Ian Morris (historian)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ian Morris in August 2014

Ian Morris (born January 27, 1960 in Stoke-on-Trent , England ) is a British ancient historian and archaeologist who has taught at Stanford University since 1995 .

Life

Morris studied at Birmingham University and the University of Cambridge , where he received his PhD in 1986. The topic of his doctoral thesis was the society of Greece around 700 BC. From 1987 to 1995, Morris was a history professor at the University of Chicago . He has been Professor of History at Stanford University since 1995 . From 2000 to 2006 he led the excavations on the Acropolis of Monte Polizzo near Salemi in Sicily , one of the largest excavation sites in the western Mediterranean.

His research interests are in the archeology of the Iron Age , ancient economic and social history and the comparison of long-term social developments.

Ian Morris' work is supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Geographic Society , among others .

Works

Who rules the world?

In his book Who rules the world? ( Why the West Rules - for now , 2010) Morris explains why the West is currently still in the lead and, by extrapolating from the time series of its development index, predicts an end to dominance around the year 2100. In his work, he gives an overview of the last 10,000 years of human history in the "core development areas" Europe-Orient-USA and China- Japan defined by him . The focus is on the political, military and economic development in the respective dominant region in East and West and on the interplay of geographical and cultural boundary conditions and their importance, which changes in the course of social development. He also goes into evolutionary history , but argues that this cannot be the key to today's differences and focuses his investigation on the last 10,000 years.

Central to Morris's study is the " index for social development ", with which he seeks to quantify the level of development of societies and to make them comparable. The index includes the four characteristics of energy generation , organization , information technology and war -making capacity ( energy capture, organization, information technology, war-making capacity ) with equal weighting . The energy consumption per capita and the population of the largest city in the core area to be assessed are used to determine the index value of the first two characteristics. The assessment of the other two characteristics based on technological and military capabilities is shown in detail in. "Leadership" is now measured on the basis of the index level and the development of the index over time from 14,000 BC. Until today discussed and explained. Using the index values ​​calculated for the two core areas, Morris concludes that in the past both West and East were already in the lead and that the current western lead has only existed since around 1770.

In his book, Morris questions two dominant theories about the development of human societies: on the one hand, the theory of long-term determinism and, on the other hand, that of short-term random events. According to the theory of determination, there must be a decisive factor that is responsible for the fact that there has been a grave and immutable difference between West and East since time immemorial. According to Morris, some supporters of this theory justify the superiority of the West with its culture (originated in ancient Greece, for example) or factors such as politics or religion. Others refer to natural conditions such as climate, availability of resources or topographical conditions. As different as these arguments for the long-term determinacy of history, Morris said, are the explanations that proponents of chance theory provide for the industrial revolution in the West. If so many experts came to such different conclusions, there could be something wrong with the way the problem had been approached so far.

Morris argues neo-evolutionistically and tries to empirically substantiate his theses, as well as the inevitably incomplete factual situation allows. Based on his development index, he points out, for example, that in China (core area of ​​the East) between 500 and 1700 a more highly developed social structure prevailed than in the core areas of the west (Orient until 1400, Western and Central Europe until 1700).

For Morris, the possibilities and probabilities that people found in different parts of the world and that were shaped by the respective geography, climate, flora and fauna are essential for socio-cultural development in the sense of the "ability of societies to act". He completely refuses to derive the superiority of the West on the basis of genes or ancestry . He assumes that people all over the world, if you look at them in large numbers, are like one another; This means that the same spiritual resources are available in all ethnic groups and that no people in the world are particularly talented. They all have the same creative, intellectual, but also destructive abilities. According to Morris, social or technical innovations (e.g. the development of new machines, work processes or forms of organization) arise from the human endeavor to work less hard, enjoy more prosperity and feel safe - pointedly: as products of human laziness, greed and Fear. The course of history is primarily determined by the actions of many, but hardly by individual particularly great people or bogus, such as inventors, monarchs or dictators.

War. What it is good for

In the follow-up to Who rules the world? Morris advocates the controversial thesis that many wars have destroyed lives at all times, but also brought innovations, renewed societies, and advanced peace and progress. One of the reasons for this is the decline in violence within society in states enlarged by war. With this he joins the argument of Steven Pinker , Norbert Elias and Jared Diamond that the natural propensity for violence of people can be significantly reduced through processes of civilization such as state building.

criticism

In a book review of Who Rules the World? in the online journal Reviews in History , Ricardo Duchesne , an advocate of a Eurocentric worldview, criticizes Morris's definition of the "West", which encompasses not only Europe but all cultures in the succession of the Fertile Crescent . Morris' analysis shows a marked tendency to level out the fundamental differences between the development of the West and the rest of the world and thus to underestimate the singular contribution of Europe to the emergence of modernity . The Italian Renaissance, for example, was populated by many outstanding personalities whom Morris did not sufficiently appreciate. He interprets Morris' theses on the major religions and polemicizes that the equality of Christianity with other religions is beneficial for those who want to bring Turkey into the European Union and eradicate Christianity from the European heritage.

Duchesne insinuates that Morris is a party intellectual and modifies the historical findings (contrary to those preferred by Duchesne) to fit a multicultural school of thought that Duchesne rejects. Morris knows that, but he practices Orwellian double thinking. Duchesne accuses Morris of an ideological stance which makes no distinction between the culture of the people of the British Isles and that of Tasmania, and which equates the "American Declaration of Rights" (sic) with the ideals of the Communist Party in China.

Morris comments on Duchesne's criticism in detail - also in the online journal Reviews in History .

more publishments

  • Burial and Ancient Society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1987, ISBN 0-521-38738-8 .
  • Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992, ISBN 0-521-37611-4 .
  • ed. with Kurt Raaflaub : Democracy 2500? Questions and Challenges. Kendall / Hunt, Dubuque 1998, ISBN 0-7872-4466-X .
  • Archeology as Cultural History. Blackwell, Malden 2000, ISBN 0-631-19602-1 .
  • with Barry Powell: The Greeks: History, Culture and Society. Pearson, Upper Saddle River 2006; 2nd Edition. Prentice-Hall, Boston 2010, ISBN 978-0-205-69734-2 .
  • Why the West Rules - for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-374-29002-3 .
    • German: Who rules the world? Why civilizations rule or are ruled. Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2011, ISBN 978-3-593-38406-1 .
  • Was! What Is It Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York 2014, ISBN 978-0-374-28600-2 .
  • Foragers, Farmers and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values ​​Evolve. Princeton University Press, Princeton 2015, ISBN 978-0-691-16039-9 .
    • German: booty, harvest, oil: how energy sources shape societies . Translated from the English by Jürgen Neubauer. dva 2020. ISBN 978-3-421-04804-2 .
  • as co-author: The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. 2nd edition 2007.
  • as co-author: The Greeks: History, Culture, and Society. 2nd edition 2009.
  • as Associate Editor: The Dynamics of Ancient Empires. 2009.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ian Morris, Trinity Jackman, Brien Garnand, Emma Blake, and others. a .: Stanford University Excavations on the Acropolis of Monte Polizzo, Sicily, IV: Preliminary Report on the 2003 Season. In: Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Volume 49 (2004), pp. 197-279. DOI: 10.2307 / 4238823
  2. ↑ Morris initially identified seven "original cores " in which social structures first developed after the end of the Ice Age, including four in Asia / Austronesia (Mesopotamia, New Guinea, Pakistan / North India, China), one in Africa ( Egypt) and two in America (Mexico, Peru). As "East" and "West" he describes the most easterly and most westerly of the Asian core areas as well as the societies that descended from or developed from them (eg: West = "all societies descended from the westernmost") Eurasian core "). He sees such a descent relationship. a. between the kingdoms of the Sumerians , Egyptians, Romans, Arabs, British and today's western world.
  3. ^ A b Ian Morris: Social Development. (pdf; 9.3 MB) 2010, archived from the original on July 26, 2011 ; accessed on March 11, 2011 (English).
  4. ↑ http://www.campus.de/autoren/ian_morris-3330.html
  5. ↑ http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/historiker-ian-morris-kriege-haben-die-welt-sicherheiter-machen/9004378.html
  6. ^ Ricardo Duchesne: Review, and author's response by Ian Morris In: Reviews in History.
personal data
SURNAME Morris, Ian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British ancient historian, archaeologist, university professor
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Stoke-on-Trent , England