Chapter 259 258 [Non-Mainstream Courses]

After all, Toynbee is British. Like most European and American historians, he conducts academic research centered on the Western world.

The original "Historical Research" started from the United Kingdom, gradually expanded to Europe and the United States, and finally extended to the whole world. Moreover, when discussing ancient India and ancient China, Toynbee had prejudices and prejudices, and his thinking was not small.

For example, Toynbee forcibly transferred the theory of the unified religion in Europe to ancient China. His original words are: Ancient Chinese society also became the body society of today’s Far Eastern society through a church, that is, Mahayana Buddhism.

This is a bit nonsense, including some of Toynbee's expositions on China's pre-Qin thought, which are also specious.

Zhou Hexuan had to make revisions, deleting and adding some of his own ideas while the framework of the original work remained unchanged.

Zhou Hexuan wrote down Toynbee's name on the blackboard and began to tell: "There is a British historian named Arnold Joseph Toynbee. He used to be a reporter for the Manchester Guardian and later switched to research history. In 1925 he became He is a professor of international history at the London School of Economics and the director of the research department of the Royal Society of International Affairs in London. He published several papers last year, talking about the study of major civilizations in the world, and proposed some definitions of research fields and terms. These The paper inspired me a lot, and what I am going to talk about next is based on the theory proposed by Professor Toynbee..."

"When we come into contact with civilized society, we will have a question, why did civilized society come into being? How did it come into being? Professor Toynbee summarized the civilizations in history into 21 societies. In my opinion , the 21 civilized societies can be divided into two categories, among which 15 civilizations are descendants of the other 6 civilizations, and the 6 parent civilizations are directly produced from the primitive society. Which 6 parent civilizations are they? They are ancient Egypt, Sumer (two-river civilization), Minos (bronze civilization before ancient Greece), ancient China, Maya, Andes (ancient South American civilization)..."

Most of the people here are high-achieving students from the history department. When Zhou Hexuan mentioned this, someone immediately raised their hands and said, "Teacher, isn't it the four ancient civilizations? How come you have become the six civilizations? Where is ancient Greece?"

Zhou Hexuan said with a smile: "The Minoan civilization is the pre-civilization of ancient Greece. We will discuss the two together next."

Another student asked: "Teacher, what kind of civilization is the Andes?"

"An ancient civilization that grew up in South America." Zhou Hexuan explained.

As expected, they are all high-achieving students. Immediately, some students raised their hands and said, "Teacher, but the modern historians agree that the ancient American civilization originated in some places in Central America and Mexico. After the Mayan civilization spread to South America, it started in the Andes." The rise of Indian civilization several times. According to your theory just now, the Andean civilization should be regarded as a descendant of the Mayan civilization, right?"

Zhou Hexuan said with a smile: "You are talking about the archaeological historical point of view seven or eight years ago. Nowadays, more and more archaeological discoveries show that the ancient civilizations of South America developed independently. From a geographical perspective, we can see that the Andes and China America is naturally isolated, and it is difficult for ancient societies to spread over long distances. Moreover, it can be found from some archaeological remains in South America that the early artistic styles of ancient civilizations in South America and Central America are very different.”

The student asked: "Is this a new view in the field of Western historiography?"

Zhou Hexuan shook his head with a smile and said, "No, it's my new point of view."

As soon as this remark came out, there was an instant uproar in the classroom.

Zhou Hexuan was actually telling them a new point of view, a new point of view that is not recognized by today's historians.

"If you are interested and have the opportunity to go abroad, you can try to do some relevant research, maybe you can prove my point." Zhou Hexuan laughed. Today, historians and archaeologists' research on South American civilization is still at a very primitive stage. As long as you are determined to do on-the-spot investigations, you can easily achieve results.

Zhou Hexuan went on to say: "What is the difference between primitive society and civilized society? The difference between them does not lie in whether there is a system, because the system is a means of expressing personal relationships between people, and in all types of society Yes. Social division of labor is not a fundamental difference, because primitive societies also have divisions of labor such as chiefs, wizards, and craftsmen. In my opinion, the fundamental difference between primitive society and civilized society is the direction of imitation. In primitive society, the object of imitation is the old One generation, dead ancestors, tradition holds the strongest position. In a civilized society, people imitate creative and successful characters, and society moves along a path of change and growth...”

As Zhou Hexuan went deeper and deeper, many students in the audience were dizzy.

Because the content of Zhou Hexuan's lectures is not linear history, nor is it conventional historical research, but thinking and analyzing history and human civilization from a philosophical point of view.

Some students' minds are confused and they feel drowsy while listening; some students' eyes are shining and they are listening energetically.

This is a non-mainstream history lesson, which is different from any research in the current history circle. It is like a lightning bolt splitting from the dark night sky.

"Okay, get out of class is almost over," Zhou Hexuan finally smiled, "It doesn't matter if you don't understand, anyway, this is an elective course, so you just think I'm talking nonsense. Students who are interested can go back and think slowly, maybe they are right Your academic research has been inspiring."

After class, Zhou Hexuan left directly.

But several students surrounded him, and one of them said: "Mr. Zhou, can I borrow your handouts and copy them? I couldn't remember a lot of things during the lecture just now."

"Okay, return it to me next time in class," Zhou Hexuan handed over the handout and asked, "What's your name?"

The student replied: "My name is Wu Jinding, from Shandong."

Zhou Hexuan: "..."

Damn, how can you be an awesome person if you ask me casually.

Wu Jinding, the discoverer and namer of China's "Longshan Culture".

The most frightening thing is that although Wu Jinding is still studying at Tsinghua University, he has already used the winter and summer vacations to investigate and study Longshan culture.

Wu Jinding said: "Mr. Zhou, I passed by a site in Longshan Town, Zhangqiu County, Shandong Province in April this year, and found a lot of black pottery there. The pottery is black in color, smooth on the surface, and extremely exquisite in style. I think it should be a prehistoric relic. But it is different from the known Yangshao culture."

Zhou Hexuan said casually: "Perhaps it, like the Yangshao culture, is another source of ancient Chinese civilization."

"I think so too," Wu Jinding said excitedly, "My mentor, Mr. Li Ji, is applying for archaeological funds from the school. As long as the funds are approved, large-scale excavations can be carried out."

"Good luck!" Zhou Hexuan said with a smile.

Longshan culture, that was a ground-breaking discovery in the Chinese archaeological field, and Zhou Hexuan can be regarded as a witness to history.