Distant ancient Eastern history clarifies repeated modern trends

Evidence

Innis characterized modern Western history as beginning with temporal organization and ending with spatial organization. It is the history of the evaporation of an oral and manuscript tradition and the concerns of community, morals, and metaphysics and their replacement by print and electronics supporting a bias toward space. — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 621 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Braudel, On History, p. 14: “.… cultural influence came in small doses, delayed by the length and slowness of the journeys they had to make. If historians are to be believed, the Chinese fashions of the T’ang period [618–907] travelled so slowly that they did not reach the island of Cyprus and the brilliant court of Lusignan until the fifteenth century. From there they spread, at the quicker speed of Mediterranean trade, to France and the eccentric court of Charles VI, where hennins and shoes with long pointed toes became immensely popular, the heritage of a long vanished world—much as light still reaches us from stars already extinct.” — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 943 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Orientalism expanded by scope, not selectiveness, across centuries.; Modern Western history moved from time-bias toward space-bias — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 621; Pre-modern cultural influence spread so slowly it could arrive centuries out of date — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 943 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Modern Western history moved from time-bias toward space-bias #exemplifies (0.75) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 621
• Orientalism expanded by scope, not selectiveness, across centuries. #exemplifies (0.72)
• Pre-modern cultural influence spread so slowly it could arrive centuries out of date #exemplifies (0.72) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 943
• Orientalism’s novelty lay in combinatory scope rather than new knowledge #exemplifies (0.72) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 318