Journal articles on the topic 'Han civilisation'

In the early medieval period, many Chinese viewed the growing popularity of Buddhism, and the rapid integration of Buddhism into Chinese religious life, as a challenge to their own civilisation. A major aspect of the resistance to the growing dominance of Buddhism was a discourse known as the ‘conversion of the barbarians’. This basic narrative of this discourse claimed that Laozi had journeyed west to India where he either became the Buddha or taught the Buddha. This discourse, which was elaborated in several Daoist texts into complex cosmological and mytho-historical narratives thus asserted the primacy of Daoism and relegated Buddhism to a secondary teaching, inferior to Daoism, suitable for ‘barbarians’ but not for Chinese. This article discusses the development of this discourse, focusing on texts written by Daoists during the fifth century when this discourse was particularly vehement. In this article I will show that this discourse was not merely resistant to Buddhism, but was also critical of various Daoist groups that had accepted Buddhist ideas and practices. Significantly, this discourse associated Daoism with the essence of Chinese civilisation, rather than as a distinct teaching.

The Western-initiating international relations theoretical framework plays a fairly dominant role in analysing and initiating the prospects and scenarios of international order. However, with the peaceful rise of China, whose civlisation sustains almost 5000 years, China is playing a more proactive role in inter-civilisational international order; thus, in-depth explorations into Confucianism as the core element of Han Chinese Civilisation have been resurgent on the world stage, and it is indispensable for relevant scholars, intellectuals and strategists to closely evaluate unexploited implications and demystify the sustainability and intrinsic dynamism of Confucianism-themed Han Chinese Civilisation, and its implicit ties with a comparable philosophical concept of a global community of shared future. Through historical-studies approaches and comparative methodologies, the primary purpose of this paper seeks to crucially investigate a potential relationship between Confucianism and the philosophical concept of a global community of shared future ranging from the perspectives of historical origin, context, substance and so forth. It can be argued that the philosophical standpoint of a community of shared future for humankind bears historical significance and merits that Confucian thoughts somehow generate. This paper of research findings meanwhile predicts that China’s inter-civlisational international engagement as part of China’s soft-power strategy will proceed beyond classical state-based theoretic framework and the Confucian thoughts of the prevalence of public spirit and harmony without homogeneity will grow as an alternative guiding international norm in better services of rebuilding normative, inter-civilisational international order that a global community demands.

This article explores the multiple and complex ways in which the gendered foreign ‘Other’ was discursively represented in primarily women’s magazines during the late Qing and early Republic, a period that begins with an unravelling of the confidence in the ‘traditional’ Chinese Woman as the symbol of China’s superior civilisation (and, in a larger context, when Chinese elites were increasingly compelled to interrogate the raison d’être of their own social and cultural values amidst growing Anglo-American global hegemony). The article suggests that the ‘othering’ of the foreign woman in the early twentieth century anticipates contemporary Han Chinese representations of the Western Woman as an ‘ambiguous fetish’ and of ethnic minority women as exotic figures on the lower rungs of a civilisational ladder.

AbstractThis paper takes modern China's dilemma of how to deal with the legacy of its imperial past as the starting point for a discussion of the drawn-out re-creation of China in the twentieth century. The particular focus is on the important role of non-Han ethnic minorities in this process. It is pointed out that the non-recognition and forced assimilation of all such minorities, in favour of a unified citizenship on an imagined European, American or Japanese model, was actually considered as a serious alternative and favoured by many Chinese nation-builders in the wake of the overthrow of the last imperial dynasty in 1911. The article then proceeds to a discussion of why, on the contrary, ethnic minorities should instead have been formally identified and in some cases even actively organised as official minorities, recognised and incorporated into the state structure, as happened after 1949. Based on the formal and symbolic qualities of the constitution of these minorities, it is argued that new China is also a new formulation of the imperial Chinese model, which resurrects the corollary idea of civilisation as a transformative force that requires a primitive, backward periphery as its object.

Virtually every account of European history after the fall of the Roman Empire identifies ‘Europe’ with Christian civilisation, echoing, consciously or otherwise, the universalist claims of the Byzantine emperors, the popes and the western Roman emperors. Yet it is also the case that Islam possessed a European presence from the eighth century onwards, first of all in Spain and the Mediterranean islands, and later, from the mid-fourteenth century, in the Balkans, where the Turks were able rapidly to establish an empire which directly threatened Hungary and Austria. The lands ruled by Islam on the European land mass have tended to be treated by historians as European only in geographical identity, but in human terms part of a victorious and alien ‘oriental’ civilisation, of which they were provincial dependencies, and from which medieval Spanish Christians or modern Greeks and Slavs had to liberate themselves. Yet this view is fallacious for several reasons. In the first place, there is a valid question about our use of the term ‘civilisation’, which Fred Halliday has expressed as follows:‘Civilisations’ are like nations, traditions, communities – terms that claim a reality and authority which is itself open to question, and appeal to a tradition that turns out, on closer inspection, to be a contemporary creation.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) came into existence at the end of the 20th century during the Cold War, a period that also witnessed concerns among many Western intellectuals about the decline of the West. By the end of the century and the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the “clash of civilizations” thesis had placed Islamic civilisation at the center of international politics, once again raising questions about world peace and co-existence between civilisations. Could Islamic civilisation as represented by the OIC play a role at this juncture of history? Does it possess the capacity and know-how to meet this challenge? Such questions relate also to ideas of worldview: the Renaissance worldview of the West may be seen to have been tainted by Darwinism and Freudianism while the Islamic worldview appears corrupted by extremism. Can the OIC revive the universal Islamic values such as those upheld by Muhammad Iqbal-the 20th century student of Rumi? Can it do so in the context of tumultuous intra-Muslim relations? These questions frame our discussion in this paper.

French intellectuals have been at the forefront of a national and international movement of opposition to neo-liberal globalisation. Drawing on Samuel Huntington’s controversial work, The Clash of Civilisations, I will argue that French intellectuals shared a civilisational perspective of globalisation, seeing it not as a piecemeal market process or economic reform, but as an all-encompassing external threat. This civilisational perspective had contradictory effects on the nature of their opposition. On the one hand, intellectuals were able to produce a radical critique that challenged neo-liberalism and reinscribed the market within a specific political and ideological context. On the other hand, they tended to perpetuate an essentialist view of globalisation that saw this not as an economic process but as an expression of a pre-determined Anglo-Saxon type.

AbstractThis article utilizes recent ethno-historical scholarship and archaeological discoveries in southwest China to examine the accuracy of the earliest Chinese historical sources dealing with the peoples and cultures in Nanzhong, the most common name for the southwest region (Yunnan, Guizhou, and southern Sichuan) prior to the Tang dynasty. Archaeology makes clear that Nanzhong was a settled border region with several highly sophisticated and divergent cultures. Early Chinese incursions into Nanzhong left an indelible mark on the peoples living there, but these brief and generally unsuccessful forays also influenced the views of China's elites regarding China's relations with this region. Since at least the Qin and Han, China's scholar-officials considered Nanzhong not only as an inhospitable frontier populated with uncivilized barbarians (manyi), but also as a peripheral part of China where intrepid commanders such as Tang Meng in the second century BCE and Zhuge Liang at the beginning of the third century CE had staked China's claim. This article casts doubt on the historical fiction of a staked claim. Cet article s'appuie sur les recherches ethno-historiques et des découvertes archéologiques récentes pour vérifier l'exactitude des sources chinoises les plus anciennes concernant les peuples et les cultures du Nanzhong, comme était communément appelé le Sud-Ouest (le Yunnan, le Guizhou et le sud du Sichuan) avant la dynastie des Tang. L'archéologie montre à l'évidence que le Nanzhong était une région frontière habitée, siège de plusieurs cultures hautement sophistiquées et différenciées. Si les premières incursions chinoises dans le Nanzhong ont laissé une empreinte indélébile sur les populations locales, ces campagnes brèves et en général infructueuses ont également influencé l'opinion des élites chinoises concernant les relations de la Chine avec le Sud-Ouest. Depuis au moins les Qin et les Han les lettrés-fonctionnaires chinois considéraient le Nanzhong non seulement comme une frontière inhospitalière peuplée de barbares dénués de civilisation (manyi), mais aussi comme un territoire périphérique de la Chine où des généraux intrépides comme Tang Meng au iie siècle avant notre ère et Zhuge Liang au début du iiie siècle de notre ère avaient établi des droits pour la Chine. L'article met en doute cette fiction historique d'un droit établi.

The Taihu Lake region is an important area where China’s rice agriculture originated and where early Chinese civilisation formed. Knowing how this ecologically sensitive area’s Neolithic residents adapted to environmental changes and utilised natural resources is key to understanding the origins of their agricultural practices and civilisation. Focusing on food resources, we systematically organised data from archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological research, human bone stable isotopic analyses, and fatty acid and proteome residue analyses on the Taihu Lake area’s Neolithic findings to explore the interrelationships between subsistence, the environment, and society through qualitative and quantitative analysis supported by paleoenvironmental and archaeological evidence. The results showed that during the Neolithic era (7.0‒4.3 ka BP), under a suitable climate with stable freshwater wetland environments, 38 varieties of edible animals and plants were available to humans in the Taihu Lake area. Despite agriculture being an important food source, rice cultivation and husbandry developed at different paces. Paddy rice cultivation began in wetlands and had always dominated the subsistence economy, as although gathering was universal and diverse, it produced a relatively low volume of food. In contrast, husbandry did not provide sufficient meat throughout the 2000 years of the Majiabang and Songze Cultures. Thus, fishing for freshwater organisms and hunting for wild mammals were the main meat sources before the domestication of pigs became the primary source of meat during the Liangzhu Cultural period. With the available wetland ecological resources and paddy rice farming (the sole crop), the Taihu Lake area transformed into an agricultural society in which rice cultivation dominated the Songze Culture’s subsistence economy, which was also the first to exhibit social complexity. Then, finally, early civilisation developed in the Liangzhu Cultural period. This study contributes to understanding the unique evolutionary path of early Chinese civilisation and has important implications on sustainable resource utilisation for constructing ecological civilisations in present-day societies.

It is possible, as Richard Vinen claims, that I arrange historians into categories that are too neat and selective. But I am puzzled by the relationship of his examples to the particular point that I was making. My argument was that the two world wars were experienced as a crisis that placed in doubt the assumptions underlying the interpretation of the long-term progress of European civilisation. I limited my illustration of this to historians who – during these thirty years – wrote histories of Europe that seemed to me to exemplify their responses, either through their vindication of what Europe had offered to humanity until its self-destruction, or, in Toynbee's case, through a comparative study of the cycle of civilisations. Marc Bloch was not included because his Strange Defeat was specific to France; whereas Braudel (whom I should have included) seems to me to strengthen my case, as his Mediterranean certainly carries the message of European civilisation. The fact that Pirenne's great work was only published posthumously is interesting, but it is when he wrote it that matters. His age, like Fisher's, seems to me irrelevant, or possibly even confirms the importance for historians of an earlier liberal period of the identification of Europe's history with progress.

This essay focuses on the work of the Filipino ilustrado, José Rizal, and his interest in the prevailing debate over whether the sexual behaviour of a culture reflects its level of civilisation. Spanish apologists for colonial rule had persistently argued that the Filipinos remained in many ways a backward and primitive people and delighted in alleging in support of their case that lasciviousness and promiscuity were widespread in the Philippines. These allegations caused deep offence to Rizal and his fellow propagandistas, who wanted, as a matter of patriotic honour, to repudiate such colonialist slurs. Through an examination of a selected sample of Rizal’s annotations to Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, the author explores the ways in which Rizal sought to prove the civilized nature of his people through the assertion of female sexual chastity and sexual honour.

An iron snake in a highland forest: Olha Kobylianska’s The BattleThe article is devoted to Olha Kobylianska’s story The Battle 1895, which focuses on the introduction of railways into the Carpathian landscape Bukovina. While in metropolitan areas and economically advanced regions of Europe railways became a “natural” element of the landscape at the turn of the 20th century, in distant mountain regions railways constituted an alien and invasive element. In the main part of the article the author examines the motif of the opposition between nature and civilisation. In addition, the author explores the cultural symbolism and opposing meanings of iron and trees. Thus what emerges as the central motif of the story is the fate of the Hutsuls as an ethnic group living in the highlands in the context of the opposition indicated above. The originality of Kobylianska’s story lies in the fact that nature becomes its main protagonist. In the last part of the article the author embarks on a comparative confrontation between The Battle and Karl Emil Franzos’ German-language prose.

This paper explores the history of the Theosophical Society in colonial Indonesia within the perspective of intellectual history and how it impact the thoughts of Javanese nationalist-aristocrat. The theosophical movement shared the same ideals with Dutch association policy. The main idea is to raise Eastern culture and society to become equals with Western civilisation. The theosophical movement had major contribution in the Javanese cultural revival movement. Many aspect of Theosophy’s teachings dealt with Indian esoteric cult, which had a strong impact to the vision of Javanese cultural nationalist: that the ideal Javanese society is no other than ancient Javanese civilisation under Hindu-Buddhist tradition.

Dear readers,We are pleased to present to you Issue 2, 2021, of the scientific and analytical journal Burganov House. The Space of Culture. Upon the recommendation of the Expert Council of the Higher Attestation Commission, the journal is included in the List of Leading Peer-reviewed Scientific Journals and Publications in which the main scientific results of theses for the academic degrees of doctor and candidate of science must be published. The journal publishes scientific articles by leading specialists in various humanitarian fields, doctoral students, and graduate students. Research areas concern topical problems in multiple areas of culture, art, philology, and linguistics. This versatility of the review reveals the main specificity of the journal, which represents the current state of the cultural space. The article by the outstanding American historian of architecture, Robert Ousterhout, is devoted to the Russian architecture formation and questions of church construction development. E. Menshikova analyses the issues of ancient aesthetics and philosophy through the prism of the realities of the modern world in the article “The Paradox of a Liar – an Incredible Repetition. Part II. The Aristotle-Anokhin Diphthong”. Characteristic of the religious consciousness and philosophy of Confucianism, the ideas of the immortality of the spirit, filial piety, and etiquette, which have become firmly established in the burial culture of Ancient China, are explored by Xiang Wu in his article “Cultural Preconditions for the Formation of Stone Carved Sculpture in Ancient Chinese Mausoleums”. Qiu Mubing continues the theme of the Chinese funerary tradition of the Han period in the article “Items of Burial Cult in the Han Period. Bronze Items. Bronze Aesthetics in the Han Period”. The author analyses bronze items and concludes that the Bronze Age in China began with the emergence of Chinese civilisation and lasted, developing in stages, until the end of the period in question – the Han period. E. Vostrikova analyses the stylistic evolution of the Flowers and Birds genre in her article “The Hwajohwa Genre (“Flowers and Birds”) in Korean Traditional Painting of the Early and Middle Joseon Periods (Late 14th – Late 17th Centuries)”. The study identifies the historical and cultural context and the main terms for its designation, presents individual artistic trends, examines the techniques used in Korean traditional painting. Moreover, the author outlines the leading artists who worked in this genre during the indicated period. P. Kozorezenko investigates the artistic searches of the masters of the Severe style in the article “The Image of an Icon in the Art of the Artists of the Severe Style”. The author believes that ancient Russian art and its main embodiment, an icon, are one of the vivid elements of the creative palette of the Severe style masters. N. Beschastnov and E. Dergileva present the graphic heritage of Moscow artist A. Dergileva, limited by the period between 1980–1990, in the article “The Moscow Metro of Alena Dergileva: the Image of Stability and Features of Change”. The seemingly simple theme, “man and a city”, is developed in a multitude of complex relationships between plastic and compositional research. In the article “History and the Picturesque Image in Sergei Eisenstein’s Film Alexander Nevsky”, N. Lushchenkov examines the theme of picturesque images in films. The author analyses the dialogue of different types of art on the example of the film Alexander Nevsky, believing that these not so obvious, but deep in their idea and artistic structure, allusions to works of painting, book illustration and graphics manifest themselves most vividly and consistently in the context of the film. The fundamentals of the sacred space reconstruction on the example of the play Shakuntala are considered by P. Stepanova in the article “Reactualization of the Ritual Structure in the Performance of Jerzy Grotowsky’s Shakuntala by Kalidasa (1960)”. The author explores the main methods of working on new connections between the actor and the audience in a theatrical performance as a special form of complicity. The author considers the deconstruction of the stage space and the removal of a clear division into the stage and the audience to be one of the main means of expression at this stage of work. In the article “Design Culture of Team Strategies”, Y. Vaserchuk analyses modern forms of design activity that contribute to professional design development and compares the principles of designers’ teamwork that are similar in form but differ in content. The author identifies the types of project design thinking: from engineering and creative types to artistic and resource-based ones. The publication is addressed to professionals specialising in the theory and practice of the fine arts and philology and all those interested in the arts and culture.

AbstractWetland exploitation along Batang Gadis and Batang Angkola River had triggered the rise of Hindu-Buddhism influence in those area. Temples ruin in Mandailing are facts of sophisticated its civilisation

As it is frequently the case in the modern world, the term ‘Silk Road’ or ‘Silk Roads’ is of colonial provenance. The elaborate network of ancient routes originating in the fourth millennium bc and linking various parts of the Eurasian landmass through Central Asia was re-imagined and reinvented in the late nineteenth century as a ‘Silk Road’ connecting China with the Roman Empire, thereby undermining the role of the steppe with its various nomadic and oasis cultures which had always been at the heart of this Eurasian system of trade and other exchange. Ever since, historiography has focussed on the role of sedentary civilisations in this system of exchange, with a particular emphasis on China and the West, thus undermining the role of other sedentary civilisations such as India. Contrary to the dominant narrative, the antiquity of the Eurasian trade network goes back to several millennia before the rise of either the Han Empire or Rome. Whereas this network did connect the agrarian civilisations, this happened primarily through the agency of central Asian intermediaries whose culmination is represented by the rise of the vast Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century. The idea of the ‘Silk Road(s)’ is thus anachronistic in the sense that it is a backward projection of present into the historical past, especially in view of the fact that silk was only one among several important items of exchange, such as horses, cotton, precious stones, and furs.

Every day teachers try to improve their students’ awareness of how life was in Classical times. We talk about mythology, politics, the building of cities and many other aspects that made the ancient world, but what do we actually know and teach about clothing in ancient times? Our society seems to pay a lot of attention to the physical aspect of the ancient world. We know that clothing and adornment are important ways in which people were defined as a part of a social group, yet our students seem to believe that our ancestors just had a poor selection of national garments to make their identity clear.

TO an outsider historians must sometimes seem perversely obsessed with decline. Certainly when it comes to dealing with empires, his-torians betray a fascination with decay that is almost pathological—and often not simply with the nature and causes of decline but with the exact moment when it began—a somewhat futile enterprise if an enjoyable parlour game. Of course the appeal of decay to the his-torical imagination is not simply the outgrowth of contemporary nostalgia for lost worlds and past times. In the later nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries the intellectual habit of ‘historical-mindedness’ and the particular tendency to search for a pattern of origins, growth, maturity, decline and fall were extremely influential over a wide range of intellectual disciplines and we might suppose helped to shape the world-view of those who managed the external affairs of Britain and the other powers. The search for historical laws of civilisation and decay was a characteristically Victorian intellectual preoccupation and an essential part of the way in which Europeans tried to make sense of the other civilisations into which they crashed during the nineteenth century. But how far were the leaders of the European imperial states and the circles of informed opinion in which they moved willing to turn on their own empires the analysis of growth and decay they had fashioned for the states and cultures they had overthrown? To what extent should we see the makers of British policy in the first half of this century as (in Gibbon's famous phrase) ‘musing in the ruins of the Capitol’? Was the Marquess of Lothian's remark that ‘sooner or later empires decay partly because they become rigid and rotten at the centre…’ a recognition that if history was the graveyard of empires, British imperialism had certainly reached retiring age? Or did Lothian and others like him assume that Britain's peculiarities made her exempt from such generalizations?

Is my PGCE drew towards its end, the prospect of my first teaching job loomed large in my mind. I had been forewarned that 50% of my teaching workload would consist of teaching Classical Civilisation, and that the majority of this would be at A Level. However, I did not have personal experience of the subject as a school pupil (I studied Latin, Greek and English Literature at A Level – there was no Classical Civilisation option), so I had no personal frame of reference or pre-formed opinion of how it might be taught best. The final research project of the PGCE course presented an ideal and much-needed opportunity to investigate the possible teaching strategies I should consider in preparation for my own teaching of the subject. I was particularly interested in how to ‘get through’ the seemingly vast amount of text which teachers often cited as a real challenge.

The author served as General Editor of the Science and Civilisation in China series from 1992 to 2014. He reviews the history of this scholarly project since its inception by Joseph Needham in 1943, and discusses some of the problems that had to be solved in the production of such a complex and far-ranging publication. He illustrates the discussion with reference to three of the books in the series that appeared under his editorship – those dealing with the topics of ceramics, ferrous metallurgy and ethnobotany.

Major surgical procedures in Peru are known to have been practised as far back as 700 BC. Trauma was an indication for these procedures, although some were done for religious reasons or as punishments. There is clear evidence that surgeons of the pre-Inca civilisation at Paracas, at the southern coast of Peru, carried out cranial trephination and limb amputations. They were not only skilful but successful – a 65–90% survival rate has been estimated from archaeological evidence. They had developed practical surgical instruments and techniques and were adept at using materials from their environment, fashioning limb prostheses and gold plates to cover trephination sites, and brewing anaesthetic from corn and other plants such as coca and cacti. This knowledge was transmitted by word of mouth up to the Inca civilisation and practised until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

Following the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in December 1992, the discipline of archaeology has been increasingly exploited for meeting the demands of religious nationalism in India, for offering material proof for the primordiality of Hindu dharma, and for substantiating claims that the ‘Vedic Hindu’ had an indigenous origin within the subcontinent. Over the last decade, statements such as ‘new astrological and archaeological evidence has come to light which suggests that the people who composed the Vedas called themselves Aryans and were indigenous to India’ (Prinja 1996: 10), have not only propped up the doctrinaire of Hindutva, but have also acquired an official sanctioning from many within the professional community of Indian archaeologists (e.g. Lal 1998), who are actively involved in a programme of promoting the premise that it is possible to unearth true histories objectively through archaeological means (Gupta 1996: 142).

The article is devoted to the research in the shaping of concept of civilizational development made by the prominent Chinese philosopher Kang Youwei (1858-1927). The vision of Western civilization from the point of view of a Confucian thinker is considered on the basis of the material “Travels to Italy” (1904). Kang Youwei argued that Unity is the basic law of history. From Kang’s point of view, the Roman Empire was an example of a state, which was founded according to the laws of the evolutionary development of nature and society. 19th century Italy was seen as a young state that which had not yet overcome the consequences of the “birth trauma”. Shaping his views within the Sino centric paradigm, Kang Youwei considered the world civilization as a single evolutionary process of ascending from barbarism to the heights of culture, respectively, the positive experience of the West can be used to correct China’s shortcomings and return a high political and geostrategic status to the country.

How did the indian majority in early republican Bolivia interpret the transformation of the colonial Audiencia of Charcas into an independent nation-state ? How was the new republican age and its symbols reconciled with the forms of social organisation and belief which had emerged from the meeting between native Andean civilisation and the Spanish colonial state?

Judaism, from its biblical beginnings, conveys a peculiar synthesis of historical and religious perception. Divine revelation to Israel is perceived as an historical event, and history is believed to be subject to divine interference, guided by ethical considerations. The moral failings of history will be resolved in the last days by an act of God. This approach has had far-reaching impact on Western civilisation.

The Islamic Civilisation and Asian Civilisation (TITAS) course is offered as a compulsory subject in Malaysian institutions of higher learning (IHL) to expose undergraduates to the world and regional civilization history. In addition, it is aimed at inculcating ethnic tolerance among university students in aspects of diversity relevant to the context of Malaysia with its diverse races, ethnicities, and religions. This study sought to investigate the effectiveness of the TITAS course in Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) as a medium for the inculation of ethnic tolerance and also to identify the necessity of continuing to offer TITAS as a liberal course in the Centre for the Promotion of Knowledge and Language Learning (PPIB) in Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS). The survey method was utilized and a questionnaire that had been adapted to suit the research objectives administered to 475 undergraduates enrolled in the TITAS course during their first year of studies. Descriptive analysis of the findings suggested that TITAS should be continued in PPIB so as to maintain its role as a medium for the inculcation of ethnic tolerance among undergraduates.

People living in Muslim countries in 2013 had an average life expectancy at birth of just 67 years - four years lower than the global average of 71 years! Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the number of years an individual is expected to live. Global average life expectancy today is much greater than what is was in 1900 - then only 31 years. During the period of the medieval Islamic Caliphate, however, life expectancy at birth of the general population was relatively high, above 35 years, according to Conrad Lawrence (1995) in the book, The Western Medical Tradition: 800 BC to AD 1800. This is greater than longevity figures estimated for late medieval English aristocracy (30 years), and for populations in classical Greece (28 years) and classical Rome (20-30 years).

AbstractWe report on a search for narrow band emissions from the vicinity of 36 solar type (F6 to K4) target stars and 13 other non-solar type stars within 11.5 parsecs at 5 possible interstellar beacon frequencies of π*fH, 2π*fH, e*fOH, e*(fOH+fH) and3He (4.462, 8.925, 4.532, 8.393 and 8.666 GHz respectively). The frequencies were selected by scaling important naturally occurring lines by fundamental constants. The stars were selected for a distance of less than 11.5 parsecs to give sufficient time for a nearby civilisation to have detected early Earth radio leakage signals and to have replied. The search was carried using the 64-m Parkes telescope with the Phoenix instrumentation and the 22-m Mopra telescope for candidate verification. The instrument combination allowed for a low interference, high resolution, high sensitivity search. We did not detect any signals from any of the target stars. If a civilisation at a distance of 10 pc had beamed 10 kW signals at us using a 100-m dish, we would have detected the transmission at the 10 sigma level. Thus we can exclude signals above this level.

Uha, der er meget ude at gå i forestilingen Manson. Omdrejningspunktet er 60‘ernes kultfigur, Charles Manson, og det firedobbelte mord, som han og nogle af hans sektmedlemmer blev dømt for. Vi præsenteres for de begivenheder, der ledte frem til den bestialske gerning, for selve mordet og for den retssag, der fulgte efter. Og det er ikke småting, der hvirvles op undervejs. Forbløffende mange af den vestlige civilisations megatemaer tangeres – nogle meget eksplicit, andre mere implicit.

With the right breeding and care, food plants have – so far – fed and sustained human civilisation. But how much can be grown, where and how reliably are emerging themes in the food security debate. Forty years ago, a non-patented gene from a quaint old grain saved the world-leading, multi-billion dollar US corn industry. It was fortunate for the multinational seed, fertiliser and pesticide conglomerates that someone in China had the foresight to conserve it.

Jinan City is the first pilot city for the Water Ecological Civilisation Project in China. The success of its ecological restoration is directly linked to achievements of construction of water ecological civilisation. For this reason, studies were performed of the temporospatial heterogeneity of the aquatic ecosystem in Jinan based on aquatic ecology data collected in field investigations from 2014 to 2015. The results show that the overall species richness in Jinan City aquatic ecosystems was higher in 2014 than in 2015 and that the community structure was more complex. Specifically, the density of Naididae and Chironomidae accounted for a high proportion of organisms in urban rivers. For fish community structure, the Cyprinidae had the largest variety and the highest density and biomass. Analysis of the primary hydrological water quality factors driving aquatic ecosystem structure showed that the overall river velocity was slow, with the exception of the main stem of the Yellow River in Jinan City. In addition, the overall total nitrogen concentration in Jinan City rivers was relatively high, and was higher in plains areas than in mountainous areas. This study can provide a scientific reference for aquatic ecological rehabilitation in Jinan City, as well as for the pilot cities program.

Abstract The voices of pottery workers across the British Isles during the heyday of the taste for classically themed ceramics are almost silent to us, since so few left memoirs or diaries. But other sources cumulatively build up a picture of skilled male, female, and child workers familiar with multifarious ancient artefacts and books visually reproducing them. At Etruria and Herculaneum, workers were encouraged to see themselves as participants in the rebirth of the ancient ceramic arts; they were trained in painstaking reproduction of details not only from ancient vases but from ancient gems, intaglios, ivories, coins, bas-reliefs, frescoes, friezes, statues, and sarcophagi. They were familiar with the stories of a substantial number of ancient mythical and historical figures, and the different aesthetic conventions of classical Athenian, Hellenistic, and Roman art. Some were even able to study antiquity at institutions of adult education, and had access to well-stocked workers’ libraries.

When a civilisation with its own traditional systems of science and philosophy encounters modern knowledge emanating from Europe, a complex change in the former must result. In India, the situation was complicated by the fact that the flagbearers of modern science had also become the masters of the country, and their interests as rulers did not necessarily accord with the pursuit of a full-scale modernising project. The article traces the development of Indian response to the European impact, and how Indian intellectuals began to imbibe modern values, adjusting (not abandoning) their own cultural heritage.

Crisis status of the contemporary Western civilisation and the processes of its secular spiritual decay as the main reason for conflict state with the Russian world with its Christian Orthodox tradition. Inability for Russia to acknowledge the modern neoliberal order, enforced in Europe and initiated by an Anglo-Saxon non-Christian ideology. Its impact and of its secular values on general situation around European and global diplomacy, international law marginalisation as a legal nihilism as a result of it. Attempt to substitute traditional diplomatic notions and values in favour of liberal supremacy as the main reason for weakness and ineffectiveness of today’s diplomacy and nullity of international law. Given the historical part of Russian Europe in forming European and Europe-Asian identity, an obvious task is to save the historical Europe, to protect its Christian identity from Anglo-Saxon antihumane ideas and from cancel-culture policy in Europe. In this regard historical school of European diplomacy preserves its major role, which had been formed with the Russian foreign policy involvement during the last centuries. The very diplomatic factors must ensure the European cultural identity, the century traditions of unity and alliance between Russia and European countries. With Anglo-Saxon protectorate in Europe, US interests dominance, preserving Russian role in European expanse is crucial in Western European conscious, as well as impeding the decline of Russia’s activities in relations with European states and prevention of vacuum in such cooperation, despite the rise of interest towards East and Asia. It’s important not to allow a revision of geopolitical role of Russia on the Western direction due to costs of the turn to the East. Both in cultural and civilisational aspects Russia remains to be a European state, and a geopolitical view on cooperation with Asia must not lead to the destruction of Russian positions and infl uence in Europe. With the de-facto transformation of the EU into a military-political power, a NATO affix, it’s important to put eff orts into the rise of the level of bilateral relations and a partnership with the European countries, securing a reduction of the EU negative role, which doesn’t represent the whole Europe, with Russia being part of it.

The study presents one of the fundamental differences between Western and Confucian civilisations: individualistic western interpretation of self versus Confucian group-self (we-self) and group identity. The study starts with Hong Kong scholars’ opinions: which western concepts are entirely alien to Chinese tradition. According to them, an individual is not treated there as the highest value nor has attributed ‘innate dignity’, as in the West. Equality is rejected, because all social relations are based there on a hierarchical order. The concepts and ideals of individual autonomy, of self-direction, freedoms and rights had also been unknown there, like many other western concepts, since they have Christian and Greek-Roman roots. The author subscribes to F.W. Mote’s conclusion that there is a ‘cosmological gulf’ between Chinese and western civilisations. The author considers right Qian Mu’s opinion that the creation of social, human nature of each individual is a fundamental concept of Chinese civilisation, hence the state is treated as a kind of one gigantic school, in which all citizens are considered ‘pupils’, and all ‘chiefs’, from father to emperor, as respected ‘tutors’. The principle of maintaining harmony and unity excludes various partial visions and different personal political options since consensus is required and individual criticism, in particular towards all ‘authorities’ is condemned. The study presents various explanations and concepts of ‘Confucian self’ (Chinese, Japanese and Korean), among them ‘group self’, ‘contextual self’, ‘enlarged’ and primitive ‘small self’, ‘multiple self’, self as a ‘centre of relationships’, ‘dependent personality’, ‘sacredness of group life’, the idea of group unity ‘being one in soul and body’, etc. The author presents in detail Roger T. Ames’ concept of Confucian self as ‘focus-in-the-field’ indicating that it explains well the different social position of individuals, which could vary from ‘small’ and insignificant to ‘gigantic’. The study outlines as well the religious Chinese context of such concepts. Owing to such an emphasis on group and not personal self, it is difficult to understand properly and adapt the fundamental western political concepts such as human rights and liberal democracy since they serve autonomous individuals lacking in East Asia. The study outlines the education process and the essential concepts of how children have to be educated in the Confucian tradition. These realities change, of course, but slowly and merely partially, since the traditional concepts still serve well social needs and efficient modernization. In the end, the author indicates a broader cultural context in which such concepts of self could operate. For instance, Confucian tradition glorifies harmony, accord and maintaining consensus, whereas it condemns struggle, quarrels and open criticism of others, in particular of authorities. Western individual protests and criticism challenge this approach. When the Christian concepts of brotherhood, love of one’s neighbour and equality were lacking, and all other communities in the same country are treated as ‘alien’ and ‘potentially harmful’, it was difficult to form national identity and solidarity. Moreover, under such circumstances, wide interests and engagement in politics of the state could not appear. Hence ‘culturalism’, based on group cultural identity, instead of nationalism evolved. The western individualistic spirit of adventure, traveling, seeking something new was also lacking, on the contrary, the Confucian ideal was to live together with one’s family in a native village/community. This cultural and social context is an obstacle to this day to the adaptation of western institutions and values related to individual.

The recent discovery of the bio-waste and excreta treatment of a former civilisation in the Amazon reveals the possibility of a highly efficient and simple sanitation system. With the end product that was black soil they converted 10% of former infertile soil of the region: Terra Preta do Indio (black soil of the Indians). These soils are still very fertile 500 years after this civilisation had disappeared. Deriving from these concepts, Terra Preta Sanitation (TPS) has been re-developed and adopted. TPS includes urine diversion, addition of a charcoal mixture and is based on lactic-acid-fermentation with subsequent vermicomposting. No water, ventilation or external energy is required. Natural formation processes are employed to transform excreta into lasting fertile soil that can be utilised in urban agriculture. The authors studied the lacto-fermentation of faecal matter with a minimum of 4 weeks followed by vermicomposting. The results showed that lactic-acid fermentation with addition of a charcoal mixture is a suitable option for dry toilets as the container can be closed after usage. Hardly any odour occured even after periods of several weeks. Lactic-acid fermentation alone without addition of bulking agents such as paper and sliced-cut wood to raise the C/N ratio is creating a substrate that is not accepted by worms.

When Australia was circumnavigated by Europeans in 1801–02, French and British natural historians were unsure how to describe the Indigenous peoples who inhabited the land they charted and catalogued. Ideas of race and of savagery were freely deployed by both British and French, but a discursive shift was underway. While the concept of savagery had long been understood to apply to categories of human populations deemed to be in want of more historically advanced ‘civilisation’, the application of this term in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was increasingly being correlated with the emerging terminology of racial characteristics. The terminology of race was still remarkably fluid, and did not always imply fixed physical or mental endowments or racial hierarchies. Nonetheless, by means of this concept, natural historians began to conceptualise humanity as subject not only to historical gradations, but also to the environmental and climatic variations thought to determine race. This in turn meant that the degree of savagery or civilisation of different peoples could be understood through new criteria that enabled physical classification, in particular by reference to skin colour, hair, facial characteristics, skull morphology, or physical stature: the archetypal criteria of race. While race did not replace the language of savagery, in the early years of the 19th century savagery was re-inscribed by race.

AbstractSupreme Court decisions have established that daughters have the right to inherit their fathers’ property. It is contrary with principle of inheritance on adat law, especially in patrilineal communities. Therefore this article analysis legal reasoning in Supreme Court decisions within equality between men and women in inheritance cases and their implications to cultural identities. Analysis in this article uses case approach to Supreme Court decisions in 1974 to 2016. The case approach in this article found that Supreme Court decisions use the perspective of human rights to criticize inequality between men and women on inheritance law in adat law. However, Article 28I par. 3 the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia states that cultural identities and rights of traditional communities shall be respected in accordance with the “development of times and civilisations”. This facts show that the definition of "the development of times and civilisations" as the basis of reviewing adat law is important. Supreme Court has to formulates the definition of “the development of times and civilizations” in order to prevent disappearance of cultural identities.s and civilisations. IntisariMahkamah Agung dalam beberapa putusannya telah menetapkan bahwa anak perempuan memiliki hak untuk mewarisi harta ayahnya. Putusan-putusan tersebut bertentangan dengan prinsip pewarisan dalam hukum adat, khususnya dalam masyarakat adat dengan sistem patrilineal. Oleh karena itu artikel ini menganalisis penalaran hukum dalam putusan Mahkamah Agung terkait dengan keseimbanganlaki-laki dan perempuan dalam sengketa waris adat dan implikasinya terhadap identitas budaya. Analisis artikel ini menggunakan pendekatan studi kasus putusan Mahkamah Agung dan Pengadilan Negeri dari tahun 1974 hingga 2016. Analisis dalam artikel ini menunjukkan bahwa putusan-putusan Mahkamah Agung tersebut menggunakan perspektif hak asasi manusia untuk mengkritik ketidakseimbangan laki-laki dan perempuan dalam hukum waris berdasarkan hukum adat. Namun Pasal 28 I ayat (3) Undang-Undang Dasar NRI Tahun 1945 menyatakan bahwa identitas budaya dan hak-hak masyarakat tradisional dihormati selaras dengan “perkembangan zaman dan peradaban”. Kondisi ini menunjukkan definisi “perkembangan zaman dan peradaban” sangat penting untuk dirumuskan sebelum mengevaluasi hukum adat. Kriteria yang jelas terhadap definisi “perkembangan zaman dan peradaban” perlu dibuat agar perubahan hukum waris adat tidak berimplikasi pada pudarnya identitas budaya.

The fascination to mankind of natural crystals must have started at the dawn of civilisation, but collectors only started to look at them in a scientific way during the 16th century. Even so it was not until the 18th century, when crystallographic knowledge had advanced sufficiently, that crystallographers began to make models of individual crystals, primarily for teaching. After a brief historical survey, extant examples in the National Collection and the materials used in their construction, are discussed, as well as some aspects of the backgrounds of those who made them and their reasons for doing so.

The text deals with the reception of Feliks Koneczny’s oeuvre over more than the last half a century. The thought of this undisputed historian and theorist of civilisation has not had the conditions for proper reception sine ira et studio. At first, it was passed over in silence as ‘reactionary’; at present, attempts are being made to give it an ideological dimension – in the spirit of inter-war National Democracy. The lack of a critical edition of Koneczny’s writings and mere access to reprints is not conducive to showing what is original and timeless in the thinker from Galicia.

Social innovations are activities aiming at implementation of social objectives, including mainly the improvement of life of individuals and social groups, together with public policy and management objectives. The essay indicates and discusses the most important contemporary problems, solving of which requires social innovations. Social innovations precondition the progress of civilisation. The world needs not only new technologies, but also new solutions of social and institutional nature that would be conducive to achieving social goals. Social innovations are experimental social actions of organisational and institutional nature that aim at improving the quality of life of individuals, communities, nations, companies, circles, or social groups. Their experimental nature stems from the fact of introducing unique and one-time solutions on a large scale, the end results of which are often difficult to be fully predicted. For example, it was difficult to believe that opening new labour markets for foreigners in the countries of the European Union, which can be treated as a social innovation aiming at development of the international labour market, will result in the rapid development of the low-cost airlines, the offer of which will be available to a larger group of recipients. In other words, social innovations differ from economic innovations, as they are not about implementation of new types of production or gaining new markets, but about satisfying new needs, which are not provided by the market. Therefore, the most important distinction consists in that social innovations are concerned with improving the well-being of individuals and communities by additional employment, or increased consumption, as well as participation in solving the problems of individuals and social groups [CSTP, 2011]. In general, social innovations are activities aiming at implementation of social objectives, including mainly the improvement of life of individuals and social groups together with the objectives of public policy and management [Kowalczyk, Sobiecki, 2017]. Their implementation requires global, national, and individual actions. This requires joint operations, both at the scale of the entire globe, as well as in particular interest groups. Why are social innovations a key point for the progress of civilisation? This is the effect of the clear domination of economic aspects and discrimination of social aspects of this progress. Until the 19th century, the economy was a part of a social structure. As described by K. Polanyi, it was submerged in social relations [Polanyi, 2010, p. 56]. In traditional societies, the economic system was in fact derived from the organisation of the society itself. The economy, consisting of small and dispersed craft businesses, was a part of the social, family, and neighbourhood structure. In the 20th century the situation reversed – the economy started to be the force shaping social structures, positions of individual groups, areas of wealth and poverty. The economy and the market mechanism have become independent from the world of politics and society. Today, the corporations control our lives. They decide what we eat, what we watch, what we wear, where we work and what we do [Bakan, 2006, p. 13]. The corporations started this spectacular “march to rule the world” in the late 19th century. After about a hundred years, at the end of the 20th century, the state under the pressure of corporations and globalisation, started a gradual, but systematic withdrawal from the economy, market and many other functions traditionally belonging to it. As a result, at the end of the last century, a corporation has become a dominant institution in the world. A characteristic feature of this condition is that it gives a complete priority to the interests of corporations. They make decisions of often adverse consequences for the entire social groups, regions, or local communities. They lead to social tensions, political breakdowns, and most often to repeated market turbulences. Thus, a substantial minority (corporations) obtain inconceivable benefits at the expense of the vast majority, that is broad professional and social groups. The lack of relative balance between the economy and society is a barrier to the progress of civilisation. A growing global concern is the problem of migration. The present crisis, left unresolved, in the long term will return multiplied. Today, there are about 500 million people living in Europe, 1.5 billion in Africa and the Middle East, but in 2100, the population of Europe will be about 400 million and of the Middle East and Africa approximately 4.5 billion. Solving this problem, mainly through social and political innovations, can take place only by a joint operation of highly developed and developing countries. Is it an easy task? It’s very difficult. Unfortunately, today, the world is going in the opposite direction. Instead of pursuing the community, empathic thinking, it aims towards nationalism and chauvinism. An example might be a part of the inaugural address of President Donald Trump, who said that the right of all nations is to put their own interests first. Of course, the United States of America will think about their own interests. As we go in the opposite direction, those who deal with global issues say – nothing will change, unless there is some great crisis, a major disaster that would cause that the great of this world will come to senses. J.E. Stiglitz [2004], contrary to the current thinking and practice, believes that a different and better world is possible. Globalisation contains the potential of countless benefits from which people both in developing and highly developed countries can benefit. But the practice so far proves that still it is not grown up enough to use its potential in a fair manner. What is needed are new solutions, most of all social and political innovations (political, because they involve a violation of the previous arrangement of interests). Failure to search for breakthrough innovations of social and political nature that would meet the modern challenges, can lead the world to a disaster. Social innovation, and not economic, because the contemporary civilisation problems have their roots in this dimension. A global problem, solution of which requires innovations of social and political nature, is the disruption of the balance between work and capital. In 2010, 400 richest people had assets such as the half of the poorer population of the world. In 2016, such part was in the possession of only 8 people. This shows the dramatic collapse of the balance between work and capital. The world cannot develop creating the technological progress while increasing unjustified inequalities, which inevitably lead to an outbreak of civil disturbances. This outbreak can have various organisation forms. In the days of the Internet and social media, it is easier to communicate with people. Therefore, paradoxically, some modern technologies create the conditions facilitating social protests. There is one more important and dangerous effect of implementing technological innovations without simultaneous creation and implementation of social innovations limiting the sky-rocketing increase of economic (followed by social) diversification. Sooner or later, technological progress will become so widespread that, due to the relatively low prices, it will make it possible for the weapons of mass destruction, especially biological and chemical weapons, to reach small terrorist groups. Then, a total, individualized war of global reach can develop. The individualisation of war will follow, as described by the famous German sociologist Ulrich Beck. To avoid this, it is worth looking at the achievements of the Polish scientist Michał Kalecki, who 75 years ago argued that capitalism alone is not able to develop. It is because it aggressively seeks profit growth, but cannot turn profit into some profitable investments. Therefore, when uncertainty grows, capitalism cannot develop itself, and it must be accompanied by external factors, named by Kalecki – external development factors. These factors include state expenses, finances and, in accordance with the nomenclature of Kalecki – epochal innovations. And what are the current possibilities of activation of the external factors? In short – modest. The countries are indebted, and the basis for the development in the last 20 years were loans, which contributed to the growth of debt of economic entities. What, then, should we do? It is necessary to look for cheaper solutions, but such that are effective, that is breakthrough innovations. These undoubtedly include social and political innovations. Contemporary social innovation is not about investing big money and expensive resources in production, e.g. of a very expensive vaccine, which would be available for a small group of recipients. Today’s social innovation should stimulate the use of lower amounts of resources to produce more products available to larger groups of recipients. The progress of civilisation happens only as a result of a sustainable development in economic, social, and now also ecological terms. Economic (business) innovations, which help accelerate the growth rate of production and services, contribute to economic development. Profits of corporations increase and, at the same time, the economic objectives of the corporations are realised. But are the objectives of the society as a whole and its members individually realised equally, in parallel? In the chain of social reproduction there are four repeated phases: production – distribution – exchange – consumption. The key point from the social point of view is the phase of distribution. But what are the rules of distribution, how much and who gets from this “cake” produced in the social process of production? In the today’s increasingly global economy, the most important mechanism of distribution is the market mechanism. However, in the long run, this mechanism leads to growing income and welfare disparities of various social groups. Although, the income and welfare diversity in itself is nothing wrong, as it is the result of the diversification of effectiveness of factors of production, including work, the growing disparities to a large extent cannot be justified. Economic situation of the society members increasingly depends not on the contribution of work, but on the size of the capital invested, and the market position of the economic entity, and on the “governing power of capital” on the market. It should also be noted that this diversification is also related to speculative activities. Disparities between the implemented economic and social innovations can lead to the collapse of the progress of civilisation. Nowadays, economic crises are often justified by, indeed, social and political considerations, such as marginalisation of nation states, imbalance of power (or imbalance of fear), religious conflicts, nationalism, chauvinism, etc. It is also considered that the first global financial crisis of the 21st century originated from the wrong social policy pursued by the US Government, which led to the creation of a gigantic public debt, which consequently led to an economic breakdown. This resulted in the financial crisis, but also in deepening of the social imbalances and widening of the circles of poverty and social exclusion. It can even be stated that it was a crisis in public confidence. Therefore, the causes of crises are the conflicts between the economic dimension of the development and its social dimension. Contemporary world is filled with various innovations of economic or business nature (including technological, product, marketing, and in part – organisational). The existing solutions can be a source of economic progress, which is a component of the progress of civilisation. However, economic innovations do not complete the entire progress of civilisation moreover, the saturation, and often supersaturation with implementations and economic innovations leads to an excessive use of material factors of production. As a consequence, it results in lowering of the efficiency of their use, unnecessary extra burden to the planet, and passing of the negative effects on the society and future generations (of consumers). On the other hand, it leads to forcing the consumption of durable consumer goods, and gathering them “just in case”, and also to the low degree of their use (e.g. more cars in a household than its members results in the additional load on traffic routes, which results in an increase in the inconvenience of movement of people, thus to the reduction of the quality of life). Introduction of yet another economic innovation will not solve this problem. It can be solved only by social innovations that are in a permanent shortage. A social innovation which fosters solving the issue of excessive accumulation of tangible production goods is a developing phenomenon called sharing economy. It is based on the principle: “the use of a service provided by some welfare does not require being its owner”. This principle allows for an economic use of resources located in households, but which have been “latent” so far. In this way, increasing of the scope of services provided (transport, residential and tourist accommodation) does not require any growth of additional tangible resources of factors of production. So, it contributes to the growth of household incomes, and inhibition of loading the planet with material goods processed by man [see Poniatowska-Jaksch, Sobiecki, 2016]. Another example: we live in times, in which, contrary to the law of T. Malthus, the planet is able to feed all people, that is to guarantee their minimum required nutrients. But still, millions of people die of starvation and malnutrition, but also due to obesity. Can this problem be solved with another economic innovation? Certainly not! Economic innovations will certainly help to partially solve the problem of nutrition, at least by the new methods of storing and preservation of foods, to reduce its waste in the phase of storage and transport. However, a key condition to solve this problem is to create and implement an innovation of a social nature (in many cases also political). We will not be able to speak about the progress of civilisation in a situation, where there are people dying of starvation and malnutrition. A growing global social concern, resulting from implementation of an economic (technological) innovation will be robotisation, and more specifically – the effects arising from its dissemination on a large scale. So far, the issue has been postponed due to globalisation of the labour market, which led to cheapening of the work factor by more than ten times in the countries of Asia or South America. But it ends slowly. Labour becomes more and more expensive, which means that the robots become relatively cheap. The mechanism leading to low prices of the labour factor expires. Wages increase, and this changes the relationship of the prices of capital and labour. Capital becomes relatively cheaper and cheaper, and this leads to reducing of the demand for work, at the same time increasing the demand for capital (in the form of robots). The introduction of robots will be an effect of the phenomenon of substitution of the factors of production. A cheaper factor (in this case capital in the form of robots) will be cheaper than the same activities performed by man. According to W. Szymański [2017], such change is a dysfunction of capitalism. A great challenge, because capitalism is based on the market-driven shaping of income. The market-driven shaping of income means that the income is derived from the sale of the factors of production. Most people have income from employment. Robots change this mechanism. It is estimated that scientific progress allows to create such number of robots that will replace billion people in the world. What will happen to those “superseded”, what will replace the income from human labour? Capitalism will face an institutional challenge, and must replace the market-driven shaping of income with another, new one. The introduction of robots means microeconomic battle with the barrier of demand. To sell more, one needs to cut costs. The costs are lowered by the introduction of robots, but the use of robots reduces the demand for human labour. Lowering the demand for human labour results in the reduction of employment, and lower wages. Lower wages result in the reduction of the demand for goods and services. To increase the demand for goods and services, the companies must lower their costs, so they increase the involvement of robots, etc. A mechanism of the vicious circle appears If such a mass substitution of the factors of production is unfavourable from the point of view of stimulating the development of the economy, then something must be done to improve the adverse price relations for labour. How can the conditions of competition between a robot and a man be made equal, at least partially? Robots should be taxed. Bill Gates, among others, is a supporter of such a solution. However, this is only one of the tools that can be used. The solution of the problem requires a change in the mechanism, so a breakthrough innovation of a social and political nature. We can say that technological and product innovations force the creation of social and political innovations (maybe institutional changes). Product innovations solve some problems (e.g. they contribute to the reduction of production costs), but at the same time, give rise to others. Progress of civilisation for centuries and even millennia was primarily an intellectual progress. It was difficult to discuss economic progress at that time. Then we had to deal with the imbalance between the economic and the social element. The insufficiency of the economic factor (otherwise than it is today) was the reason for the tensions and crises. Estimates of growth indicate that the increase in industrial production from ancient times to the first industrial revolution, that is until about 1700, was 0.1-0.2 per year on average. Only the next centuries brought about systematically increasing pace of economic growth. During 1700- 1820, it was 0.5% on an annual average, and between 1820-1913 – 1.5%, and between 1913-2012 – 3.0% [Piketty, 2015, p. 97]. So, the significant pace of the economic growth is found only at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. Additionally, the growth in this period refers predominantly to Europe and North America. The countries on other continents were either stuck in colonialism, structurally similar to the medieval period, or “lived” on the history of their former glory, as, for example, China and Japan, or to a lesser extent some countries of the Middle East and South America. The growth, having then the signs of the modern growth, that is the growth based on technological progress, was attributed mainly to Europe and the United States. The progress of civilisation requires the creation of new social initiatives. Social innovations are indeed an additional capital to keep the social structure in balance. The social capital is seen as a means and purpose and as a primary source of new values for the members of the society. Social innovations also motivate every citizen to actively participate in this process. It is necessary, because traditional ways of solving social problems, even those known for a long time as unemployment, ageing of the society, or exclusion of considerable social and professional groups from the social and economic development, simply fail. “Old” problems are joined by new ones, such as the increase of social inequalities, climate change, or rapidly growing environmental pollution. New phenomena and problems require new solutions, changes to existing procedures, programmes, and often a completely different approach and instruments [Kowalczyk, Sobiecki, 2017].

Robert Louis Stevenson took it for granted that Rome had shaped most of the Western modern world: “the average man at home . . . is sunk over the ears in Roman civilisation,” he wrote in a letter to H. B. Baildon (Mehew 474). Unlike the English contemporaries of his own class, he had not been steeped in classical literature, nor had he “internalised Latin literature in the way he ascribed to his English character Robert Herrick . . . in The Ebb-Tide” – mostly because his poor health had precluded regular school attendance (Jolly, Stevenson in the Pacific 37). But he did come to the classics, “from the outside” as Roslyn Jolly demonstrates, through his legal studies: “Rome counted to him as something very much more than a literature – a whole system of law and empire” that had laid the foundations of most Western societies.

The Early Iron Age (EIA, 11th – 8th century BC) in Greece is the transitional period following the end of the Mycenaean civilisation. The first half of this period is the so-called Protogeometric period (11th – 10th century BC) during which the mainland communities had to recover from the collapse of the Mycenaean palatial system, a centralised economic system of a stratified society. Social and economic structures were both severely damaged in the 12th century BC, resulting in various changes in technology, material culture and mortuary practices across the entire Aegean in the ensuing periods. These changes also affected the region of Thessaly, located at the northern margin of the Mycenaean world.

Globalization has affected every aspect of life, particularly higher education. New values and aspirations came to shape learners’ attitudes towards education, exemplified by slender engagement in classes. Algerian EFL students are a good case in point. This urged teachers to make strenuous efforts to create convenient learning environments. Regarding the course of Western civilization, they had to equip themselves with new skills. This paper aims to explore, through the specific experience of the author, the nature of the adjustments made, pending both approaches and educational strategies. To conduct this investigation, the researcher used both a self-assessment and a student questionnaire destined for first-year students. The findings indicate the possibility of creating student-centered classes through the use of different teaching techniques such as outline composition, text analysis, discussion sequences, and summary writing. The paper demonstrates the necessity of constant updating of one’s teaching approaches and strategies. Keywords: Globalization; higher education; new skills; student-centered classes; Western civilization.

The culture of the eighteenth century played a crucial role in proposing a positive image of Islam. The Valencian Jesuit Juan Andrés was particularly engaged in this re-evaluation of Arab culture in order to stress how much Iberian Arabs had contributed to the renaissance of Western culture and civilisation. In his treaty Dell’origine, progressi e stato attuale d’ogni letteratura (1782-1799) Andrés committed himself to outlining specific elements of the Medieval renaissance nurtured by Spanish Arabs between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. His interpretation on Al-Andalus concealed a «patriotic» intent, namely that of glorifying the historical role of Spain (rather than Italy or France) in the development of the European literary canon.

The deny of the Islamic role in the formation of the western law is an attractive phenomenon ; even for those had shown some justice to Islam and its culture. Little of them who had admitted the Islamic roots of some modern law theories lot of them adapted the idea of selected method of translation from arabic and moved to philosophical and natural sciences ; without achieving the legislative sciences. Because the Islamic law is parcial model and the west used to look for an international model constracted on an international levels corrolated with the natural law and mind. Thus ; it is impossible that any element of wastern law referred to Islamic ispiration. If they do ignore ; they will know : when Islam arose citizenship and civilisation explose and a thousand of tongues spelt it ….

India and Southeast Asia have old-age historical and cultural connections, which created a conducive atmosphere for fostering bilateral relations between the two regions. Indian culture spread to the region since the first century Common Era. It coexisted with the local traditions though it had been modified, rejected, and localised to suit the needs of the people. Notably, the historical and cultural connections between Cambodia and India have been extensively found in archaeological, sculpture and literature evidence. Against this backdrop, this paper critically reviews the notion of Indianisation and Indian cultural influence in Cambodia. It argues that Indian cultural diffusion in ancient Cambodia created a cultural convergence between the indigenous cultural (mulatthan cheat) and imported cultural (mulatthan borotesh) foundations of Khmer civilisation.

It was as early as 35000 BCE, bones and stones were the open pages for writing anything that mind had to say. It was women who were the torch bearers. They scratched on any surface available to them and poured their mind upside down. It is now the wise men of the posterity to decipher the pristine symbols. We have collected a few items from different sources and applied our mind to decode the primitive dots and lines of those sleeping alphabets of an age much earlier than the hieroglyphic days of the known civilisation where involvement of mathematics has been explored. We said ‘open sesame’ and the door of unexplored mathematics, astronomy and religion etc.: opened up in front of our eyes! Here is our presentation.