‘The Worlds at War’ has been a fascinating book so far. And this week’s book learning has 3 fun facts/thoughts from the book.
1. Barbarians: Do you know how the word ‘barbarian’ came about? The word now is associated with uncivilized people with no manners. In the old days however, the Greeks simply referred to the Persians as people whose speech sounded like ‘ba ba’ and hence, barbarian. And that meaning, of course, changed with time..
2. Civitas or civilization: The Roman civilization were the first to be described as ‘civitas’ or civilization. This concept was unique at that time. Everybody wanted to be a Roman ‘citizen’ (a novel concept then) as the Roman civilization stood for being just and good. Rome was a metropolitan city, much like the New Yorks, London’s and Singapore’s of today and the Roman civilization was looked up to as it did not choose to conquer and enslave people, but bring them under their law by making them all citizens of Rome.
3. Alexander the visionary: Alexander the great was quite a visionary. In a time when the tendency was to wage war and create boundaries, he sought to unite. After conquering the Persian people, Alexander not only sought alliances by marrying the Persian queen (versus taking them all slaves), he also sought to embrace Persian culture and combine Persian customs with the Greek as he attempted to unify the world under one umbrella by demonstrating openness.
I found that concept and thought pretty amazing. Our world today seems so divided in comparison..
I’ve found reading history to be great for imagination and creativity. Moreover, I find it interesting to understand how and why the world exists in it’s current form. I’ve still got 2/3rds of this book to go. More fun facts to come then!
A Learning a Day 