American exceptionalism???

“Unlike many of the reactionary voices one finds in academia today, my mother never suggested that 5th century BC Athens or 15th century Florence or 18th century Paris were somehow more important than their counterparts outside of Europe.”

Hugo, I am interested in what you would list or your mother would have listed as the three counterparts outside of Europe to the three examples you gave inside Europe.


I’m no expert, but I’d go with 10th-century Córdoba; Persepolis in the 400s BCE (can never remember how to number centuries BCE); maybe Ming dynasty China; maybe the Mughal Empire under Akbar. These just off the top of my head. I’m more sure about the first two than the letter two.

Obviously, Fred, the last person to ask would be an expert on Western Civ! The question is better asked of a historian of other parts of the world; I am sure my friends who teach Indian and Chinese and Latin American history could knock this one out of the park.

10th-century Cordova was in Europe.

Persepolis, capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, was a major cultural influence from about 516 BC to 332 BC. In the world at that time, only the Zhou Dynasty (Confucius, etc.) in China could compare. The culture of Persepolis is still a major influence of the cultures in the Near East today and is a likely counterpart to Athens influence on the West.

The Ming Dynasty started out as a renewal or renaissance (e.g.
Florence) of Han culture in China. During it, the Forbidden City was founded in Peking and the Grand Canal was restored. However, I think the Ming Dynasty failed to surpass the Song Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty was also a time of major economic and military decline for China. The rulers allowed a decline of the navy, which lead to a rise of piracy and decline of maritime trade. The silver crisis and the building of the Great Wall were major problems.

I don’t know much about the Mogul Empire, except for the military campaigns of Babur and Akbar (descendants of Tamerlame and Genghis Khan). I would think the Mogul Empire’s influence is mostly in Pakistan today and not in India.

The Moguls excelled primarily at mass murder, rape, destruction of temples, exploitative landlordism, and forcible conversion. I’m a Christian of Indian Hindu descent, so I was brought up on tales of Moghul depravity.

The Inca Empire is probably one of the high achievements of a non-Eurasian culture. While obviously they were technologically backward compared to Europe, they managed to provide a relatively decent life for their citizens, with guaranteed work, food, housing, and so forth (although with no political freedom). Contemporary Spanish accounts suggest that the Spanish were impressed by the well-being and security of a Quechua peasant compared to his Spanish counterpart; one of the conquistadors, on his deathbed, repented for having helped destroy a society that he considered the most virtuous, just and harmonious he had ever seen. Many 20th century Marxist historians picked up this theme and saw in the Incas a kind of pre-modern socialism.

Early-modern Japan is also a good example