What genres/themes do you associate with South America? (Or Africa? Asia? Australia?)

[Morph Bark]

In many cases, when talking about fantasy, people tend to assume a medieval European set-up. When talking about sci-fi, when it's not out in space, it's usually North America, more specifically the United States, and sometimes Canada or Japan.

Fantasy is sometimes also associated with parts of Asia, often denoted as a specific subtype. (Such as "desert fantasy" for medieval Middle-East; can't think of something for India or South-East Asia though...)

I can't really come up with anything for South America, Africa and Australia though. Maybe pirates, but that's only limited to a few coasts, and not even inland.


(This puzzled me, after I figured out that my campaign setting was basically going to be an anachronistic mixture of the real world, with everything from each continent made more extreme. I guess Australia is the easiest of them, which is already being worked out here.)

[Khedrac]

Incan and Aztec themes are the genres usually associated with South America (though I believe Aztec is really central American?)
AD&D even had the whole conquistador themed line for Forgotten Realms.

I am not familiar with any published settings, but fantasy novels are often inspired by Russian mythology, though that could be deemed a sub-set of European.

Asian themes usually either follow a limited number of patters:
Steppe nomad (Mongol)
Vast Oriental Empire (China)
Island Oriental (Japan)
I have seen Indian inspired stuff, but not sure how I would describe it.
I agree that the rest of the Asian cultures seem very absent

The indigenous Australians inspired a lot of the unofficial work done on Glorantha's Southern Continent's Interior (Pamaltelan left-footpath stuff).
Polynesian-inspired could work, but again only really seen in fiction (D&D Mystara made some islands that way inspired, but not really as a place to base a whole campaign).

Africa - looks to have huge potential, but again only seems to come up as somewhere for an outsider to explore, not a campaign base.

Looking back at the above I think a large part of the problem is the lack of knowledge of the cultures (real or popular misconception).
I know something about historical China and Japan - or I think I do, it's not the same thing but enables basing a game in a culture inspired by them.
I know that ancient Korea was famous for its ship-building (in that the Mongols got the Koreans to build the fleet they tried to invade Japan with) - and nothing else. I know even less about Cambodia etc. This rather prevents my being inspired by them.

South and Central America - aside from a little "knowledge" about Incans and Aztecs (and that the Aztecs rose on the base of earlier cultures) I know nothing.

Africa - ditto, beyond a few mental images based on films like Zulu.

[Mastikator]

South America = people that build pyramids at sub-darkage technological level
Asia = kung fu, ninjas, samurais and horseback archers and hindu-inspired fantasy
Not sure about africa or australia though, stone-age tribes that worship the volcano god maybe?

Edit- to be honest, fantasy is a European concept and many cultures may not be applicable at all.

[Morph Bark]

Hmmm, perhaps I should just include general themes as well.

Edit- to be honest, fantasy is a European concept and many cultures may not be applicable at all.

True, but considering the Europeans spread out the most over the world, I guess it's become pretty widespread. I'm just wondering if there's anything more out there in a similar vein that just hasn't gotten that widespread and is more confined to its own continent or country.

[Tanngrisnir]

Australian Mythology deals mostly with the Dream Time, when the world was being created, and spirit animals play a large role. Polynesian doesn't fit Australia at all, they're not Polynesian. That's New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa etc.

[Eldan]

Hm. Africa or South America mostly bring to my mind European explorers going there and struggling with native conditions. Anywhere from conquistadores to victorians.

[some guy]

I can't really come up with anything for South America, Africa and Australia though. Maybe pirates, but that's only limited to a few coasts, and not even inland.

For genre, I would say pulpy adventure/horror. Indiana Jones, archealogists, temples ful of traps, cryptids, that kind of things. Some Call of Cthulhu adventures are made for this. I never played Spirit of the Century, but that might be the system for it.

[RPGuru1331]

Edit- to be honest, fantasy is a European concept and many cultures may not be applicable at all.

....
I'm going to assume you meant 'medieval fantasy'.

Not sure about africa or australia though, stone-age tribes that worship the volcano god maybe?

...I. That's. Ugh.

Incan and Aztec themes are the genres usually associated with South America (though I believe Aztec is really central American?)

Those aren't really genres, and the Aztec, Maya, Toltec and Olmec would be be north american.

I can't really come up with anything for South America, Africa and Australia though. Maybe pirates, but that's only limited to a few coasts, and not even inland.

Just so you know, it really wasn't limited to a few coasts during the age of sail. At least, not in Africa.

Hm. Africa or South America mostly bring to my mind European explorers going there and struggling with native conditions. Anywhere from conquistadores to victorians.

Well, that would be the white washed version.

[Gavinfoxx]

Africa?

EGYPT!!

[Rogue Shadows]

South America: the forgotten continent. Sad to say, but it really is.

Africa's important to world history 'cause of Egypt and that whole slavery thing; Europe is important to world history because they were the only group of peoples to actually care enough to try for world conquest; India's nearly as forgotten as South America but at least they get Buddhism and Ghandi; East Asia's memorable for China being a gazillion years more advanced than Europe for a long time and then not doing anything with it on a world scale (also Japan and samurai); the mideast is notable because vast tracts of desert are worth dying for, damnit; inner Asia, everyone likes Mongolians and Siberia; and Australia, the world remembers for being Australia, itself a memorable feat.

But South America? ...sorry, but except when other nations are interacting with it (Spanish invasions, Nazis hiding there, the Falkland Islands war), nothing really important or memorable happens there on a world scale, except the Amazon rainforest, but even that falls primarily under outsiders going in rather than natives of the area (and I mean immigrant natives, too, like modern Brazil) doing anything noteworthy enough to warrant attention.

Oh, I guess there's the Columbian drug cartels. And isn't French Guyana the site of the EU space program or something? And I think Romancing the Stone takes place there...

Anyway. Whitewashed? Sure. But also true: South America is a forgotten continent on the world stage. I'm sure that South Americans would tremendously disagree. Then again, I'm sure that the peoples of Trinidad and Tobago would disagree about their relative notability as well.

[Eldan]

Well, that would be the white washed version.

I know, and I do feel sort of bad about it. But while I know bits and pieces about native mythologies from South America, I know almost nothing about sub-saharan African mythology, and I don't think I've ever seen any fantasy set in those parts.

So yes, white-washed, but it's the only thing I know.

[Rogue Shadows]

I know, and I do feel sort of bad about it. But while I know bits and pieces about native mythologies from South America, I know almost nothing about sub-saharan African mythology, and I don't think I've ever seen any fantasy set in those parts.

The Magic: the Gathering sets Mirage, Visions, and Prophecy all take place on Jamuraa, which is sub-Saharan Africa themed.

Prophecy is bad. But Mirage and Visions were fun sets. They introduced Phasing!

That's about all I can draw up, though.

[ArcturusV]

Far as South America? First theme that jumps into mind is hostile settlement and exploration. I mean even more so than the book standard DnD themes, where literally just outside a town's wall is hostile territory a stone throw away. The land is hostile and hard to explore. And the map is mostly blank. Tribes can be hidden away even after areas are "Explored". Ancient Civilizations can be stumbled upon with no warning. You never know what is just out of sight and there are uncountable danger and boons just lurking around.

Africa and Asia don't really scream out "Themes" to me because I break them into various different areas. I mean Asia (Persia) has a lot different themes than Asia (Siberia) which is also different from Asia (South East).

[TheThan]

The reason why we don’t use those cultures is because we don’t know a whole lot about them. Think about it. Europe, Asia, and the Middle East all have left lasting monuments of their existence and wrote stuff down. That stuff has been preserved enough that we’ve been able to study it and learn.

Think about it, what we know about South America we’ve been able to learn by studying the monuments and texts they left behind (and by what invaders wrote, but that's usually heavy slanted). We’ve done the same with cultures all over Europe and Asia.

Naturally, if a society doesn’t leave hardly anything behind for us to study, then we’re left with what little shattered remains they did leave, and total guess work. (sure they're educated guesses, but still guesses).

[Terraoblivion]

Europe is important to world history because they were the only group of peoples to actually care enough to try for world conquest;

You mean apart from that Genghis Khan guy who conquered like a quarter of Asia and his sons added another quarter, plus some chunks of Europe and would have gone to Africa too if the Arabs hadn't beaten them, right? And that Zheng He fellow who went out with a fleet with tens of thousands of crew, bureaucrats and soldiers to demand tribute from literally the entire world outside China. Or what about the Arab Caliphate which conquered the entire middle east, North Africa, Iran, eastern Anatolia and Spain before the initial impetus ran out. Or maybe the Ottomans who grabbed most the the middle east, the Balkans and southern Ukraine. I seem to recall the Incas having the entire western slope of the Andes as well and a fellow known as Timur Lenk who conquered pretty much all of Central Asia and northern India. And these are just the big ones who spring to mind, so it doesn't really sound like a lack of drive to me that only Europeans managed to subjugate that much of the world.

East Asia's memorable for China being a gazillion years more advanced than Europe for a long time and then not doing anything with it on a world scale (also Japan and samurai);

You mean apart from colonizing the mountains and jungles of southern China, conquering Mongolia, Tibet and the richest part of Central Asia and keeping those areas for centuries? Because in addition to that they shaped the culture of all of east Asia and was one of the two main influences on South East Asia. During the 17th and 18th century it also formed the nexus of the entire world trade, draining the rest of the planet for silver in exchange for tea, silk and porcelain. That's kind of a pretty impressive thing for one country to do.

And if you've ever watched the news, you might notice that they're kinda one of the most factors in the economy these days. Before that there was the whole thing with Shanghai being the home of one sixth of all international trade in the world for a couple of decades and some rather violent political turmoil for several decades more. Finally, the fact that the country represents around one sixth of the entire population of the planet and has represented more or less that much for centuries makes it kinda important what happens there, even if it doesn't spill over the borders.

the mideast is notable because vast tracts of desert are worth dying for, damnit;

And, you know, being the origin of the two largest religions in the world, as well as the origin of European and west Asian cultures and traditions in general.

But South America? ...sorry, but except when other nations are interacting with it (Spanish invasions, Nazis hiding there, the Falkland Islands war), nothing really important or memorable happens there on a world scale, except the Amazon rainforest, but even that falls primarily under outsiders going in rather than natives of the area (and I mean immigrant natives, too, like modern Brazil) doing anything noteworthy enough to warrant attention.

You mean apart from a stone age people managing to build an empire stretching for thousands of miles through some of the most inhospitable mountains on the planet without ever using either wheels or writing?

I'm sure that South Americans would tremendously disagree.

Apart from the obvious fact that South America matters to South Americans and there's quite a few of them, Brazil was the main destination of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, giving it a rather large impact on West Africa. In more modern times Brazil has joined India and China in the league of NICs throwing their weight around.

Then again, I'm sure that the peoples of Trinidad and Tobago would disagree about their relative notability as well.

I would say they ought to, Trinidad and Tobago is rather important to inhabitants of Trinidad and Tobago, so if they considered it unimportant they'd be rather off. As for global or even regional impact, it probably isn't unfair to say that the country matters comparatively less than, say, Nigeria or Pakistan.

[Grinner]

Usually I associate Africa with tribalism and shamans. Often, it plays out as medieval fantasy stripped of common icons, like castles, dragons, and knights, and transplanted into a jungle environment.

I did once read an excellent RPG called Degenesis. It comprehensively documents the game world as Earth after a catastrophic series of meteor strikes. I found the descriptions of post-apocalyptic Africa particularly intriguing.

It's available freely under Creative Commons, and it was published in English by the same guys behind Eclipse Phase. However, I can only find the original German version at the moment.

[RPGuru1331]

South America: the forgotten continent. Sad to say, but it really is.

...

Africa's important to world history 'cause of Egypt and that whole slavery thing.

Don't forget the vast amounts of wealth extracted by predominantly european companies on a continuing basis.

India's nearly as forgotten as South America but at least they get Buddhism and Ghandi

And, you know, the trade goods, and the intermediary for spice trading, the invention of the printing press, the invention of zero...

East Asia's memorable for China being a gazillion years more advanced than Europe for a long time and then not doing anything with it on a world scale

And the basis for many of the advances Europe relied upon. Also, do you know who Zheng He is? And really, missing China's relevance now? Or in centuries prior to the 20th?

the mideast is notable because vast tracts of desert are worth dying for, damnit;

You're kind of leaving out the vast empires that dominated european and asian politics for centuries.

inner Asia, everyone likes Mongolians and Siberia;

You mean like that Genghis Khan guy who may be 1/6th of Europe's ancestor? I guess he's kinda important, for setting up a relatively innovative, if short lived, empire larger than that of the Romans...

and Australia, the world remembers for being Australia, itself a memorable feat.

...

But South America? ...sorry, but except when other nations are interacting with it (Spanish invasions, Nazis hiding there, the Falkland Islands war),

Incan gold, along with the Aztecan gold, destroyed a hweming empire and completely altered the balance of power in Europe for it.

And good lord, do you know how ridiculous it is to ignore a continent because 'the only thing that happened there is that other people messed with it'? Does it not occur to you that people don't mess with these states for giggles? South America scared the hell out of the USA in the post-WWII period. Not for particularly rational reasons, sure, but what's that matter?

nothing really important or memorable happens there on a world scale, except the Amazon rainforest, but even that falls primarily under outsiders going in rather than natives of the area (and I mean immigrant natives, too, like modern Brazil) doing anything noteworthy enough to warrant attention.

Apparently, beef, gold, or oil don't count when they come from anyplace south of the equator...

Anyway. Whitewashed? Sure. But also true: South America is a forgotten continent on the world stage.

...Okay, even if you were correct, that wouldn't have made the idea that the 'conquistadors and victorians who explore d africa and south america primarily dealt with the elements' true.

So yes, white-washed, but it's the only thing I know.

The really obvious thing to me was referring to conquistadors, and not, you know, the part where they were engaging in conquista...

You mean apart from a stone age people managing to build an empire stretching for thousands of miles through some of the most inhospitable mountains on the planet without ever using either wheels or writing?

And possibly creating 3-dimensional writing. Either that or Quipu are just really good mnemonics, we're not really sure.

[Rogue Shadows]

You mean apart from that Genghis Khan guy

Actually, yes, I do mean apart from him. Among other things, his empire did not long survive his death, and besides, for any given set, there will always be outliers.

And that Zheng He fellow who went out with a fleet with tens of thousands of crew, bureaucrats and soldiers to demand tribute from literally the entire world outside China.

Yes, that treasure fleet which was never popular in China and was scrapped pretty quickly so that China could settle into isolation and stagnation. Also note that they were a treasure fleet, not a conquest fleet. They weren't trying to impose Chinese culture anywhere.

Or what about the Arab Caliphate which conquered the entire middle east, North Africa, Iran, eastern Anatolia and Spain before the initial impetus ran out.

Yup, impetus ran out and they collapsed on themselves into...

Or maybe the Ottomans who grabbed most the the middle east, the Balkans and southern Ukraine.

Before losing most of it. The Ottoman Empire spent the last century of its life as a pawn of the much more powerful, world-spanning empires of Russia and Britain, before making a desperate bid for relevancy in World War I that drastically backfired.

I seem to recall the Incas having the entire western slope of the Andes

But never actually expanded outside of their local habitat. Basically, they stopped as soon as the terrain starting looking different from their hometown. Europe didn't.

Now, to be fair, I actually otherwise specifically excluded American empires because they were about 3,000 years behind Afro-Eurasia; it's not a fair comparison.

as well and a fellow known as Timur Lenk who conquered pretty much all of Central Asia and northern India. And these are just the big ones who spring to mind, so it doesn't really sound like a lack of drive to me that only Europeans managed to subjugate that much of the world.

Did you ever wonder how? Remember that Europe was ass-backwards compared to most of the rest of North Africa and Eurasia for most of its history, and it's not like they had numbers of their side, either. China's population has always been stupidly huge. But it was not China suppressing Britain that lead to the Opium Wars.

It's a fact of history that most people don't really want to acknowledge because of the racist overtones, but the simple fact of the matter is that from about 1492 onwards (actually, probably earlier - when did the Portuguese start setting up trade colonies in Africa and the far east?), "World History" and "European History" become synonymous terms.

It's not a racial thing. China could have easily done it, if China had wanted to, but China didn't. India is about the same size as Europe and was just as fractious for most of its history, so we can't argue that it was the conflict in Europe that spurred on advancement because there was no shortage of it in India.

It's easy to claim that discovering the Americas might have had something to do with it, but pretty much the primary things that the Americas were exploited for was a place to send excess population and a place to import gold from, at a drastic effect on European economies (Spain never really recovered from the more than 800% drop in the value of gold that their colonies caused).

Western society pretty much just...lucked out, getting a number of things going right all at the same time coupled with a bunch of things going wrong for their neighbors. But that luck means that Western society is, simply, put, more important to history than any other society.

And if you've ever watched the news, you might notice that they're kinda one of the most factors in the economy these days.

Yes, but if you brought a Chinese person from 100 years ago and showed him China today, he'd consider it to be basically indistinguishable from a Western society except that he can read the street signs.

Also, China has a major economy primarily because they do all the manufacturing work for the western world. They utterly depend on Western markets - though, to be fair, Western markets utterly depend on Chinese workers. So it's a give and take. Point being that the China today is much more Western than Chinese.

Put another way, which do you think more people wear: a sedge hat, or a baseball cap?

one sixth of the entire population of the planet and has represented more or less that much for centuries makes it kinda important what happens there, even if it doesn't spill over the borders.

Today, sure, but I'm talking about the world stage throughout history. Namely: China's only been on it since the 60's, as the Zeng He treasure fleets were, again, a one-time occurance that were never popular in China and quickly scrapped. Europe, by comparison, has been consistently on the world stage in one form or another for about 500 years.

And, you know, being the origin of the two largest religions in the world, as well as the origin of European and west Asian cultures and traditions in general.

But they're not the ones who spread them across the world. Put another way, which do you suppose is more important: Greece, or Rome? Greece came up with all sorts of advances in terms of philosophy and science and so on, and sort of spread them around its general area. Rome came up with practically nothing on its own, but spread everything that Greece had come up with across the Mediterranean, Europe, and North Africa, and further gave a basically stable climate for it to exist and simmer in for about 1,000 years.

Having invented something, the inventor ceases to be important, and the messenger is the one who truly changes the world.

You mean apart from a stone age people managing to build an empire stretching for thousands of miles through some of the most inhospitable mountains on the planet without ever using either wheels or writing?

Not nearly as hard as it sounds when you've been at it for 10,000+ years.

Apart from the obvious fact that South America matters to South Americans and there's quite a few of them, Brazil was the main destination of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, giving it a rather large impact on West Africa. In more modern times Brazil has joined India and China in the league of NICs throwing their weight around.

And we hear about India and China much more. In that particular contest, Brazil has settled into a very firm bronze.

Also, I acknowledge that South America is important to South Americans. Of course it is. I'm talking about the world stage, however, the Terran zeitgeist and public consciousness.

For example, until this thread I'll bet that you completely forgot that Uruguay even exists, let alone anything they've ever done.

...

Again, I'm talking more about world consciousness than any actual impact that they're making. Yes, South America, deforestation. But the fact of the matter is that the majority of the world doesn't really care unless they've recently watched Fern Gully, which takes place in Australia anyway.

Also:

You mean like that Genghis Khan guy who may be 1/6th of Europe's ancestor?

Asia.

[Terraoblivion]

Apparently, beef, gold, or oil don't count when they come from anyplace south of the equator...

Don't forget soy beans and derived products. Soy cultivation accounts for almost as much deforrestation of the Amazon as cattle and given that there aren't that many vegetarians in the west, it seems likely it's driven by Asian demand.

[The LOBster]

I mainly associate Australia with being fulla all sorts of deadly critters.

Kinda like that Australia Turned up to 11 thread someone posted in world-building

[Morph Bark]

This might be getting a bit too removed from what themes certain places make people think of and too close to... well, things that are not that. Kindly move a little back in that direction again?

I mainly associate Australia with being fulla all sorts of deadly critters.

Kinda like that Australia Turned up to 11 thread someone posted in world-building

Oh my. It's almost as if someone had the same idea as me!

[RPGuru1331]

Before losing most of it. The Ottoman Empire spent the last century of its life as a pawn of the much more powerful, world-spanning empires of Russia and Britain, before making a desperate bid for relevancy in World War I that drastically backfired.

...So? Europe spent a thousand years in a pathetic state. No power has, or will, dominate the planet forever. Also, this isn't about everyone being more important than Europe now, this is about you acting like everyone else was only ever important for trifles, while Europe (and presumably the USA) contributed everything of value to the planet.

Actually, yes, I do mean apart from him. Among other things, his empire did not long survive his death, and besides, for any given set, there will always be outliers.

The golden horde and ilkhanate were by no means irrelevant merely because they never reached the heights of Genghis Khan's empire.

Yes, that treasure fleet which was never popular in China and was scrapped pretty quickly so that China could settle into isolation and stagnation. Also note that they were a treasure fleet, not a conquest fleet. They weren't trying to impose Chinese culture anywhere.

He converted a huge number of people to his religion, and spread Chinese culture whether he intended to or not.

But never actually expanded outside of their local habitat. Basically, they stopped as soon as the terrain starting looking different from their hometown. Europe didn't.

The british principally expanded by knocking over local powers and installing a friendly government at the top, not by actually living in the places they ruled. The French were similar.

Now, to be fair, I actually otherwise specifically excluded American empires because they were about 3,000 years behind Afro-Eurasia; it's not a fair comparison.

Maya had better crop cultivation and drought protection than Europe, they just got nailed with larger droughts because they lived in an equatorial zone. The Inca built a massive road network in terrain the Romans had difficulty putting up roads at all in. Just because Civ taught you that technology is hierarchical doesn't make it so.

It's not a racial thing. China could have easily done it, if China had wanted to, but China didn't. India is about the same size as Europe and was just as fractious for most of its history, so we can't argue that it was the conflict in Europe that spurred on advancement because there was no shortage of it in India.

It was primarily that Europe had very little of what it wanted or needed and HAD to look outside its own borders for so long, and being unable to actually walk to its destinations, that lead to europe developing the tools they needed for global conquest.

Western society pretty much just...lucked out, getting a number of things going right all at the same time coupled with a bunch of things going wrong for their neighbors. But that luck means that Western society is, simply, put, more important to history than any other society.

Only if you pretend the last 300 years matters (because Europeans spent about 200 of the last 500 years primarily sucking up to other global powers), but the 7500 years of human civilization before that was for practice. In a thousand years, someone else will be treating notions of european importance as provincial while their own country and continent is ascendant.

But they're not the ones who spread them across the world

...You realize that Europeans only spread and generally practiced one of those religions, right?

Having invented something, the inventor ceases to be important, and the messenger is the one who truly changes the world.

Well, that's how it works when it makes the mythical 'western world' look better, anyway. But it doesn't stop them from say, taking credit for guns (Despite the ottomans being the messenger there, for instance)

So it's a give and take. Point being that the China today is much more Western than Chinese.

Sure, if you pretend that the good stuff is 'western'...

Yes, but if you brought a Chinese person from 100 years ago and showed him China today, he'd consider it to be basically indistinguishable from a Western society except that he can read the street signs.

So... you think a turn of the century USian or European would really recognize anything but the landmarks of their current countries?

...

Oh, so you wanted me to play into your fantasies that there was nothing of importance there. Alrighty then. I'll just go ahead and pretend that the USA didn't worry about South America ever.

[Rogue Shadows]

Sure, if you pretend that the good stuff is 'western'...

Hey, bad stuff is western too. The Holocaust, chattel slavery, etc.

I'm not holding Western culture up as ideal, simply dominant and, therefore, most important.

The british principally expanded by knocking over local powers and installing a friendly government at the top, not by actually living in the places they ruled. The French were similar.

True and false. They did tend to maintain garrisons of their own troops as well as relying on locals; and of course places like Canada and Australia and the Americas, especially North America, were thoroughly colonized with Westerners.

Only if you pretend the last 300 years matters (because Europeans spent about 200 of the last 500 years primarily sucking up to other global powers), but the 7500 years of human civilization before that was for practice.

I think that every day of history is a practice run to this very moment in time. The past is important, but the past has also already happened and can't be changed. The future is important, but we won't get there if we don't start building it now. The present time is the most important time in history.

It was primarily that Europe had very little of what it wanted or needed and HAD to look outside its own borders for so long, and being unable to actually walk to its destinations, that lead to europe developing the tools they needed for global conquest.

Yes. That's why Western society is dominant and, therefore, most important.

...You realize that Europeans only spread and generally practiced one of those religions, right?

And it is the largest with, last time I checked, roughly double the number of practitioners than the next-largest (that is - again, last I checked - about 2 billion Christians compared to about 1 billion Muslims. Judaism...is not a major world religion, except insofar as it inspired two religion that are. There's only about 13.5 million of them).

So... you think a turn of the century USian or European would really recognize anything but the landmarks of their current countries?

Yes, I think a turn of the century American, though bewildered by the technological change of New York City, would find its culture almost instantly recognizable. Comparatively, I don't think that a turn of the century Chinese person would recognize the culture of Beijing, and consider it to have been thoroughly Westernized.

(Also, please don't use USian, as the country itself is, in fact, called America, and just happens to share that name with the landmass - much like Australia. If you insist on doing so, however, then I similarly insist that you refer to people from Mexico as USians as well, since the proper name for Mexico is Estados Unidos Mexicanos - the United Mexican States. Also the Australians and Commonwealthians)

[RPGuru1331]

True and false. They did tend to maintain garrisons of their own troops as well as relying on locals; and of course places like Canada and Australia and the Americas, especially North America, were thoroughly colonized with Westerners.

Do you know what the word 'principally' means?

I'm not holding Western culture up as ideal, simply dominant and, therefore, most important.

And ignoring 7700 years of global history to do so.

I think that every day of history is a practice run to this very moment in time. The past is important, but the past has also already happened and can't be changed. The future is important, but we won't get there if we don't start building it now. The present time is the most important time in history.

So you're basically ignoring everything we know about cause and effect to try to maximize the amount of importance placed on your culture. Duly noted.

Yes. That's why Western society is dominant and, therefore, most important.

"They are historically more important" != "They are currently more important".

And it is the largest with, last time I checked, roughly double the number of practitioners than the next-largest (that is - again, last I checked - about 2 billion Christians compared to about 1 billion Muslims. Judaism...is not a major world religion, except insofar as it inspired two religion that are. There's only about 13.5 million of them).

Is everything a contest to you? Do you not understand that the problem is that you are acting like everything else is irrelevant?

Yes, I think a turn of the century American, though bewildered by the technological change of New York City, would find its culture almost instantly recognizable.

You have picked one of the two major US Cities this is the most untrue for.

(Also, please don't use USian, as the country itself is, in fact, called America, and just happens to share that name with the landmass - much like Australia. If you insist on doing so, however, then I similarly insist that you refer to people from Mexico as USians as well, since the proper name for Mexico is Estados Unidos Mexicanos - the United Mexican States. Also the Australians and Commonwealthians)

Well, you can insist all you want, but I'm not doing it - especially since I haven't referred to the state of Mexico, or even the people who live there, once. It helps that Mexicans don't consider themselves synonymous with a continent, and don't typically egotistically insist that they are history's golden children though.

I'll consider the proper nahuatl name for the Aztecs, though, I suppose.

[Terraoblivion]

Actually, yes, I do mean apart from him. Among other things, his empire did not long survive his death, and besides, for any given set, there will always be outliers.

Oh, it lasted at the very least through the lifetimes of his sons, given that it wasn't Genghis, but Ögedai who invaded Europe and the Middle East. Also, you were talking about motivation for conquering, not about long-term stability.

Yes, that treasure fleet which was never popular in China and was scrapped pretty quickly so that China could settle into isolation and stagnation. Also note that they were a treasure fleet, not a conquest fleet. They weren't trying to impose Chinese culture anywhere.

It was quite expensive and not really productive, so shutting it off made sense. Also, I wouldn't really call China in the period where they conquered Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Gansu and Mongolia stagnant or isolationist. Look at a map, you'll discover that roughly half of modern China is in these areas, along with the fairly large country of Mongolia. Also, it was during this period sailors and merchants from Fujian started colonizing Taiwan, the Philipines, Vietnam, Malaysia and parts of Indonesia, such as the city state of Singapore where they came to dominate. Not really a mark of an insular people, I'd think. I'd also like pointing out that this supposedly insular people, managed to turn the entire world trade into being about feeding their need for silver for almost two centuries.

And as a final note, I'd like you to give an example of Europeans trying to impose European culture anywhere. It was mostly about financial gain, preventing other European powers from getting there first or simply bragging rights. Well, unless you can point me to the secret westernization plans the English had for India or something similar.

Yup, impetus ran out and they collapsed on themselves into...

Like I said before, you were talking about motivation, not longevity and managing and guarding an empire is known to be somewhat harder than conquering it.

Before losing most of it. The Ottoman Empire spent the last century of its life as a pawn of the much more powerful, world-spanning empires of Russia and Britain, before making a desperate bid for relevancy in World War I that drastically backfired.

At least the Ottoman Empire actually lasted centuries. The British Empire, if you want to include an actually subjugated India and an explored Australia, lasted from the late 18th century to the mid-20, so around 150 years. Quite a short time compared to the Ottomans, since you seem so obsessed with longevity. The other colonial empires lasted a lot shorter, stretching from the late-19th to the mid-20th century. All the earlier colonies were either depopulated wildernesses, frequently forcefully so, which was the resettled or smaller, trade-oriented affairs. The longest lived was the Spanish one, which lasted from the late 16th century to the early 20th century, which is still substantially shorter than the Ottomans. And you seem to care about longevity after all.

But never actually expanded outside of their local habitat. Basically, they stopped as soon as the terrain starting looking different from their hometown. Europe didn't.

Actually, no, they had just won a major war of conquest mere days before Pizarro's expedition showed up. They stopped once some crazy outsiders started killing them and stirred up various rebellions.

Did you ever wonder how? Remember that Europe was ass-backwards compared to most of the rest of North Africa and Eurasia for most of its history, and it's not like they had numbers of their side, either. China's population has always been stupidly huge. But it was not China suppressing Britain that lead to the Opium Wars.

Because as we all know Britain was not a major, industrial power with a professional military of relatively well-paid soldiers and career officers, bringing the most refined naval technology to bear on an enemy stuck in serious internal turmoil. Oh, wait, that's exactly how it was.

Yes, Europe was technologically less advanced than China in the middle ages and renaissance, but that was centuries before the Opium War. Europe had come to dominate naval technology and the integration of cannons on ships in the 17th century and during the 18th it achieved parity with the most advanced parts of India, China and Japan. By 1839 Europe, with England leading the pack, were well into industrializing. On top of that, China was reeling from a rebellion large enough to rank in the top twenty most lethal wars ever on wikipedia, had a dynastic crisis and severe social issues that would lead to the Taiping Rebellion just a few years later. It also suffered from a fatal lack of interest in and intelligence on the Europeans, so the empire didn't mobilize to face the threat to anywhere near the degree they would have to an invasion from the north or a major rebellion.

It's a fact of history that most people don't really want to acknowledge because of the racist overtones, but the simple fact of the matter is that from about 1492 onwards (actually, probably earlier - when did the Portuguese start setting up trade colonies in Africa and the far east?), "World History" and "European History" become synonymous terms.

Only because that's how we're used to it being told. China and India each had larger populations than Europe in 1492 and were wholly consumed with local affairs and really didn't care what some pale barbarians on tiny boats were doing. Europe did start to ascend in power and importance at this point, but the continent didn't come to dominate international politics and economics until the 19th century. And even then, you'll have quite a hard time understanding the Pacific War or the Cold War if you pretend that Asia was just a passive recipient of European impulses.

Yes, but if you brought a Chinese person from 100 years ago and showed him China today, he'd consider it to be basically indistinguishable from a Western society except that he can read the street signs.

If we posit that this fellow was well-educated and knew what western societies looked like, he'd still be more struck by things like cars, tvs, radios and bright, glossy posters, just to name a few things that would stand out. So would the lack of beggars and shantytowns. Really, what would strike him wasn't that it was western, but that he was in the future, just as much as what would strike you if you entered Snowcrash, the first thing that would strike you was that you were in the freaking future, regardless of whether you were in Tokyo, Paris or Sao Paulo. He'd probably think a lot of typical Chinese features were gone, but a Danish person who experienced the same would think a lot of typical Danish features were gone, such as the villages and pre-industrial agriculture. However, what he would not be able to do was read the street signs, thanks to the language reform that mainland China underwent in the 50s.

Also, China has a major economy primarily because they do all the manufacturing work for the western world. They utterly depend on Western markets - though, to be fair, Western markets utterly depend on Chinese workers. So it's a give and take. Point being that the China today is much more Western than Chinese.

That is a gross exaggeration. Just a few years ago the value of German exports exceeded the value of Chinese exports, showing just one example of manufacturing in the west. Not just that, a considerable amount of the cheap, foreign products we buy are made in Vietnam, Bangladesh and India. Further, China has made aggressive attempts at marketing their products in the third world, just like they have large markets in their immediate neighbors.

In addition to this, most of Chinese economic activity is aimed at China itself, with infrastructure and construction being the largest sectors, the latter being trapped in a major speculation boom that involves the manufacture of entire cities that there is no need or demand for. Further, the Chinese middle class numbers over 400 million people by this point and these are quite insatiable for consumer goods such as cars, fashion and fast food, most of which is still of domestic make.

As for China being more western than Chinese, that's actually a really interesting topic. For one thing it posits that modernity and advanced technology as such are western. For another it posits a transhistoric, essentialist culture that permeates a group of people and represents the true way of being them. It's quite a fascinating exercise in Herderian thought, but it doesn't exactly reflect the concept of culture or national identity found in fields such as anthropology, history or philosophy. At least not in those fields more modern than the second world war.

Put another way, which do you think more people wear: a sedge hat, or a baseball cap?

I have no idea, the former is still quite popular in southeast Asia and the rural areas of southern China which, as I might remind you, are home to more than twice as many people as the US. However, I don't see why it's relevant, what kind of hat you wear is a fairly superficial cultural expression, what's more interesting is why you wear and what you think about the hat.

Today, sure, but I'm talking about the world stage throughout history. Namely: China's only been on it since the 60's, as the Zeng He treasure fleets were, again, a one-time occurance that were never popular in China and quickly scrapped. Europe, by comparison, has been consistently on the world stage in one form or another for about 500 years.

Zheng He went out several times and was followed by an exodus of people from southern China and especially the Fujian province that lasted for several centuries and changed the demographic landscape of Southeast Asia far more than the Europeans ever did. Also, like I mentioned above, China drained the world of silver, shaping the entire world trade around that axis. That's pretty important and consistent.

In terms of pure politics, China was very much on the world stage in the 1930s and 40s, for one thing it was the country where the majority of the Japanese troops serving in the second world war served their entire term of service. For another the Chinese Communists and the Chinese civil war was one of the most significant spectres in the minds of anti-Communist westerners and a partner who could not be dominated outright for the Russians. Then I'd like to point out the Chinese invasion of Korea in response to the American invasion and the Chinese support for the Viet Min and later the FNL in Vietnam.

Going earlier than that, China was as major a player as Russia and England in Central Asia in the first half of the 19th century and by far the dominant force in that region before, as well as the uncontested leader of East Asia until the first Opium War. And it's worth pointing out that at that time, the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire were largely intact and the Mughals had only just fallen and England were still struggling with the kingdom of Mysore in southern India, just like most of North America and Africa didn't have any direct contact with Europe.

Really, the only time where China was clearly subordinate to the west was 1842-1927, which pretty much coincides with the absolute zenith of western dominance. The reason it looks different to you is that you forget about all the areas that weren't dominated by the west, except for China.

But they're not the ones who spread them across the world. Put another way, which do you suppose is more important: Greece, or Rome? Greece came up with all sorts of advances in terms of philosophy and science and so on, and sort of spread them around its general area. Rome came up with practically nothing on its own, but spread everything that Greece had come up with across the Mediterranean, Europe, and North Africa, and further gave a basically stable climate for it to exist and simmer in for about 1,000 years.

The Romans. Not only did they do substantial innovations of their own, such as glassmaking, concrete, public libraries and the foundational theology of modern Christianity and the basics European law and bureaucracy, a lot of the Greek "innovations" have been documented as having been in use in Egypt and Mesopotamia a millennium earlier, including pretty much the entire set of classic geometry. Still, if they truly had invented these things, the Romans still clearly outmatched them in every practical science, just like their development of painting, drama and poetry was quite great, especially compared to the strictly formalistic Greek works.

Having invented something, the inventor ceases to be important, and the messenger is the one who truly changes the world.

The point is that the region was freaking dynamic and a lot of important stuff happened there. For that matter, it sure seems like the news would like us to believe that the inhabitants of the Middle East are having active, outgoing attempts at influencing the world to this day. And again, even accepting that the Middle East has declined in importance, it was still a major factor for all of western Eurasia, northern and eastern Africa for most of recorded history, that seems like quite a bit more than just fighting over some unimportant deserts.

Not nearly as hard as it sounds when you've been at it for 10,000+ years.

Well, actually, it took them 95 years. Go check wikipedia before making comments that far off the mark.

And we hear about India and China much more. In that particular contest, Brazil has settled into a very firm bronze.

And how does American news coverage matter to actual questions of global significance? Also, the growth of the NICs is still very much an ongoing process, so we really can't say what turns out most important in five or ten years. What we can say is that Brazil is a dynamic, expansive economy with a political culture that aims at translating that to geopolitical significance and have done so with some success.

Also, I acknowledge that South America is important to South Americans. Of course it is. I'm talking about the world stage, however, the Terran zeitgeist and public consciousness.

There is no such thing. The world stage looks markedly different depending on where you look at it from. For example, I doubt that people in, Afghanistan thinks all that much about the constitutional disagreements in Europe or the Greek debt and, really, why should they? It isn't relevant for them. Ultimately, what you're actually saying here is that it doesn't matter to the average American, not some abstract zeitgeist. Also, I find it interesting that you once again turn to German enlightenment philosophers, in this case Hegel.

Again, I'm talking more about world consciousness than any actual impact that they're making.

No such thing exists. Whose consciousness and awareness is most right? Is the perception of relevance of 300 million Americans more important than that of 400 million middle class Chinese or 450 million citizens of EU countries? Because I can assure you, perceptions of importance vary wildly between and within these groups.

[Morph Bark]

And ignoring 7700 years of global history to do so.

I think Rogue Shadows is only talking about those countries that acted on a global scale, not on a continental scale. The global scale only started to become a trend more recently than what you appear to be talking about.

Either way, that's not the topic of the thread, so if you wish to further discuss the matter, could you kindly take it to its own seperate thread?

[Terraoblivion]

Hey, bad stuff is western too. The Holocaust, chattel slavery, etc.

I'm not holding Western culture up as ideal, simply dominant and, therefore, most important.

You are, however, claiming that all the trapping of modernity are specifically western. Are cars or public schools as specific technologies western? Or were they merely invented by the west and adopted by others because they work?

I think that every day of history is a practice run to this very moment in time. The past is important, but the past has also already happened and can't be changed. The future is important, but we won't get there if we don't start building it now. The present time is the most important time in history.

History is not teleological and it has no purpose. All that happened in the past did so for a multitude of reasons that made sense in the past. Aristotle didn't write his philosophical works so that they might be discussed in western universities today, he wrote them so that other Greeks might read them and be convinced of his views. Columbus didn't miscalculate the size of the planet and sail west so there could be a US with the impact that has had on the planet, he did it because he sucked at math and wanted to be rich. Nobody, ever, did what they did for the sake of a society that would exist ages after they died and which they knew nothing about.

Yes, I think a turn of the century American, though bewildered by the technological change of New York City, would find its culture almost instantly recognizable. Comparatively, I don't think that a turn of the century Chinese person would recognize the culture of Beijing, and consider it to have been thoroughly Westernized.

So said hypothetical American wouldn't be bewildered by the lack of people speaking Italian, Polish and Yiddisch or confused by all the Asians, Arabs and Indians in the streets? What about men who were clearly in a romantic relationship with other men? Or what about the highly different vernacular? Nor the lack of tenement housing and sweatshops right by the Hudson?

Really, what specific aspects is it that you think will be instantly familiar? They speak English, yes, but it appears that your hypothetical time traveler wouldn't feel the same familiarity if he ended up in London or Melbourne. Culture as a specifically national entity that exists in a fixed state is a philosophical and quasi-religious notion first developed by the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder in the second half of the 18th century. It operates with each culture being imbued with their own soul that perpetuates them as a culture regardless of changes in expression. It has some obvious problems, such as pointing out how exactly it manifests if it is to allow for 6th century Saxons being the same culture as modern English people. It also cannot explain how a new culture comes to be, because, really, if there is such a permanent form of culture, how do a group of people become a new one?

The reason we can see that continuity is that we have the ability to see each link of the chain and relate them to what they developed from and what they developed into, each having clear continuities forward and backward, but these aren't necessarily the same. A hypothetical time traveler would lose this sense of continuity and have to look around for the things that are the same and they'd be quite few. He'd be surrounded by technology he didn't know, people who weren't there before and even something as basic as the pavement and the buildings would look completely different.

Sure, the language would be similar enough to communicate, but less so than the language of his contemporaries in England was, except of course if he was an immigrant, in which case his community had vanished. He could go look up the constitution and look at landmarks, but while they would be recognizable they'd still have changes and additions, often ones he wouldn't be able to make sense of since they were meant to address issues that didn't exist in his time. The food would be almost completely different, the clothes would most of the time be made of fabrics that didn't even exist in his time, employment structure, political organization and religious establishments would all be completely different. The political debate would be about issues that were bizarre and alien to him, given the massive legislative changes of the last century and major political events. In short, nothing would be the same as he remembered it, though some would be close enough to fit into the uncanny valley. So tell me, how would he instantly recognize it and feel he belonged?

[Rogue Shadows]

You are, however, claiming that all the trapping of modernity are specifically western. Are cars or public schools as specific technologies western? Or were they merely invented by the west and adopted by others because they work?

Actually what I'm claiming is that the trappings of modern society are specifically Western in origin, and that Western culture has spread far further into others, than other cultures have spread into the West; and furthermore that the Western zeitgeits has a far greater world impact than, say, the African one does. Again, sedge hats to baseball caps. Jeans to saris. Coca-cola to...whatever equivalent it is that they have in China, or even Russia.

Well, you can insist all you want, but I'm not doing it - especially since I haven't referred to the state of Mexico, or even the people who live there, once. It helps that Mexicans don't consider themselves synonymous with a continent, and don't typically egotistically insist that they are history's golden children though.

Oh ho, now who's bigoted? We Americans do not consider ourselves synonymous with North America, only the part of North America that our country occupies because, well, it's the part that our country occupies: Canadians aren't wrong to call Canada "Canada," so it's similarly not wrong to call America "America."

Mexico and Canada and all the islands of the Caribbean and Greenland are acknowledged as separate entities that are part of the larger North American continent. We just consider ourselves the dominant force on the continent because, well, we are; that's what happens when you have a larger military, economy, and population than your neighbors. China isn't wrong when it states that it's the dominant force in East Asia.

I don't think we regard ourselves as history's golden children, either. First off, there's that whole slavery thing that we're quite adamant about us having screwed up on it. Vietnam is universally regarded as a mistake. Iraq too; Afghanistan less so, but to be fair we have a perfectly legitimate casus belli there. I could go on, the point is that Americans, in my experience, do not consider ourselves to be as high-and-mighty as the rest of the world thinks we do.

We do think we're the most powerful and important nation on the planet, but to be fair, all the numbers certainly suggest that - a fifth of the world's wealth, the largest navy (larger than the next fifteen combined), and so on. Our political sway is immense, and I don't mean threatening countries, I simply mean that our everyday political decisions carry consequences that reach across the globe.

For comparison - no Google searching allowed - name five Costa Rican Presidents. Name five Italian Prime Ministers. Name five British Prime Ministers.

Now, name five US Presidents. I'll bet that if you could get any of the above at all, you had to dig into history to do so - Churchill, and so on. But I'll bet as well that you could name the last five US Presidents easily.

Editor's note: the following is supposed to reference a certain country in Africa, who's name in English unfortunately bears a strong resemblance to the N-word. You know, the one that rhymes with "bigger." Point being that apparently the board's censor does not like it even though I'm referring to a country and not, in fact, using a racist term. I'm going to try and get around it here; hopefully the moderators will understand. Just replace the M with an N.
When Miger states that it has the highest birth rate in the world, it's not bragging, it's stating a fact. When China says that America's economy would collapse without it, they're not making a threat, they're stating a fact. And when Americans state that we have the most powerful and are the globally most important nation on the planet, we're not bragging, we're stating a fact. When we state we have the most pervasive culture on the planet, we're stating fact. When was the last time a Chinese or Indian movie became a worldwide hit? Is there a single soft drink that meaningfully competes with Coca-cola on the worldwide market? Their closest competitor is Pepsi - another American soft drink.

Besides, when you're one of three superpowers following WWII, and then one of those superpowers drops out almost immediately, and then the other superpower drops out forty-ish years later, leaving you to be the dominant economic, military, and cultural power on the planet...yeah, it can go to your head a little bit, I'll admit. But that doesn't mean it's not true.

Now, no doubt, you're going to bring up that whole "everything is a contest" thing again, but really, when you make an accusation about America, what kind of response do you expect?

[Rogue Shadows]

Anyway. To get back on topic: I can't really think of a single thing specifically unique to South America in terms of genre or theme. Mostly I end up just end up with "hacking through the rainforest looking for the lost city/rare plant/other MacGuffin, while fighting off tribes/rival adventurers/both," which can be ported to just about anywhere. Hell, New England is rainforest. Good chunks of Oregon, Washington, and northern California, too; point being that you don't even need a tropical setting.

Oh, and I think of Brazil, but then again without knowing the title of the movie you'd be entirely forgiven for not realizing that Brazil does, in fact, take place in Brazil. Also I think about Romancing the Stone and The Incredible Hulk's opening. And something about not crying for Argentina...and the Falkland Islands War, which I guess counts.

Otherwise, South America just...doesn't exist, in my mind. I know more about Africa, or the Middle East, or Bangladesh, then I do about South America, let alone any individual country in South America

[ArcturusV]

I'm pretty sure the Olympic Peninsula holds the title of "Only Temperate Zone Rain Forest in the world". Though some Appalachian Mountain forests are so thick they might as well be jungle. But yeah, South America has this odd state of being massively important, and entirely forgettable to most people. Not sure why that is. But it is one of the few territories I really identify with the theme of settling a harsh land and a very lopsided culture/technology clash, where you effectively have a culture you are fighting who is about 5-6 technological revolutions behind you, separated with almost no hope of relief from home (Least in a timely manner), in a place with harsher weather than you're used to, unknown dangers, and untamed land.