This represents what I think perhaps should be meant by civilizations. I think of civilization as usually referring to one of a group of them.
They have histories; they wax and wane; they merge and separate; they evolve.
Two key aspects, which the map misses entirely (It is flat, after all, like Thomas Friedman's metaphor.) is the extent to which they interpenetrate; and are four or five dimensional culturally, each its own aggressive cultural bubble, bulging into and subsisting to some extent within, others, often next to it, but recently, increasingly, physically, from afar.
No comments:
Post a Comment