Ian+Chang+Chapters+9+-+11

After reading chapters 9 - 11, I have brought up some interesting connections. At chapter 11, an anecdote was told about a greedy and selfish tortoise. I can know from this that oral traditions existed in many civilizations. In Korea, there were stories about the creation of our nation, stories that teaches us a life long lesson. In the story told in "Things Fall Apart," it seems to teach a lesson too: it teaches us that excessive greed will lead to a brutal failure. There are stories like this all over the world. Even though Africa was discovered lately and was isolated from the world, similar ideas were brought up from two different regions. This proves how "Social Darwinism" is wrong and is a fallacy. The African society has a wide variety of knowledge, they can cure people by collecting medication from plants and from trees. However, this society seem to have great emphasis on religion, just like the European society after the postclassical era. Not only did both have great technological and scientific discoveries, but also had great emphasis on religion. Religion was an alternate answer for questions that couldn't be answered with their technology or knowledge.

I had some questions after reading the chapters in the book. Even though the African society had technology and science, why did they get conquered by the Europeans? Also, why do oral traditions remain a large and an important part of many civilizations?

I responded to James Kang's question!