinese history it seems the pattern holds.
2.In western history, there seems always be multiple power centers to check and balance each other. In Roman empire, Senate vs Caesar and church vs king post Rome, and in current days US, it is tri-power structure: White house, Senate and Congress, and then Superium court. On the contrary, in Eastern history there seems always a single controlling power: either it is king or it is Muslim religious leader. Is it due to geographic reason or homogeneous race?
3. In chapter 5
The coming of Islam, during 712 to 833, there was a period of "Arab Renaissance", when Muslim scholars(most notably among them were
Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Riruni,
Ibn Sina,
al-Farabi,
Ibn Tufayl) translated and annotated many Greek and Roman(/Byzantium) scientific and philosophical writings. This period of "Arab Renaissance" precedes the later European Renaissance and provided European scholars insight into Greek era ideas and knowledge. So the big question is: Why can it happen? Why doesn't it happen again? One explanation from French theologian Ernest Renan is that Muslim derived their culture and education wholly from Islam, and he believes all the monotheistic religions (this include both Islam and Christian) are incompatible with the progress of modern sciences. And he believes "Arab Renaissance" was the result of non-Muslim scholars work during a rare moment of openness during Islamic rule in Euroasia.
4. In Chapter 8
Science Ascendant, religion provides 1st permanent settlement for for human race on the earth, ie. Islam for near east, Christianity for west and confucian for far east, and science provided human means to explore the surrounding of their settlement and help them find out where their home is and where they can go further.
5. Chapter 9
Enlightened Orientalism, Voltaire asked if the East had been "the nursery of all the arts, to which the Western would owes everything it now enjoys,", why was it that the nations of the West "seemed to have been born only yesterday ... now go further than any other people in more than one field?". Answer: Ownership society. Francois Bernier, who had spent 12 years as physician to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, in his book
A New Division of the Earth According to the Difference Species or Races Which Inhabit It, states that Oriental despot did not rule over but actually owned the state (《诗经》『溥天之下，莫非王土；率土之滨，莫非王臣』). In the West the status and identity of an individual were to a great extent determined by his or her ability to own property. In the East, however, everything was owned by the sovereign, and it was this that lead to the same fate for all Oriental empires: tyranny, ruin and desolation.Only in the Orient did there exist what Montesquieu termed "political slavery", the absence of any freedom to act or express oneself independently of the sovereign's will. And the sovereign's will was enforced not through honour,as occurs in monarchies, nor through virtues, as is the case in republics, but through fear, which is why in despotic states, in particular those in Asia, religion is so important, for all religion is always "fear added fear". Oriental despotic societies resembled not states but large families (家天下）. All the Eastern countries "had one thing in common: they were all, in their different ways, ruled by despots, enthralled to systems of government upheld by religious whose objectives was to persuade the masses that neither nature nor any of their gods offered them any other way of living. They were societies composed of hordes, not individuals. And as long as they remained immured behind their self-imposed walls of ignorance and apathy, nothing could help them. For them, time and progress had little meaning; the truth of everything, including what Europeans looked upon as science, could be established only by reference to the past". Think about North Korea and Cuba.
6. Chapter 12
Epilog , 启发民智，始于民生，吃饱穿暖，再谈民选，帝制压抑，积弱百年，自由民主，循序渐进，小民可教，需要时间
