Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 4:24am

Cultures in Isolation

An interesting look at the Ancient Egyptians, the Mayans and the Early Modern Japanese.  Not bad although the history is a bit weak at points, especially in regard to the contention that these civilizations were peaceful.  That would have come as a surprise to the subjects of the Egyptian Empire of the New Kingdom or to the Koreans fending off Japanese invasion in the late Sixteenth Century.  Japan, after the Meji Restoration in the 1860s, soon went on a path of rapid foreign expansion that ended only in 1945.  Only the Mayans really fit the argument being made in the video about the cultural advantages of isolationism and peace.  Cultural isolationism can also produce stagnant cultures like the Polynesians, the Eskimos and, actually, the Japanese of the Eighteenth Century.  However, I do enjoy cross-cultural looks at history, so I applaud the attempt if not the results.

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William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Monday, October 3, AD 2016 7:32pm

It’s hard to imagine a culture more isolated than the Polynesians on Hawaii and how quickly they converted to Christianity.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, October 4, AD 2016 5:49am

William P Walsh wrote, “It’s hard to imagine a culture more isolated than the Polynesians on Hawaii and how quickly they converted to Christianity.”

French Polynesia remains one of the most peaceful societies on Earth, with a murder rate of 0.4 per 100,000 (One murder in 2009)

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