Medieval China: Crash Course History of Science #8
Like Egypt, Sumer, and Mesoamerica, ancient China represents a hydraulic civilization—one that maintained its population by diverting rivers to aid in ...
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Look at this map of China and tell me if, from what we’ve learned so far, you can tell me about the Chinese civilization. Yep, rivers, big ones… and from them ran the bureaucracy and technology necessary for controlling water. Like Egypt, Sumer, and Mesoamerica, ancient China represents a hydraulic civilization—one that maintained its population by diverting rivers to aid in irrigation—and one that developed writing thousands of years ago. In fact, there is an unbroken Chinese literary and scientific tradition from this time on—not true of Egypt, Sumer, or Mesoamerica. And from writing, Chinese scholars naturally developed a critical invention in knowledge transmission and state control: you know it, you probably hate it, the standardized test. Today, we’re going to focus on the ti...
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Look at this map of China and tell me if, from what we’ve learned so far, you can tell me about the Chinese civilization. Yep, rivers, big ones… and from them ran the bureaucracy and technology necessary for controlling water. Like Egypt, Sumer, and Mesoamerica, ancient China represents a hydraulic civilization—one that maintained its population by diverting rivers to aid in irrigation—and one that developed writing thousands of years ago. In fact, there is an unbroken Chinese literary and scientific tradition from this time on—not true of Egypt, Sumer, or Mesoamerica. And from writing, Chinese scholars naturally developed a critical invention in knowledge transmission and state control: you know it, you probably hate it, the standardized test. Today, we’re going to focus on the ti...
