Today's bibliography of our review, "A History of the World in Eighteen Time and Space," comes from the German writer Ewald Fried.
Discovery and conquest, revolution and war, isolation and interconnection, center and edge, who is changing the world? Who is being changed by the world? 18 stories of time and space, human civilization alternately shines, reproducing the world picture full of stars. World history is not the parkour of heroes, nor is it a relay race of progress, but a carpet of chaotic weaving, full of holes and cracks, full of small and big people, heroes and losers, progress, interruption and forgetting. This story of world history is told to you by Ewald Fry, a professor of history at the University of Tübingen in Germany...
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The Jury of Books
Jury
Bibliography of this issue
A History of the World in Eighteen Time and Space
Author: [de] Ewald Fry
Illustration: [de] Sophia Martinac
Translator: Zhao Lian
Edition: CITIC Publishing Group, Insight City-State July 2021
About the Author:
Ewald Frie (born 1962) is a German historian, deputy director of the Institute of Modern History at the University of Tübingen, Germany, professor of modern history, and has led several world history research projects. He received his Ph.D. in Catholic Theology from the University of Munster in 1992. From 1993 to 1995, he worked at the NRW Science Center in Düsseldorf. Since 2007 he has been teaching at the University of Duisburg-Essen as Professor of Modern History at the University of Trier. Since 2008 he has been a professor of modern history at the University of Tübingen. His major works covered German, European and Australian history, such as Friedrich II, and he published a popular history book for young readers, The Chocolate Problem (2009).
illustration:
Sophia Martineck (born 1981) studied visual communication in Berlin, New York and Liverpool and is now an illustrator, designer and comic artist for German and international publishers.
translator:
Zhao Lian, a native of Qingdao, Shandong Province, graduated from the German Department of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese, master of communication from Peking University, and visiting scholar at the School of Journalism and Communication of the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He has worked as a translator and editor at Xinhua News Agency for 20 years, and is now a senior editor at the Hong Kong Local History Centre.
Judge
001
Basking in the moon
“
They push history, and they have not been forgotten
When I saw the introduction to the book, I was fascinated by it, in part because I personally prefer historical books, and partly because of its novelty. Most of the books and articles on historical themes tell the stories of the grand period that people are familiar with, the deeds of famous people, while this book tells the stories of small people and big people, heroes and losers, progress, interruption, and forgetting. In addition, every illustration in this book is exquisite, combined with the historical trajectory, so that the reader can look very comfortable.
First of all, I would like to talk about what I like about this book. The book tells a lot of historical periods and historical deeds that I have not specifically understood, or even heard, but they are real facts that have existed and happened, even if we have not understood and forgotten them, but they push history forward together with those stories that we are "familiar with", they constitute history, they are history. I think the biggest charm of this book is to make people care about forgotten history through "little known" historical stories. What impressed me the most was the story of Columbus discovering a new region in Chapter 10. When we think of Columbus, we will say "discovery of the New World" without hesitation, of course, this is an indelible fact and achievement, but what about those who are "discovered"?
In the book, there is a passage that reads: "Within this generation, almost all the inhabitants of the Caribbean were wiped out ... Many people were killed in attacks by Europeans... Many failed to survive the jobs and working conditions imposed on them by the Europeans... There is not enough time to tell their history of disasters, let alone learn a script and record them. "For the royal families of Spain and Portugal, Columbus's discovery of the New World gave them a great deal of wealth and labor, but for the local indigenous people, what they got was disease and destruction. Like a double-sided monument standing on the island of Mactan in the Philippines today, one is dedicated to Magellan, who completed the first circumnavigation of the globe in human history; the other is to commemorate a warrior in the Philippines, because it was he who killed the colonial leader Magellan.
Second, let's talk about the parts of the book that don't meet expectations. I think the content of this book is not as wonderful as described in the introduction, and after reading the introduction, I thought that this book should be partial to telling history with stories, but in fact, it is very purely telling historical stories. For people with insufficient historical skills, it is difficult to enter the world depicted in the book, and it is difficult to put the knowledge of the book into a system, because the story of the book looks a bit scattered and independent, which also means adding some boredom to the book.
Finally, I would like to conclude with the famous words of the historian Mira: "The Great Voyages were a great era, there is no doubt about it. But, in modern history, we generally hear only the winners laugh, not the losers crying—we take for granted these people who have lost too much; their misery reflects the smiling faces of the victors. "Not just the Age of Discovery, but the whole river of history, but they are history, and they will not be forgotten."
Reading Score: 7 out of 10
”
002
Cathy
The intertwined history of the Enlightenment of the world
"World history is not the parkour of heroes. It is more like a carpet of holes and cracks woven by everyone (because there is no guidance), with long and short lines, and thousands of colors that do not match each other", in the opening chapter of space and time, the author opens the whole point of view, first with Captain Cook's discovery of the world as the introduction, and then telling the changes in the calculation of time in various countries.
Eighteen places appeared a few relatively unfamiliar terms, such as Polucar, Hijbai, Moche Valley, Tenochtitlan and Cusco, Kiluwa, Shah Jahanabad, Cape De France, Lake Volta, etc., perhaps I was relatively unfamiliar with the history of the above places, most of the world history I had seen before began in Europe, focusing on Europe or the Americas (especially the United States), and rarely encountered world history books that focused on India, Central Asia, South America, and Africa.
As the author says, the pattern of the carpet he laid is clearly visible, but it is also full of holes and cracks, things are interrelated, they are not without rules (then the carpet is scattered), such as European navigation opens the door to the world, colonialism has a profound impact on Africa, South America and even India, parts of Asia, but it is not completely regular (then the carpet will not be as beautiful as it is true). It is impossible to trace the direction of each line, and there is no pattern that can explain the whole connection, but it is worthwhile to lift the carpet in different places in order to know more or less from the back about the length of the downline, the connection between multiple important positions, and the path from one end of the carpet to the other. Because after carefully observing each specific location, we can understand the internal logic of a certain place in a certain period. If we start exploring its connections from somewhere, we can determine where each place originated and the scope of its impact for major twists. This is to summarize the writing context of this book from a macro level.
In addition to India, Asia is represented by ancient Babylon, China's Chang'an, Byzantium, Central Asia's Hijjabai and Japan's Hokkaido, while modern countries have chosen the United States, Germany and Russia. Due to the limited space, the author cannot describe the development process of each country, region or city in detail, and can only intercept some of the surging events from the long river of history to highlight his central idea. For readers who have not yet learned about the history of some non-popular countries and regions (such as myself), this book will undoubtedly help broaden their horizons and attract them to read more relevant history books in depth. This is the second biggest takeaway from reading this book.
In addition, I have to praise the illustrations of this book, almost every illustration is in A4 to present the local characteristics and style, and it is very in place, even if you do not look at the content, you probably know what country or region is painted in the illustration, and what historical events are told.
Of course, the book still has its shortcomings, such as in the Chang'an chapter, page 104 has a passage that says that "the paper that China invented in the 2nd century BC did not arrive in Europe through Persia, Arabia and Spain and Italy until the 12th century", if I remember correctly, the appearance of paper should be during the Western Han Dynasty in China, and the 2nd century BC was during the Qin Dynasty. There is also a description in the Hokkaido chapter, p. 276, "So people have a sense of pride in their own creation and realization, which is different from the Chinese and Indians who have always remained in the colony or semi-colonial state", I wonder when China became a colony or a semi-colonial state. Perhaps the author can mark the timeline here, otherwise it is easy to cause misunderstanding. In general, the flaws are not hidden, and I can only find some minor flaws because I am Chinese and familiar with Chinese history.
If I were to describe this book as a food, I would like to call it a glass of colorful juice, rich in taste, multiple flavors, dense and thick without losing its unique fragrance.
Reading Score: 7.5 out of 10
003
Crystal
The starting point of world history is not a point at all
World history is a history of the development of human civilization for thousands of years, which can be described as a long road and a long way to go, and it has to be explored up and down. The size of the earth and the number of nations doom the history of the world to be extensive and complex. In terms of time, from the emergence of writing, the history of human civilization has gone through thousands of years, from ancient history to modern history to modern history. Spatially, from the ancient Egyptian civilization that originated in the Nile River, the ancient Babylonian civilization in the Two Rivers Valley, to the ancient Indian civilization in the Indus River and the Ganges River, and the Chinese civilization in the Central Plains.
In recent years, when I have become a mother, I feel that the responsibility shouldered is not only to raise her children to adulthood, but also to analyze and guide the inheritance of history and traditional culture on the road of children's growth. I am well aware of my lack of historical knowledge, let alone talking to my children. In the past two years, I began to focus on reading history books in my free time. From specific regional histories, such as a brief history of Tibet, a history of the Silk Road, the Tea Horse Ancient Road, etc., slowly enter the history of the Qin and Han Dynasties, followed by the history of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and continue the history of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. For the long history, the knowledge is still insignificant. History is not as boring and tedious as imagined, patience, calm down, slowly taste, will be able to come to a journey across time and space in the book.
Over time, I began to wonder what Europe and Africa would look like in the same period?! The concept of world history began to ripple in my mind, but I never knew how to start. A History of the World in Eighteen Time and Space is a book by the German historian and university professor of history, Évald Fried. Eighteen time and space, the visible content is comprehensive enough, and the geographical span is also extensive. I hadn't read a history book written by a foreigner before, but a foreigner certainly had a different perspective than Chinese. Because the countries in which we are based are different, the cultural background is also different.
The book is thick and informative, divided into 20 chapters, with occasional illustrations of periods corresponding to their chapters. In the first chapter, Space and Time, the author describes the origin and origin of space and time. These two concepts are clear, starting from the earliest human africa, telling how humans conquered the earth, and then human beings began to settle, and the invention of writing. Later chapters are titled with the empire or region that best represents the glorious civilization of the time. At a glance, if you see the title of the chapter, you can get an overview of which period and region-related things the following chapters are about. Each chapter seems to be independent, but in fact it is also related, at least geographically. For example, Polu, Ganges, and Chang'an all belong to the same Asian region and are independent of each other, but there are cultural similarities.
In general, it is naturally impossible to tell the history of the world in detail in one book. The History of the World in Eighteen Time and Space explains the major events and changes discovered in the periods involved in time and space relatively completely. Wars, plunder, massacres, dynastic changes, trade, and human progress are all known. To look at world history, we need to have a correct world view, and we can't just blame it from the perspective of a certain culture, religion, or race. As the author mentions at the beginning, the beginning of world history is not a point at all, it is a huge space shrouded in smoke, where completely different things happen at the same time. Embrace world history with a broad-minded attitude.
synthesis
opinion
Based on the opinions of the reviewers, "The History of the World in Eighteen Time and Space" received a 7.2 out of 10 rating. All three judges pointed out that the book's plot layout revolves around a presupposition: "World history is not the parkour of heroes, but more like a carpet woven by everyone's chaos." The carpet patterns are clearly visible, but they are also full of holes and cracks, and things are interconnected, and they are not without rules." This way of looking at historical events can broaden the reader's horizons, and looking at major events in history from a different perspective will often have new understandings. Of course, some reviewers pointed out that reading scattered historical puzzles indirectly raises the reading threshold and requires readers to have a certain historical knowledge base.
What do you think of this book? What do you think of the jury's opinion? Welcome to leave your encouragement and criticism in the message area!
This article is exclusive original content. Author: Judges; Editor: Li Yongbo; Proofreader: Guo Li.
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