Julian Jaynes
7,982 words
Half of my book, The Uniqueness of Western Civilization, is about discrediting the multicultural claim that, as late as the mid-1700s, the West was no more advanced than the major civilizations of Asia, or China in particular, and that only a set of fortuitous circumstances gave the West a chance to industrialize first. The West did not “stumble” accidentally into the New World, I argued, and it was not “easy access” to the resources of the Americas, enslavement of blacks, or availability of cheap coal in Britain that made Britain’s takeoff possible.
Edited by Robert B. Strassler
The Saxon Savior:
Converting Northern Europe
“There were many whose hearts told them that they should begin to tell the secret runes.” Thus begins an ancient manuscript written in Old Saxon. It may surprise the reader to learn that these are, in fact, the opening lines of the Christian Gospel in the version known as the Heliand, produced for the Saxons in the early ninth century, after their conquest by Charlemagne. Read more …