\'soft\' eastern soldiers

[Sean Manning]

Could you explain how anyone could have world power before the 16th or 17th centuries?

Yes. The fact that today world is synonymous with earth does not mean that this has always been so. The term and idea of "World" itself has been changing and its meaning expanding throughout history. The "world" has grown with the knowledge about it, through enlarging trade networks, expanding empires, explorations etc.

Another misunderstanding is that "World" has always to mean everything and anything. Rather, it can mean just as often the essential thing. In these both senses, Rome was a world power through and through, quite possibly the largest of all times, because it encompassed the most centres of high culture which existed at its time.

Macedonia is certainly geographically east of Italy. But Sicily, Carthage, and Massilia were west, and the Italian Greeks were south. Somehow, being west of Italy didn't save them from Roman armies. And of course, the eastern Mediterranean became part of Roman power!

I was under the impression that we are talking here about world history. And in world history, the geopolitical terms West and East have never been used in a purely geographical way (as you know, Australia belongs to the West even though it is even east of China and south of nearly everyone). In this sense, Greece and Rome were the West, while the rest, southerly Carthage included, can be subsumed under the East.

Could you give some examples of world historians who define "the world" as a small region like the Mediterranean? In my experience, most of them do try to study the history of the world. Your definition would let someone say that world power was simultaneously moving one direction (for the world centred on the Mediterranean), in another direction (for the world centred on India), in yet another (for the world centred on China), in a fourth (for the world centred on Central America), and so on. This is misleading at best and contradictory at worst.

And again, the problem with "east" and "west" is that they are never sufficiently defined, and everyone has a different implicit understanding which often changes depending on the convenience of the argument. Geographical, historical, and cultural definitions are all used, and somehow certain groups tend to get excluded even if they would logically be included. For example, you talk about Christianity as a defining Western characteristic, but somehow Greek Christendom and its modern heirs are usually excluded from "the West." What definition of east and west are you using?

I will have a look at Angus Maddison's book. Going in, my two concerns are that GDP is a bad measure for preindustrial economies, because it tends to ignore work inside the household, and that Roman population size is so contested that a (population x average GDP per capita) calculation is very uncertain. All I am suggesting is that if you want to make an argument about power inside the Roman empire, you have to justify that argument not just assert it. If you want to state that the territories the Romans controlled were more important than Han China or the Indian states, you have to justify that too.