This is the information I found online:

"The Dorians, a barbaric Greek tribe equipped with some iron weapons, invaded the Greek peninsula from the north in about 1100 B.C. and gradually overcame the more civilized but only bronze-armed Mycenaean Greeks who were already on the scene. Some Greeks penetrated to Canaan and brought iron weapons with them. These were the Philistines, who play so important a role in the early books of the Bible. Against them the Israelites were helpless until they obtained iron weapons for themselves under King Saul.

The first army to be equipped with good iron weapons in quantity was the Assyrian. By 900 B.C. superior armament helped them to build a mighty empire for themselves."

And from another site:

"The Assyrians armies were also the first to use iron weapons. Iron weapons provided the Assyrians with a couple of advantages. First, iron weapons were cheaper than bronze weapons. More people could be outfitted with weapons enlarging the core of infantrymen. Secondly, iron weapons are superior to bronze weapons. The Assyrian army was known as expert military tactitioners. They were especially noted as experts at siege warfare."

and yet another site:

"The Bronze Age culture does not suddenly disappear in the twelfth century. In fact, culture changes very little in the first half of Iron I at sites like Megiddo or Beth Shan. This may suggest that there is no significant cultural break throughout the entire region at the beginning of the Iron Age. As one examines later levels at these and other sites, however, the Bronze Age culture begins to alter. Courtyard houses, a common Bronze Age form, is replaced by pillared houses at a number of sites in Iron II. Egyptianized artifacts are less common in Iron II except for sites along the immediate coast. Bronze weapons and forms are replaced by iron weapons. New Iron II artifacts begin to appear throughout the entire region. Thus, gradually, it seems, many of the characteristic forms and contexts of Bronze Age culture become less evident in later levels of Iron II, although it would be incorrect to conclude that the Bronze Age culture, we call Canaanite, disappeared entirely due to points of continuity that continue unabated from Bronze Age to Iron Age (e.g. compare the artifacts in Shrine 1 Sarepta with the temple of stratum VII-VI Beth Shan).

The Iron Age is divided into two subsections, Iron I and Iron II. Iron I (1200-1000) illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with the previous Late Bronze Age. There is no definitive cultural break between the thirteenth and twelfth century throughout the entire region, although certain new features in the hill country, Transjordan and coastal region may suggest the appearance of the Aramaean and Sea People groups. There is evidence, however, that shows strong continuity with Bronze Age culture, although as one moves later into Iron I the culture begins to diverge more significantly from that of the late second millennium.
Most weapon styles continue into Iron I without any significant change. The weapons also continue to be made of bronze, though iron weapons (Tell es-Sa'idiyeh 113) begin to appear."

So it appears, according to these sites, that before the 9th century most weapons used in Western Eurasia were still made of bronze.

I did not quite understand it that way when you said


I usually take the term Eurasia to mean the landmass composed of Europe and Asia.


Yes, but can it be argued that Britain became more like India rather than India became more like Britain?


Perhaps you'd better clarify what "rough equivalence in civilization" means.


Does it apply in the case of the Macedonian's dominance of Greece?

How about Roman conquest of Greece?

Or what about the people of Israel who experienced numerous diasporas from both the east and the west? Even many Jews who adapted still retained the core of their identity.

The Kurds whose homeland Kurdistan is fragmented into territories under different countries today?

Or the Balinese as part of Indonesia?

There's probably more historical instances of more populous civilization affecting the less populous, but size does not seem a deterministic factor.

In your opinion, it is not the *sole* deterministic factor.

In my opinion, size is merely *a* factor.

I don't know if I'll say their cultures are "higher".

But I would think the co-existence of very varied and diverse cultures that were present from the Egypt to Assyria/Babylon/Persia, and including the Minoans and Mycenaeans, had more dynamism when they interacted as compared to the culture in China dominated by the Zhou.

The Israelites established trade-routes both overland and maritime which had goods (and people) travelling to and from all the cardinal directions of the compass. IIRC, the Phoenicians sailed all the way to Britain for tin.

If the Cyclopean architecture is of an indication of common origins, there were interactions between distant civilizations, as far as between Greece and southern India and the Belearic islands (modern Spain).

Sophistication of civilization.




only partly.

Yes




Why not?



I don't think its any less important than sophistication of civilization

What more dynamism? The over 140 states of Zhou traded with each other, as well as Ba, Shu, and the Yue jut the same. I also fail to see how greater trade interaction mean a greater degree of cultural influx. If these states have trade with Zhou, they will also be counter affected. In fact states that are more outward looking tend to absorb other culture more than those that are inward looking.



History only shows that those states which goes out absorb more than those that does not. Thats part of the reason why Europe was more influenced by Chinese culture than the other way around prior to the opium war. However, if there are little barriers in immigration, population assimilation will take affect.

Apparently ancient Chinese silk have been found in ancient Egypt. There may also have been Persian magi visiting the court of Zhou Dynasty China. The ancient Chinese might also have borrowed certian concepts in astronomy from Mesopotamia.

So I think even China was not completely isolated from the larger Eurasian world.

Look back at the example of Britain and India which you raised.
Did India became more like Britain or Britain became more like India?

Exactly.

But in the process, the more more outward looking culture will develop to have adaptive characteristics which are more resilient in the long term and distinguish itself from other cultures which are inward looking.

The United States is one example of an "culture" which absorbs from many others and in the process, gained adaptive traits which distinguished itself.

Interaction of diversity produce dynamism.

I do not deny that Zhou China had interaction with other cultures.

What I disagree about is that its greater population size (can anyone quote the figures) would mean it would affect its contemporaries from Greece, Egypt, Assyria etc., more than it would be affected from the outside.

Because there is a political hand in the management of Indian affairs, create influxation of British culture by force. However, the Britains in India are actually more influenced by Indian culture than vice versa because of sheer numerical gap.

I don't see the point that Zhou dynasty would be changed more so than vice versa. How is Zhou less dynamic?





If immigration do occur, than the larger population will in fact affect the smaller more than vice versa, thats why just about all nomads are assimilated within Chinese population.

Apples should be compared to apples.

In terms of civilizations, we should compare Britain to India rather than look at migrants/expats who were largely separated from their native community and become a very small minority in a foreign land.

Yet, the average Britain is in fact affected more by Indian culture than vice versa, only the educated Indian are different, this is again due to forced spread of culture, if leaving things to take course naturally, a larger population would affect the smaller one to a greater degree.

You'll have to give more specific details to back up a claim like that.

And again, apples to apples, if you discount the educated Indians, you'd have to discount the educated British.

I think the only real difference between "China=unified, West=diverse states" is that today, China is one country, 200 years ago, China was more or less one country, and ever since Qin Shihuangdi did his thing, everyone wants to keep China 1 country. So we get the impression of 1 country, 1 culture. If a European Union existed 200, 300, 400 years ago, we'd probably all think Western Europe was just one homogenous culture with regional flavorings.

Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, they all liked having beards and stone temples, they're all the same.

Its simple, Indian philosophical works has been abundantly translated and circulated in Britain in the 19th century. Works such as the comma sutra and Buddhist texts.



"And again, apples to apples, if you discount the educated Indians, you'd have to discount the educated British"

The problem is that most British ARE educated.

China's political structure since the earliest days is more centrally oriented. This might well have to do with its compacted geography. There was always only one son of heaven, never equals among kings(until the late warring states, but the concept of unification does not change). Whenever there are new states that come in contact(such as the Wu and Yue). They usually accept the Zhou world order.

but do you think that there is really just one homogenous 'China' culture in that region of the world, while the medittereanian countries have more diversity?

That's sorta what I'd like to figure out.

of course not, the unification context I'm talking about only applies to politics, Chinese culture is just as abundant(not necessarily diverse, since integration is actully better than diversity for the most part) as the Western Asians, all of the Egyopt-middle east political order used Akkadian as the international language.

Those works translated and circulated in Britain does not mean Britain is more like India than vice-versa.

Many Indians from different states prefer to use English language rather than Hindi as a lingua fraca within India and outside India. I work with many Indian professionals and that is their own testimony to me.
Even in the home environment, where Indians marry across state boundaries, English also became spoken at home rather than Hindi.
Many Indians whose native states did not have Hindi as a native language came to consider imposition of Hindi language as a form of chauvinism.

Much of the legal system, the education system and the parliamentary system in India today are derived from the British.


I don't see why that is considered a problem.
In any case, despite being a developed nation in the "First World", there are still a fair share of British who are uneducated or poorly educated - and I'm not talking about those in rural areas - I've encountered my fair share of these blokes right living in the heart of London.

No, it means that there are more prevlent aspect of Indian culture circulation in the British mass than vice versa. Don't forget, 19th century British India still has lots of local regimes.




I wouldn't take too much weight in "many". Those that use English is the great minority. Even today, English speakers of India hardly makes three percent of the entire Indian population. The so called international language is nothing but a political construct, forged into shape by the dominant political power. There is absolutely no reason why the ethnocentric Chinese states under the rites and culture of Zhou would accept foreign culture more than vice versa. In fact Zhou culture is highly systematic, much more integrated than that of West Asia. If the majority of the international system uses Zhou culture, the less numerous international system will bent to the larger's way. In most cases, the nation with the dominant military and economics has the power to spread their culture, and these factor in the past has alot to do with population size.



As I said before, due to forced political managements. Only by such methods could a state of lower culture spread theirs into a state with larger population than vice versa. If there are no boundary for restriction of movement, the smaller state will only be swallowed up by the larger population in a matter of time.




I'm not sure what you are trying to get across, because these are still the minority.

But what is its significance? What does it mean to the ordinary John Brown?
Works of Chinese philosophies from LaoZi, SunZi, Mencuis, Confucious and the whole dang gang are to be found in libraries and bookshops across Europe, North America, Australia/New Zealand.
I daresay there's comparitively a lot less works of Hume and Bacon etc. found in Chinese bookshops.
It does not mean the West became more like China than vice versa.


Again, that is presuming these states had no encounter with other major powers with interests in expansion, either through military or trade.

Two Chinese sayings come to mind: "Frog in the bottom of the well", and "Beyond the sky there is another sky".

I have no doubt that others would be affected by encounters with Zhou China, but unless Zhou China imposed isolation laws like the Ming, Zhou China too would be influenced by others.

I don't buy into the argument that China would be less affected because of her size because that's the type of mentality that got China into declines and all the conversative factions to their deaths refused to admit there's something positive that could be learned from the outside.

If China is to be less affected, it is only because of, as you put it, political machinations.

Only the cities. Look at the farmer and thats hardly the case. Bias tend to ignore that. Again, China only became more western, by systematic forced programs, such as English courses in school.

However, I don't think you got my point. Which is not comparing two different states' population with each other. There are merely two steps for a civilization to triumph over another.
One is to dominate, to conquer or subjugate others. Therefore military technology and political strength is crucial. History has already shown that the sophistication of civilization(which include living standard, literacy rate, and industrialization and urbanization) has little to do with the force of exporting culture. Nor is it due to merchants who bring their ideas to foreign lands, for trade is but a limited part of economics back then.
The most important reason that states learn from each other in accelerated rate is simply because of politics. To survive, conquer others, or gain hegemony, the weaker state is forced to learn from the more advanced ones in technology and organization.
The second is consolidation, to assimilate the subjugated so resistence will dissapear and the two separate culture will integrate under one common culture. Population size is a heavy factor in assimilation as well as power exersion. This is a tactic of modern China; assimilate the minority by moving the greater population in, something that the European powers such as Britain cannot do due to their small population, which is why they never held on to their empires. This is what I meant by natural assimilation without political mechanism.






What major power? The larger states of the Zhou world are powers comparable to any other West Asian kingdom. The kingdom of Chu at this date already extended to much of the lower YangZe valley, with population and size lot larger than the Isralite kingdom, the strongest middle eastern state of the time.






Perhaps not as much as others would be influenced by it. The stronger power forges the world order, thats a simple fact.



What modern China did has nothing to do with ancient empires. They are two different senarios. Its the inferior power that tends to absorb from the superior ones in military technology and political structures. Which is not the case with Zhou. In fact, the cultural exporting factor is on the side of Zhou. With its more integrated political system and size, the Stronger power forges the world order. None of the Middle eastern states are as politically or culturally integrated as the systemized Zhou feudal system; there was no recognition of a common ruler or even a common world order and system of belief. Without a political challenge, the dominant power would have no problem spreading its influence beyond its border unhampered. Ths system can even outlast the state's decline, and succededed by the next dominant power, which is how the Wu and Yue were eventually drawn into the Zhou world system in the first place.(They didn't do this because they admired Zhou rites and the belief in the loyalty to Zhou, they did this because it will make their states strong and hegemonic over the central plains.)
Dominance will naturally be followed by cultural and social assimilation, which can only be accomplished by states with larger populations, after larger states conquer the smaller states and immigrate there. This is one of the reason that the more coheremt Chinese culture lasted in the south and the state has became more unified than diversified as time pass. Of course, geography also plays an important role, which is perhaps why China never assimilated Vietnam.



On the contrast, its precisely because of forced political machination that China is becoming western. Look at the way that English is forced in school and how the media is so western centered.
Your example is not wrong, just not as important and does not apply for this ancient case, the state which has the greater mass and power tends to be the greater exporter of political, cultural and economical concepts and its them that forges the world system in their way. And these are largely built upon the size of population.

BTW, don't underestimate the Indian's willingness to be rid of any colonial influences where it suits them.
They've taken to restoring names of cities to ethnic Indian names rather than keep the Anglicised versions.


Learning foreign language such as English is hardly the only means of becoming "western".

Where did Chinese pick up the habit of smoking cigarettes from?
Where did Chinese pick up the habit of drinking beer or from glasses?

Writing with ballpoints rather than brush pens?
Writing from the left to the right rather than top to bottom and then right to left?

To call such changes the product of systematic forced programs is misleading because there is hardly any element of coercion.

The rest of your post makes interesting readings and I won't disagree about the facts, just some of the conclusions drawn.

My own conclusion is still Zhou China was like a fish that grew big in its own lake.

As much as I admired some of the strengths of Zhou China and its culture, I feel that it'd be overconfidence to say it'd clearly dominate by a large degree in hypothetical encounters with other civilizations.

The British cannot assimilate the Indian population simply because they are outnumbered. They cannot do what the PRC did to inner Mongolia, Manchuria, QingHai and presently to XingJiang and Tibet.

All this is done by forced political policies by the ROC and PRC, as well as Foreign companies in China. To sum up all of it, it still ultimately comes down to politics, the stronger state forces its culture on the weaker ones. But whatever foreign families that live in China since the past, has already largely become assimilated to the local culture.



I see plenty of Coersion, drinking beer is started by the German company in its sphere of influence in ShangDong, which ultimately derive from superiority of German military that forced the sphere of influence.
Writing and other aspect of cultural absorption is also done to make China similar to the west to "connect China to the world." Writing from left to right and simplifying words is done because it will increase Chinese literacy rate and make China stronger. Its how world politics work.





No other staets of the west at the time is a political equal, this follows domination of the world system. (there isn't a single instance in history where a stronger state followed the weaker state's world concept), this follows migration of population and assimilation, obviously counter influence is to be expected, mostly in proportion to the population ratio.

Nobody has ever held a gun to the head of a Chinese to demand that beer be drunk or cigarette be smoked.
That's coercion.


It had where there was a disparity in the sophistication/level of civilisation.

No one needs to, if China create its own sphere of influence in the west, Chinese wine would have been drunk just the same.



No, sophistication in civilization is irrelevant here. The poorer would only swallow up the richer and bring their level of living standard down, not vice versa, if everyone in China start migrating to HongKong, it would be Hong Kong thats swallowed up, not the mainland.

What has this got to do with saying that Chinese drinking beer and smoking cigarettes is a matter of coercion?


After the fall of the Roman Empire, it was not disparity in population size that caused the new lords of the lands to adopt Christianity, or the Latin alphabets, or otherwise incorporated aspects of the Roman culture into their own.

The tribes that took over were not numerically less, but they chose to adopt because they thought aspects of their defeated foe, the Romans, were worthwhile.

Coersive foreign political intrusion.






The adoptation of Christianity and Latin is gradual, not sudden. For example, Christianity wasn't introduced into Britain until the early 7th century. The immediate affect of the invasion was an intermix of Roman and Germanic culture with the Germanic been more dominant. Roman idnetity dissappered There are just as much Germanic influence in modern Euroepan culture as there is Roman, perhaps even more. There is the habit of attributing everything modern to the classical civilization when it is of Germanic origin, one such thing is the root of modern democracy which has almost nothing to do with ancient Greek system and almost everthing to do with the English Magna Carta.

From what I observe of the Chinese, they hardly need coercion to pick up bad habits.
The opium war wouldn't have been necessary if the Chinese themselves didn't want the opium.


Celtic Christianity was introduced earlier.

In any case, the issue is foreign conquerors absorbing culture/ways from the conquered people/lands.
If Christianity did not exist among the conquered people, then it is not relevant to the issue of cultural absorption that Christianity only got introduced from the outside at a later date.

I want to smack you around like a sack of grain.

If someone offered you a cigerate, tell you its healthy and you can try it for free, and you did. Next thing you know, you are addicted to it. Now you decide that is bad for you. Then the seller took a few gun boats and beat the living crap out of you. Now, you gota buy that cigerate. Eventually, you just decided enough is enough. So, you gather your friends and decide to put up a fight. End result is your army got destroyed.

Now replace the cigerate with opium.

So my suggestion to you, sir, if you wish to make a generalization (as in they hardly need ... ) learn the background before you open your mouth.

I am somewhat suprised that you said
and I quote
The opium war wouldn't have been necessary if the Chinese themselves didn't want the opium.

First of all, why in the name of God would there be an opium war if they wanted the opium. Get your logic straight. Britsh East India is making tons and tons of money, reversing all the negative figures they had in trade before for china and silk are now going back through profit of opium. If the Chinese would continue to buy opium, why in the name of all that is good would they fight a war with them?
And when you do decide you have enough evidence to make a generalization as you did, it would be better for you to list the evidence or else you would be an racist at worst, and a prejudice fool at best.

And honestly, I can't believe I even had to honor your comment.... where do you go to school man?

That ranting is uncalled for and has no place in a mature discussion.

The prohibition of the opium was done at the behest of officials worried about the country - some were worried about the health of the people, others were worried about the outflow of Chinese silver.

There were Chinese against the trade - they didn't smoke the opium.

But there were plenty of other Chinese who did, and they were paying for it.
There were plenty of corrupt government officials who colluded with the opium traders.

At one point in time, the management of the East Indian Company contemplated stopping marketting opium to China in view of the strong official stance against it.

However, their hirelings persuaded them that there were more than enough local officials willing to accept bribes for the trade to continue to be profitable.

It's just like the illegal drug trade today.
If there were no buyers, the market would collapse by itself.

Officials like Lin ZeXu wouldn't touch opium with a 10-foot pole and wouldn't hesitate to destroy opium stocks.

But as long as there were ordinary Chinese who'd buy them, the opium traders were more than willing to risk breaking the law.

You are looking at the situation too simplistically - it's not a matter of Chinese refused to buy and the sellers forcing the sale.

The sellers had ready buyers among the Chinese.

The opium war didn't solve the issue of opium, ironically, it was the growth of native Chinese opium which put an end to the reliance on foreign import.



I'm not sure what your point is, since there is influence on both sides.

The point is what determines the flow of influence and which influence dominate is not size of population.

I think you are the one simplifiying the things here.

E.g.
Columbia today. with some country A.
Columbian merchant went to country A, found they like the local produces very much, but country A do not want any of Columbian produces, so if there were to be a trade, it would be precious metal for A's local produce. Now the Columbian government didn't like that. Decoded, heck, why not, lets send our drugs there. Now, people in A never encounted Columbian drugs before, nor were they aware of its effect on both their economic wellbeing and personal wellbeing. So when the Columbian merchants return with their new products for A's citizen to try, they negelect to tell them its sideeffect and danger. And clearly these drugs were prohibated ANYWHERE ELSE　on this Earth save for medical purpose. Now, these nice 'healthy' drugs were passed out for free to try, and soon you have plenty of peole addicted to something. And clearly you have not the slightest clue what it meant to be ADDICTED. So let me grab a dictionary and gave you its definitions.

From Merriam-Webster
addiction - compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly : persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful.

I won't go into the details to explain the english to you if you do not know. But it clearly stated its a compulsive need and there are physiological symptoms.
In other words, people from A who took the free try out were addicted to the Columbian drugs, they are now dependent upon it, and there are physiological symptoms classified as withdrawal. So, when the government officials from A realize what the heck is going on, they sent a letter to the Queen of Columbia (or whoever is the head) but clearly the letter was ignored. (I saw the letter from my Highschool worldhistory text book.) Then, taking matters into their own hand, the officials confiscated the Columbian drugs. Now feeling their national pride been challenged and national interest been tempered with, the Columbian almight navy ( )came with superior weapons and technology, and defeated A's army, forced them to sign a treaty that would allow them to sell drugs that was internationally prohibatted.

Back to the real world, you said, and I quote, "
But as long as there were ordinary Chinese who'd buy them, the opium traders were more than willing to risk breaking the law." Please, the opium trader wasn't breaking the law, they are making a law that forced the Chinese government making Opium legal. That is the point of the Opium War, or are we talking about something different here?

And then you said, and I quote, "
You are looking at the situation too simplistically - it's not a matter of Chinese refused to buy and the sellers forcing the sale." Sure, there are Chinese who wants opium, like there are Americans who wanted legalized heorine and plenty of underground activities for them, but did you see US Government constantly waging war on Drugs ( that, now my friend, is a joke)

And you are missing the point here. It isn't about underground blacketmarket I am complaining about. Who cares? I don't. Black market will always be there. Go read a book talks about Econ 101. We are talking about the OPIUM WAR here. Unless I am mistaken?
I want to use the word irrelevant like warhead does, but I am simply not as good as him. So I will drag this on.
It isn't about international trade or whether Chinese want to buy opiums. Its about when the Government offically said no and the British royal navy forced them to say yes. That is the point. If today, Japanese don't want, (dam can't think of any American brand electronics that is good enough to compete with the Japanese)
say, Ford, now we sent our navy there, and now Japanese can only buy Ford, (suppose there are already Ford in Japan) from your logic I can justify, Sure we can send our Ford there, there are Ford buyers there, so why can't we?
So can we?

Yours.
btw, if you call this ranting, then spare me. Which part on mine was ranting. And like I said, if you want to make a statment about someone or something, justified it first.

You were ranting the moment you mention physical assault.

And warhead did not use the word irrelevant with respect to the opium war.

There's already threads on opium war in the Qing Dynasty folder.
Read them in http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=8613 and http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=8613

Opium was not banned internationally then.
But it was prohibited in China by the Qing Court, so the opium traders trading in China were breaking Chinese laws.

I don't know what your issue is, but in CHF, we don't encourage twisting other people's words to suit our agenda or building strawman arguments.

Read what I post again:


It's a fact.

In today's context, the American war against drug wouldn't have been necessary if there were no Americans addicted to drugs.

It's including the drug addicts as part of the drug problem rather than blame it solely on the drug peddlers.

My comments was towards this statment
"From what I observe of the Chinese, they hardly need coercion to pick up bad habits."
because its a generalization. Without facts/sources, you simply stated they don't need coercion to pick up bad habits. Like what, when? In the Opium War? So my logical response to it was, no, they didn't know it was a bad habit.

As for the word irrevelant warhead used, I just liked it. Did I ever mentioned "in this post warhead stated"?

As for opium was banned or not, I appoligize for that. I do not have the source to disprove you, but I do clearly recall England do not sell opium to British citizen, nor do I recall it selling it anywhere else as a product as it was in China. If you can show me that British merchants use opium anywhere else in the world, then please do so.

As for twisting your words, where did I do that? When I disagree with your statment, I quote EXACTLY what you said, with "you said, and I quote, " "

You miss my point.

I don't care if the Chinese wanted opium or not. Its about the British government forcing the Chinese government to sign a treaty which allowed the British to sell opium.

I looked up my post again, and I believe my point was made quite clear about the background of opium trade.

I didn't mean to offend anyone. And as for smack you around like a sack of grain, I am sorry. Though its lyric from a song I liked. So. HOw about justifying my concern on your statement of "from my observation ..."

I think we are both misunderstanding each other. Let me clearlify.

Its these two statement I had trouble with. As I post in my first post.

From what I observe of the Chinese, they hardly need coercion to pick up bad habits.
The opium war wouldn't have been necessary if the Chinese themselves didn't want the opium.

If you are getting the conclusion of Chinese getting bad habits because of opium, then, it was like my comments on the hypethetical Columbia and Country A. I don't think the Chinese picked it up knowing its a bad habit.
If you didn't get the conlcusion that Chinese getting bad habits from the opium, then from where did you obtain such a generalization?
That was my first concern.

And the second is you said
The opium war wouldn't have been necessary if the Chinese themselves didn't want the opium.

too many n't n't, so lets simplified it. Take out the double no's.
The opium war would have been necessary if the Chinese wanted the opium.

I think its on that point perhaps I misunderstood you. Did you mean that the Chinese Government didn't want opium but the Chinese population wanted opium so Opium War became necessary (or whatever you wish to put it, opium war occured, I think became necessary is bad usage here...)
I am not sure how to respond to it IF that is what you meant.

I thought you were trying to justified the war, because from that tone, it sounds like 'the opium war is there because the Chinese wanted opium', or 'had the chinese didn't want opium then opium war would never occur'.

Its from that point where I became a bit upset because it sounds as if you were trying to justified.
Again, I am sorry if you were offended.

I am against drug use and against opium trade.

But I would be in denial if I don't recognise that the Chinese opium consumers had a role in creating the opium market, the unscrupulous merchants and corrupt officials didn't have a role in perpetuating the market against government regulations.

I accept you do not really intend to hit me, so let's shake hands and move on. Miscommunications arise and I'm glad it's cleared up.

I still fail to see your prove. In what way isn't the size a factor? Germanic culture and Roman culture mingled, largely in proportion to their size.

It's practicality that determines which aspects of the respective cultures get adopted, not size of population.
Much of the Roman culture almost disappeared before being revived.

No, its both. With population been more important. Because for the majority of the time, there is no greater practicality in culture. Language, rites, gestures, literature style, folklores all largely transcend practicallity. Roman culture never replaced the Germanic culture in these aspects.

I quite disagree with you there. We're not talking about one culture replacing another, but the direction and significance of influence.

The adoption of Latin from the Romans which changed the Franks from speaking the Old Frankish language which was Germanic in origins into Old French and then modern French (Romance languages with vocabs from Old Frankish) defied the proportionate population of Franks versus the non-Franks who were of Roman culture.

In fact, many of the Gauls only superficially adopted the Roman culture when the Romans occupied Gaul, only a few select Gauls did go serious on Roman culture.

That the Franks who conquered Gaul eventually adopted from the Latin language indicated it was not due to population size but the practicality even when the Roman empire was in decline.

Neither can we look at the Franks finding practical to use Latin just to deal with Romans because by then, the Roman empire shifted eastwards and became Greek in all but name.

There are some problems. Roman cultured locals outnumber the Franks in population not the other way around. The invaders who toppled the western empire were relatively few in numbers. The reason that early Franks can hold on to their old language is because they did not try to preserve Roman institutions or the Roman system of taxation. The Franks expanded, rather than migrating, into the empire. Their numbers were constantly increased by men and women from the old heartland of Frankish lands. They advanced relatively slowly and were never in a position to be threatened by the local majority.
The Gauls on the other hand outnumer the Romans. There were some 5 million people in Gaul, far more numerous than the Roman institution until much later.
Similarily, in the East, Greeks outnumber the LAtin culture, and that was the reason Byzantine became more Greek as time passed on despite the fact that they still call themselves Romans.
So all of these case in fact has to do with population disparity.

But not in the order of consequence.

I did mention that the Gauls who did not become Latinised outnumbered those who did, but the number of the latter was quite small, smaller still after the Romans started withdrawing from outer provinces.

Hence, how could they be greater than the invading Franks?
Those Latinised Gauls were primarily urban dwellers, and in the immediate aftermathof the fall of the Roman empire, urban centres shrank.

At the end of the day though, both the Franks and the non-Latinised Gauls of France came to develop a Romance language instead of a Germanic-based language or a Celtic-based language.

In this case, it seemed that in the long run, it was the smallest population that influenced the rest, at least where the language is concerned.

Lets have a closer look, only in the first century of the Gallic conquest was Gaul free from Roman influence,, however, later immigration of Romans into Gaul created a hybrid culture in which the old Celtic languages had became a mere component of Vulgar Latin dialects that had come to dominate communications in the region, dialects that would later develop into the French language. So by the time of the Frankish conquest, Gaul is already largely speaking Latin.
So on the contrast, it was always the absorption of the smaller population into the bigger ones. Or a mixture of influence leaning toward the larger population. In other case, it is a forced political spread of language that is not natural.

Given that there was no large scale migration of Romans into Gaul, political domination of Rome was of course the only way to explain the more numerous Gauls (in France) picking Latin rather than the other way around.

Nonetheless, my contention is that these were mainly in several urban centres while rural countryside of France remained much less affected, so I'd hardly call Gaul prior to Frankish conquest a largely Latin (or vernacular Latin) speaking region.

In any case, I invited our resident Gaul to contribute as I'm about at the limits of my knowledge of the era and would have to resort to turning to specialised publications to go further, which unfortunately I do not have the time for. I am prepared to admit that I could be proven wrong, but if so, I'd like more details to have a better understanding.

Kinda interesting how a topic on "When was the height of Chinese military strength?" can go into this direction.

A word from the resident Gaul... French textbooks describe the period between the conquest of Gaul by the romans and the Frankish invasion as "gallo-roman", which means that both culture mixed and would, to a certain extent prove warhead's point. However, the situation was probably much more complex and varied than that.

Roman influence did not extend equally over all Gaul. The south east of France and the mediterranean coast was in effect a roman province (Narbonensis) before the roman conquest. We have a lot of roman monuments there, old roads and watchtowers are still to be seen everywhere (this is especially true along the Rhone valley). Many cities and place, and people from the region have names which came from latin. In this southeastern quarter (up to Lyons), it is quite likely that Latin was spoken by a majority. This is also the region where roman immigration was important. Over time, this language, mixed with frankish became the french southern dialect, called langue d'oc.

Now, in the north, and especially north west, the romanisation was probably much less important. For instance, Brittany kept her old celtic language until early in the 20th century, the north of France probably moved directly from gallic to flemish. This less latinised french became the langue d'oil, the dialect of northern France. This can still me found in names of places, like Bar le Duc, Ardennes, Armorique, which are of celtic or preceltic origin.

To summarize, I would say latin probably developped quickly south of the Loire, whereas Gallic mostly remained north of it, except in the largest urban centers, which accounted for a small part of the population.

Note also that, as far as vernacular is concerned, we lack sources: as Gallic was not written (the druids, we are told, used greek and other alphabets to transcript their language), there are few traces of its usage, and all the inscriptions we have on the period are in latin. As such, someone studying the era from epigraphic material might end with the misleading conclusion that Latin was the only language used. Finally, Latin did not really mix with Gallic, some of the pronounciation, especially the northern one, might have come from gallic, as well as some grammatical constructions, but there are just around 100 french words which can be traced to gallic. Gallo-roman latin was in fact very similar to the pidgin latin spoken all over the empire.

Francois

Thanks fcharton.

The crux of the argument here is whether relative population sizes (e.g., between the Gauls and the Franks) was a deterministic factor in the direction and magnitude of the cultural influence of one group on the other.

I was disagreeing that it was a matter relative population size (that the larger population would always affect the lesser) and I was thinking that social structure and cultural dynamism was a more important factor.

And I would agree with you to some extent. I am pretty certain that there never was a massive roman immigration into Gaul, yet latin developped because it became the official language and script. The same would be true, to some extent for the Norman influence over Britain after 1066.

As for the Franks, I don't think there were many of them, yet their language, culture, traditions became dominant because they were those of the leading class. I suppose other exemples could be found in other countries. To make a parallel back to China, the resilience of Chinese culture (ie the fact that mongols or manchus adopted chinese culture, and not the other way around) strikes me more than an exception than a rule.

Francois