History Narrative Interpretation Assignments
Felipe Fernandez Armesto, an English historian wrote several books which one of those is the world a history where he relate the big changes that occurred in the world(WEST), or the world progressed(WEST), became modern or if I may how the Westerners (Europe) outperform the eastern civilizations. Based on my reading, and understanding I will explain why I used the word outperform. The answer is simple it’s because in Armesto’s book the chapters, emphasized on how the west with multiple challenge came from nothing to something. Some people argue that one of the the purpose of History is to narrate progress and Armesto does it pretty well that’s why big academic institutions use his books, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we can’t question his sources. Because “true” is a relative word I am going to challenge his belief the Eurocentric paradigm or conclusion that “Europe made the world” instead of the world made Europe (modern, modernity theory and progress). As we look on the first part of the book, the three chapters talk about the global economy in the 18th century, and intersection of the 18th century, and the thought in the 18th century. In page 685, Armesto introduce the Economic trends of China, India and the Ottoman Empire by explaining how the West begin to catch up with China and India to the point, the new rich among the world’s economics began to emerge in Europe and America when India went into a sharp relative decline. Chinese pre-industrial economy was efficient enough as it was that there was no profit motive for the capital expense of technical improvements; in the meanwhile Westerners had the chance to narrow their habitual trade gap with china by finding substitute regions where to grow tea, their imports to China, and also foreigners could exploit the Opium because China banned the Opium trade; last but not least they could outstrip Chinese production by mechanizing...