Like the title, this book mainly tells the history of Europe from ancient Greece to modern times. The full name of Europe is Europa, and there are some legends about the origin of this name. In Greek mythology, Demeter was a goddess who specialized in farming. She endowed the world with abundant grains and prosperous people and animals. In the portrait of this goddess, people always draw her sitting on the back of a bull. In ancient times, bulls were indispensable livestock for human beings. As the goddess is responsible for farming, she naturally sits on the back of the cow. Another name of the goddess is Europa. People call Europa the name of the mainland out of respect for the goddess.
Today's Europe is very scattered and composed of many countries, but this was not the case in ancient times. Europe is composed of a single big country. The earliest indigenous people in Europe were a group of people in the Aegean Sea of ancient Greece, and later became a unified Roman Republic. When the Roman Republic was established in 509, the Romans first extended their territory to Italy, and then to the Mediterranean and Western Europe. In 27 BC, the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire, at which time the territory of the Roman Empire reached its largest. Although the Roman Empire has a vast territory, its culture still follows the culture of ancient Greece, such as writing, mathematical art and so on.
Later, many religions appeared all over the world, but Judaism and Christianity mainly flowed to Europe. Under the leadership of Constantine the Great, Christianity developed slowly and became the state religion of the Roman Empire.
In 395, the Roman Empire split into two parts, which became East Rome and West Rome. At the same time, various barbarian tribes began to invade the Roman Empire. In the end, the Germans defeated West Rome, but also supported East Rome, and the Germans became a tribe that unified Europe.
After reading it, I think there is a question worthy of our deep thinking, that is, why is small Europe developing so fast? Why did it surpass our big country in a short time? I think there are only two reasons.
First of all, Europe insists on pursuing democracy. Since ancient times, people in this land have been particularly sensitive to democracy. Athens and Rome both delegated power to the people more or less, rather than ignorant autocracy. Unlike the Chinese empire, which was always feudal and had kings, "not everything belongs to kings" has always been the mainstream of European thought, and even "inviolability of private property" has been recognized by the ruling class.
The second is the unremitting exploration of truth by the European people. The tolerance of ancient Greek culture gave birth to many different styles of thoughts in this land, and the thoughts of Socrates, Aristotle and Plato also took root in the hearts of Europeans and constantly guided them. Therefore, Europe's open mind, without reins and territory, will have constant innovation and constant thinking collision, bringing infinite vitality to this land.
This can also explain why the development of China lags far behind that of Europe. On the other hand, China has been ruled by emperors for thousands of years since ancient times, and the class status in people's minds has long been clearly divided. It is only in the last few hundred years that there has been a democratic model and the word "democracy" has been introduced.
For human beings, curiosity about the truth has always existed, but Qin Shihuang burned books to bury Confucianism, Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty respected Confucianism alone, and the Qing Dynasty closed its doors to the outside world, which gradually weakened people's thirst for knowledge. People gave up their thirst for knowledge just to survive and did not dare to infringe on imperial power, so people would not discuss it, talk about it and argue about it, and there would be no collision of ideas and new and better ideas.
I can't tell you why European countries are developing so much faster than China, but I'm sure this is one of the reasons. However, I believe that the Chinese nation will take a warning, let democracy be the master, and there will be a collision of ideas, which is also the peak of the Chinese nation becoming the world.