imagine for a moment that you are one of the great Emperors of ancient China perhaps the very first emperor Qin Shi Huangdi or the great martial emperor of the Han Dynasty Rudy or even emperor xuanzong of the awesome Tang Dynasty if you were the great emperor xuanzong then this would be the Year 740 of the Common Era and you would be ruling the vast Tung Chinese Empire.
from your magnificent palace in the heart of Chang'an undoubtedly the most splendid capital city on earth your city is 30 square miles an area home to 2 million people including tens of thousands of foreigners from all over Asia by way of comparison London and Paris would have had populations of less than 50,000 people each during this same period and your court is resplendent with beautiful concubines with some of the finest poets and musicians who ever lived and even a troupe of dancing horses in the vast agricultural regions of China surrounding the capital dwell untold millions of peasant farmers who have created the most successful commercial farming system the world has ever seen great camel caravans are constantly leaving your city carrying bales of raw silk destined for markets in the enormous realm of Islam and merchants from all over Eurasia are flocking back into Chang'an bringing with them their languages their foods their music and their religions this is one of the great moments in world history.
A moment when China was undoubtedly the wealthiest and most powerful entity the world had ever seen and this journey upon which we are embarking together will take you to the very heart of the extraordinary achievements of Chinese and Eastern civilization we have sown to explore so many fascinating people and ideas to encounter so many historical and cultural threads to follow as we tease out the core elements of eastern civilization and consider their role in the making of the modern world together we will discover the big ideas of Eastern civilization we see firsthand how these ideas were created and by whom had they developed and were changed over time and how they eventually spread from their center of origin to engulf the entire eastern hemisphere we learn how these ideas were expressed in art in architecture in great works of literature and philosophy and in the religious ideologies customs and aesthetics that made the nations of East Asia so distinctly well Eastern some of these big ideas and the material entities they produced are things you most likely already know something about I'm thinking of course of iconic structures like the Great Wall of China which stretches 5,500 miles along the northern borders as a permanent reminder of the the struggles that took place in these frontier regions where so many Chinese dynasties were forced to defend themselves against the nomadic horseback warriors of the steppes like the Shah knew and the mighty Mongols it was the first emperor of China himself who ordered the walls be constructed a massive undertaking.
That costs the lives of tens of thousands of conscripted workers we visit the Forbidden City that huge complex of residences temples and gardens hidden behind its own protective walls closed off even from its own people the city was so isolated that the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty had no idea that rebels were about to take the capital of Beijing virtually until the moment he saw them climbing over the walls of the city traumatized he killed his family with his own sword and then hanged himself from a pagoda tree deep inside the Forbidden City we will also join Chinese archaeologists as they began to unearth the thousands of extraordinary life-sized terracotta soldiers in order to learn what the first Emperor chyna hope to achieve in the afterlife with this army frozen in time although you might already know a little about these iconic structures will dig deeper to see how these achievements reflect much more ancient cultural and ideological currents the great themes of Eastern civilization and how these monuments continue to reflect the powerful foundational principles that resonate in the region even today in addition will encounter some lesser-known but equally important people our places and events will meet First Minister you of that shock dynasty who 4,000 years ago labored mightily to bend the flow of the Yangtze River will explore the practice of human sacrifice carried out by the Shang Dynasty Kings and we'll walk through devastated warring States China with great philosophers like Confucius as they sought solutions to centuries of civil war together we traveled the Silk Roads writing the extraordinary Bactrian camels carrying gorgeous Chinese silk that will eventually be worn by the fabulously wealthy patrician women of Rome and we see that even as Chinese silk was flowing out of China and on to Rome at a cost by the way of perhaps six million Roman gold coins every year no wonder the Chinese border guards to search the caravans to make sure no one was carrying silkworms out of China and jeopardizing the Chinese monopoly but even as this fabulously expensive silk was leaving the great Indian spiritual philosophy of Buddhism was using the same trade routes to spread eastwards into China.
Then on to Korea Japan and Vietnam to profoundly influenced the evolution of culture in those countries we also explore the rich culture of Korea under its array of glittering dynasties and the story of Japanese culture as it passed through stages from Chinese influenced opulence to samurai dominated feudalism and then on to modernization and eventually imperialism this is also a course about people including peasants like Hong Wu who founded the Ming Dynasty one of only three peasants who ever ruled China about artisans who created the Magnificent Buddhist temples of ancient korea and japan about the awesomely powerful emperors and the extraordinary women of east asia who are all collectively woven into the rich fabric of eastern civilization we follow the story of Eastern civilization from its origins and one of the great cradles of all human civilization through its evolution into a vast and complex cultural Empire which created its own unique solutions to the problems of sustaining vast populations in orderly productive societies what you quickly come to realize is that all of us have been lifelong students of Eastern civilization without perhaps even being aware of it I say this because so much of what we explore in this course has also shaped our world in the West so gaining insight into these developments is it's not only essential to understanding why the East is what it is today but also why the interconnected global world of the 21st century is the way it is today we will spend a lot of time exploring.
The traditions of China almost half of our time in fact China plays a major role in our story because this is where many of the foundational ideas of Eastern civilization first emerged China is the very cradle of Eastern civilization but China is not the whole story of Eastern civilization will travel far beyond its borders we explore the the spread of these Chinese ideas into other regions of the eastern hemisphere into Korea and Japan and into Vietnam and Cambodia even Tibet and Central Asia and at the same time we also consider the impact of cultural products that spread into East Asia from other far-flung places I'm thinking of technologies like sophisticated glassblowing and new musical instruments from the Mediterranean and Central Asia or foods like the peanut and corn from the Americas and of course great religions like Buddhism from India menarchy ism from Central Asia Islam from Arabia and Christianity from the Mediterranean all of which influenced and modified Eastern civil in so many fascinating ways these imports blended with the ancient philosophies foods and technologies of the East to create an extraordinary syncretic mix which has been enriching our world for millennia this then is the exciting mission we are embarking upon but to get properly started I think we need to do something very tricky first and that is to try and define what we mean by the three key words in the title of this course foundations Eastern and civilization each of these words is laden with context and hidden layers of meaning and each word can be surprisingly controversial.
In its own way what does the word Eastern mean to you for example how would you define the meaning of the word civilization it is a widely used word but still there is considerable disagreement about its meaning and even as common a word as foundations can have multiple meanings take a look in any dictionary and you'll see what I mean so this is the task that will occupy us now for most of the remainder of this first lecture a search for an understanding of the meaning of foundations of Eastern and of civilization the very words we have chosen to describe our course let's start with the word Eastern what do we mean when we speak of Eastern in the context of this course now in popular culture today Eastern essentially means anything to do with Asia that is virtually the entire Asian continent from the Middle East through to the Pacific Ocean from the steppes of Siberia to the very bottom of the Indian subcontinent it is often used in contrast to the term Western which usually denotes Europe and the Americas this definition of Eastern is frankly far too broad to be useful here and it also misses some fundamental distinctions and subtleties so let's try and be more specific about the scope of our course in this course we are defining Eastern to mean the culture and history of China Korea Japan and the nations of Southeast Asia in focusing solely on this region we are obviously leaving out other important regions that have traditionally been defined as belonging to the eastern hemisphere most obviously the vast Indian subcontinent but although defining Eastern in this way might seem a little controversial we have some very powerful reasons for doing so that I think will help us understand more precisely what Eastern civilization actually is what makes this specific region.
So distinct then and why should these countries in particular be the focus for our exploration of the foundations of Eastern civilization the reason is China we focus on those regions of the world that have been profoundly influenced over thousands of years by the foundational cultural achievements of the Chinese as we will see despite the many fascinating and powerful connections that we'll trace with so many other parts of the world the region that includes China Korea Japan and Southeast Asia collectively constitutes its own distinct and extraordinary solar system if you like with China as the Sun China has been the great cultural giant of the East and all the other states of the region have found themselves caught up in its gravitational pull like so many planets orbiting a powerful star it's precisely because of this gravitational pull that it is reasonable to speak of an eastern hemisphere joined by common cultural ideas practices and customs that have United the entire region throughout history down to the present day but let me immediately clarify that I'm not suggesting the other states of East Asia were just carbon copies of China far from it despite the size the power and the wealth of China we in fact see many ways in which people in Korea Japan and Vietnam all managed to resist being swamped by the Chinese cultural tidal wave and developed their own unique ideas and customs it is actually in this complex interchange of Chinese and indigenous ideas in the great cities and temples of Korea Japan and Vietnam that the foundations of Eastern civilization have endured and evolved for this reason we explore the glorious boo gooks a Buddhist temple of Korea with its massive Buddha and gigantic bronze bells a complex so extraordinary it has been designated as historic and scenic site number 1 by the South Korean government we enter the sophisticated high an era of Japan a sumptuous world of gloriously dressed men who would exotic mysterious women by mixing perfumes and admiring their calligraphy even as the peasants were leading miserable lives in the real world beyond the super refined chord and we will visit the Magnificent temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia product of indigenous camus construction but also of Chinese Buddhist and Indian Hindu cultural influences a unesco world heritage site that stands today as a testament to the syncretic diversity of Eastern civilization but even with all these diverse cultural influences at play the vibrant creative energy of China is the primary thread that we follow china wills the same degree of influence on Eastern civilization that the Greeks and Romans wield on Western civilization so we have two ways of defining Eastern in this course geographically but also culturally and we do acknowledge that both these definitions can be controversial let's move on to the word civilization which frankly is an even more difficult concept to define than Eastern the word civilization comes from a latin root sieve and upon this route several other words can be constructed civis for example means citizen Civitas is the latin word for a city or a city state and Sevilla's can mean civil polite or citizen like the common element here obviously is the city and its citizens so strictly speaking when we use the word civilization we are describing regions of the world in which cities are the largest and most important communities according to this definition the word civilization should only strictly be used to refer to states that emerged after cities had appeared on the planet for the very first time these first cities emerge roughly 5,000 years ago in the Delta regions of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in a place then called Sumeria a part of modern-day Iraq these first cities you know the MER earth rook and Babylon were followed by cities in Egypt and then in the Indus Valley in Central Asia in China.
Certainly the Mediterranean other parts of Africa and much later in the Americas the appearance of cities and the states and civilizations they came to dominate marks the beginning of a new era in human history which big historians with their very wide perspective on history have labeled the era of agrarian civilizations we add the word agrarian here as a reminder that despite the size and complexity of the cities in their urban life ways most people still farm for a living just like today the millions of humans living in these cities were utterly dependent on successful farming the appearance of cities States and these agrarian civilizations did not mean by the way that all other types of human communities suddenly disappeared now even as great agrarian civilizations spread across Eurasia millions of humans continue to survivers hunter-gatherers or small-scale subsistence farmers or as pastoral nomads and here is where we encounter some of the controversy surrounding the word civilization in the classical sense of the word civilized is often used to compare and contrast one type of community or life way the so called civilized community with peoples that might follow a very different life way nomadism for example that is often termed uncivilized so another example the Romans were civilized the Huns were uncivilized that the word civilized is often used as a value judgment to argue that Roman attitudes Roman life ways and achievements were superior to Hunnish attitudes life ways and achievements now this is the main reason that modern historians often prefer to avoid the word civilization altogether because it has been used for so long - to pass judgment on the success or cultural superiority of a particular society I can assure you that we will be very careful not to pass judgment on nomadic life ways in this course but we will also acknowledge that the great cities and agrarian civilizations of Eurasia.
Quickly became the most dynamic human communities of all we should also quickly mention perhaps some of the defining characteristics that were common to all agrarian civilizations wherever they appeared in the world in the world all these civilizations were controlled by States which we can define as political structures that wield power based on coercion these states all supported themselves through the collection of tributes that is they use their military muscle to extract resources from the citizenry by the threat of force agrarian civilizations are also characterized by a complex division of labor will see the myriad numbers of ways that humans made their livings in these great cities for example they're also characterized by writing and by bureaucracies to administer these huge populations and also for the first time in human history by very steep hierarchies of wealth gender power and ethnicity the fact is once these communities appeared it became possible to amass great wealth and great power and now once wealth but also one's gender and one's ethnicity began to matter for the first time in human history in determining the place that you occupied in these newly constructed social hierarchies the development of these hierarchies of the interrelationship between peasants and elites for example and the ever changing status of women will be one of the key foundational themes of Eastern civilization that guides us one of the extraordinary women that we'll meet is yang GUI Fei of the Tang Dynasty who left her husband to the Emperor's own son to become concubine of the great emperor xuanzong himself later yang GUI Fei got caught up in a a dangerous rebellion against the tongue against the Emperor and the old Emperor who deeply loved her could only watch her hang he was so distressed that he abdicated soon after and spent the rest of his life lamenting her loss so these defining political economic social and gender characteristics are common to almost all civilizations around the world of course but the story that these lectures will unfold is that of Eastern civilization in particular as we set out to answer these key questions what made each turn civilization unique how can we distinguish Eastern civilization from all the other civilizations in Mesopotamia in Africa in the Americas upon what particular foundations did the the big ideas of Eastern civilization stand as they answer the pressing questions facing their own societies and how did these foundational ideas endure and evolve to help shape the world we live in today these questions bring me to the final word in the title of the series that we need to consider foundations what can we say about the many of the word foundations as you'll see if you look it up in the dictionary foundations is a surprisingly complex word with many meanings several of which I think can be applied to this course a foundation can be a a basis like a principal an axiom an idea upon which something stands or is supported so we can talk about the foundational principles of mathematics or physics of engineering it can be the solid base or support of something tangible like the foundations of a building and it can also be applied more broadly to human communities and life ways we can talk about the foundations of modern society for example in the context of this course this last and most reassuringly vague meaning is probably closest to what we are trying to do but it will be useful to keep all of these definitions in mind as we go through the next 47 lectures our goal in these lectures is no less ambitious than to identify define and trace the development of all these significant cultural ideas and principles that emerged inside this concept that we have defined as Eastern civilization and then to see how these core foundational ideas endured and went on to influence the development of society and civilization both within the Eastern cultural realm but also right around the world I have mentioned some of these foundational elements already these key themes ideas about government about economic organization social relationships gender relationships ideas about religion philosophy other ideologies ideas about writing technology visual and literary art and so on we explore these core foundational elements of Eastern civilization across vast areas of geographical space and eons of historical time let me try and highlight some of the things we'll be looking at as we explore these foundational principles listen for these reoccurring along the way one essential element that we will be talking about at the beginning of each region is the geography climate and ecology of that region because people's and their ideas are powerfully shaped by nature as we enter China Korea Japan and Southeast Asia.
We explore how the rivers the mountains the deserts and the natural resources shaped the peoples who settle there and the societies they created I'm talking about wild desert frontiers like the Gobi like the highest mountain ranges on earth the Himalaya flooding rivers like the Yangtze and the Yellow River earthquakes along the great tectonic fault zones of Japan oceans that were so terrifying to the Mongols that the rulers of the Koyo dynasty in Korea simply relocated they're caught to an island just off the coast knowing that the Mongols would never dare cross the Straits and attack them we explore the fierce typhoons that devastated the coast of East Asia we explore the volcanoes like sacred mountain bite do in North Korea legendary birthplace of former North Korean ruler Kim Jong Il all these have played a critical role in shaping behavior and ideas after establishing our environmental context our stage if you like we look at early human migrations into East Asia and the Stone Age life ways and beliefs that sustained these migrants we look at the first dwellings from the small communal huts that common people lived worked prayed and died for to the architecture of the great cities they evolved into cities like Chang'an modern Xian in China arguably the greatest Imperial city on earth for thousands of years we enter the temples and monasteries built for the religions of Eastern civilization built for taoism buddhism Shintoism and we see how these great faiths competed for the hearts and souls of the untold millions of humans who have dwelt within the eastern hemisphere we explore some of the richest schools and ideas of philosophy ever devised by humans particularly Confucianism whose influence on Eastern civilization has been just as profound as the influence of Plato and Aristotle on the West together we consider some of the greatest works of Eastern literature great novels like Journey to the West Romance of the Three Kingdoms The Tale of Genji the superb poetry from the Golden Age of Chinese poetry during the Tang Dynasty along with very poignant poems from the Silla dynasty in korea and the high-end court in japan and let's not forget the extraordinary technological inventions of Eastern civilization printing steel the compass gunpowder even the wheelbarrow it at its heart our journey is about the people we meet along the way we meet great rulers the first emperor of China who died after drinking an elixir of mercury in his search for eternal life we meet Madhu the great ruler of the Xiong nu nomads who killed his own father and then constructed an awesome force of 300 thousand mounted Archer warriors that absolutely terrified the Chinese we meet King Sejong of the Korean Chosun dynasty who is responsible for creating the the Korean writing system Hangul we also meet the great Mongol leaders Chinggis Khaan and his grandson Kublai Khan who founded the powerful yuan dynasty in China this was the Emperor that Marco Polo met on his extraordinary travels and we meet more modern leaders like a Emperor Meiji who transformed Japan from a backward feudal state to one of the great powers of the world in just two generations and of course we also meet Mao Zedong the revolutionary leader who founded the People's Republic of China one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century and again we meet exotic and brilliant women like Ben jowl who created the very notion of the ideal Confucian woman like the ancient Japanese shaman Queen Himiko and like empress wu Zeitung still to this day the only woman ever to rule china and this is a course about the lives the hopes the aspirations of the common people the merchants who rode their camels along the Silk Roads the peasants who grew the food to sustain the largest populations ever seen in human history and the slaves who built the tombs the monuments and the great walls of East Asia collectively it is these extraordinary men and women whose lives and achievements have woven the rich tapestry of Eastern civilization this is a story of triumph and tragedy without parallel in the history of the world and it's my great pleasure and very good fortune to unfold it for you.
