how does a nation advance "ahead of its time"?
2006-08-03 16:57:03 · 7 answers · asked by Jilm_Jones 3 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Aye, for it is that we invented Prozac.
2006-08-03 17:13:08 · answer #1 · answered by Claudius B. Horseballs 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is a great book called, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" that addresses that very question. Its amazing that even by the 1600s, for example, the Native Americans did not have a written language or "the wheel". Fun and facinating book to read.
One quick story from it: When the Spanish explorer Cortez made first contact with the Incans in Peru, every man on his crew assumed they were going to be slaughtered. The Incans brought over 1000 warriers to the first meeting in a grand parade of gold and weapons, carrying their king on a grand throne. Many of Cortez' men literally peed in their pants at the sight. Cortez presented the king with a Bible, but the kind had never seen a book and not knowing what to do with it, knocked it to the ground. At this action, Cortez' soldiers burst from the forest ON HORSEBACK. The Incans had NEVER seen horses (or guns for that matter!), they shrieked in panic and most were slaughtered on the spot without a single Spainard lost. Cortez then held the Incan king captive and demanded gold for ransom. After sucking all of the gold he could from the Incans for almost a year he killed the king anyway and then slaughtered as many Incans as he could. The word went back to Europe that there was gold for the taking in the new world, and both the Incans and Aztecs were invaded and destroyed within a decade or so.
Read the book - its facinating!
2006-08-04 00:13:17 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
That's not the case. The egyptians were far ahead of the romans. How the romans advanced so quickly was because they were an conglomatory empire. As they conqured other nations, they incorporated the best technological advancements of each. Hence the phrase," take the best and forget the rest".
2006-08-04 00:04:08 · answer #3 · answered by Ricky J. 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They also had the money and labor (okay, SLAVES) to do it. It takes capital of some kind to produce the amazing amounts of construction that the Romans did. Granted, it may not have all been original, but they were able to construct the idea too. If you can build something once, good for you. If you can build it twice, now you've got something useful.
2006-08-04 00:03:42 · answer #4 · answered by Ron 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
war, plain and simple, for the romans alot of the invention was to fuel war and travel between newly conquered territories, new technologies of people trying to kill each other forces engenuity, example: without the campaigne of germans in world war II rockets and jet engines would not have come about when they did... in essence adolf hitler founded nasa.
2006-08-04 00:14:05 · answer #5 · answered by wrock228 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They had great land to farm, lots of natural resources, and they were smart enough to integrate other cultures rather than exterminate them. Except, of course, in the case of Carthage.
2006-08-04 00:03:19 · answer #6 · answered by RabidBunyip 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the took the ideas and tecchnology from the people they conquered and incorporated them into their own civilization.
2006-08-04 00:01:10 · answer #7 · answered by washburn1 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋