Bridging China’s past with humanity’s future – Section 1 — Straight-Bat

This will be presented in 3 sections and in 3 different blog posts

Backgrounder with lots of economic history in addition to social and political history. While the author is a committed socialist, which is a matter of choice based largely on values (normative), the history (positive) seems to me to factual and well-researched. It's a tightly packed summary that covers centuries, so it is a fairly long read, but worthwhile. Increasingly, world history is being made in Eurasia.

The Vineyard of the Saker

Bridging China’s past with humanity’s future – Section 1
Straight-Bat for the Saker Blog

By profession I’m an Engineer and Consultant, but my first love was and is History and Political Science. In retired life, I’m pursuing higher study in Economics.
I’m one of the few decade-old members of The Saker blog-site. Hope that this website will continue to focus on truth and justice in public life and will support the struggle of common people across the world.
An Indian by nationality, I believe in humanity.

See also

Martin Powers lays a lot of the blame on Hegel for the historical phenomenon of Western "exceptionalism" as a cultural "superiority complex." But that credits Hegel with excessive influence in my view.

Many factors were involved in the rise of the concept of Western (white) superiority. Claiming Hegel as instrumental to it is comparable to claiming that Adam Smith was a major factor in the development of capitalism.

On the other hand, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and to some degree V. I. Lenin, did influence history directly in a major way that is still unfolding. So did the sages and prophets of the various cultural wisdom traditions,

Other people that are known as "philosophers" did exert a strong influence of the development of Western culture and did shape its direction to a degree. But in this role, they are better characterized a "thought leaders" or "public intellectuals."

As someone trained in philosophy and its history, I view philosophy much more broadly than academic philosophy. Reviewing the history of philosophy, most so-called philosophers where just the deep thinker of their time that took the time record their thoughts.

Hegel was one of the few academics that made it to the top of the list. While Hegel's work was a tour de force in Western philosophy, perhaps his greatest weakness was his overemphasis on the West, and Prussia as the epitome of the West in his time.

Viewed in the light of history, different peoples and cultures have had their day. So will "the West." Taking the long view as the world's longest lived civilization, the Chinese realize this.

SCMP
In the US, China-bashing is rooted in myths of Western superiority

Martin Powers