When did "western society" change from seafare and land around the Mediterranean...

When did "western society" change from seafare and land around the Mediterranean, to just centeralize land deep in the continent?

We all know how and Why... but feel free to discuss it without bashing Islam too hard.

Pic sorta related.

when communism happened

This is high quality bait.

Western Society always relied on the sea.

Because German, Slavs and Balts were adopted into Greco-Roman culture while Muslims took over the near east and North Africa.

Op here. Definitely not, I just want to see people's opinions.

I think the fall of West Roman Empire and the Rise of Islam making its way into Europ as well as having a lot of its influence in North Africa changed Western Society drastically. If Islam never expanded to where it was I feel as though Western Society would still be the Area of the old Roman Empire.

But collectively Western Society is just PC talk for Christian land.

Because """"""western society"""""" is fucking barbarian
Mediterranean civilization is Near East civilization

Pretty much germanic kingdoms trying to ape Rome after it's fall, and adopting many of it's customs (as can be seen today) so it became the dominant form of culture there, while islam became dominant in the east, and ended the ERE, creating a massive cultural divide (Although this was due to many other factors too).
Really, you cannot understate the influence of Rome to history, in terms of what's it's contributed to human civilization, it's one of the most successful cultures ever.
History can effectively be summed up as leading up to Rome, and everybody trying to ape Rome after it's fall.

The Romans were a bunch of mountain niggers who would rather march than ride. They became somewhat naval copying the Carthaginians. Even after, the Romans would rather march around the Mediterranean than sail through it.

It's more of ''when did the inland barbarians started to consider themselves part of Greco Roman world''. You know contemporary Roman or Greek would have much more in common with an Egyptian, Carthagenian, Phynician and Jew than with a Goth.

More or less agree with you, but you kinda went too far with History leading up to Rome.
I'd say the Franks had a huge role in creating The shape of today's western society. But people ilegitimize the Franks as inherters of Rome all the time so it's hard to make a point.

But that change happened before Islam, with the collapse of Mediterranean sea trade in the 6th century and the rise of the Seine River valley and North Sea trade.

Western society didn't change. It was born when the Classical world collapsed.

>We all know how and Why... but feel free to discuss it without bashing Islam too hard.
If you're referring to the Pirenne Thesis, it's been outdated for close to a century by now.

when it came down to be christain or die basically.
Which is another point I like to make that once Rome adopted Christianity, it was no longer the Roman Empire it was the United nations of Christianity. After Rome fell, Europe had its fun raping and pillaging for a few hundred years then it United under Christianity instead of taking on a new Empire.

Ok. I have little knowledge on that. Any sources you'd like to share.

Also do you think it was a combination of that and the expansion of Islam? Or do you think the new trade is solo reason?

No I'm not. I was stating the general expansion of Islam here

I was kinda memeing desu, but really much of history is because some guy wanted to copy/ inspired by Rome.
For example, most of the ERE, Charlemange then afterwards nearly every scholar in the middle ages, The Renaissance, The Enlightenment, most modern government systems are descended from concepts established in the Roman Republic, the HRE, and Hitler.

It changed, in my opinion, after the siege of Constantinople.

Op

Do go on.

The Carolingian, Abbasid, and Macedonian dynasties and their successors basically flourished at the same time, each consolidating their own economic and cultural dominance that would last for centuries focusing around Catholic Latin, Orthodox Greek, and Sunni Arabic culture. You could remove one of these, but the other two would have persisted, and the divide was frankly inevitable after Justinian's wars and plague that changed Mediterranean trade, demographics, and politics drastically.

Without the Franks, you would still have and did have a number of Latinized Germanic barbarian cultures who began to form their own kingdoms and open up extensive trade links across the North Sea.

The trade imbalance of Mediterranean shipping when the annona shifted focus from Rome to Constantinople further Hellenized the ERE, and Roman settlement in Western Europe and North Africa subsided while Germanic and Berber tribes moved in.

Finally, the plague and the growing power of the church in Constantinople shifted Egypt and Mesopotamia into increasingly Semitic control, constantly buckling under Byzantine control and gradually settling more and more Aramaic and Arabic speaking tribes as Greek and Latin colonization dwindled.

Islam could never have happened and you should still have had three distinct cultural spheres around the Mediterranean that would have never united again.

Germans aped the Romans more while Arabs aped the Persians most of all.

The Umayyads actually aped the Romans a whole lot, and it's only with the rise of the Abbasids that the Arabs began to ape Persian culture. Same with the Germanic tribes, who aped Rome in nearly everything until the Franks who brought in much of their own customs and law.

Goods such as silk and spices weren't coming into Europe as much as it did before the siege. Most of these goods were coming in from India to Constantinople which the Turks would eventually conquer. So the Europeans were searching for another trade route to India. This led to the age of exploration which, in effect, caused the discovery of America and changed the politics of the West forever.

But that's wrong. Goods were flooding into Europe at such a rate that Venice, which dominated the trade in eastern silks and spices, had merchants from as far as the Netherlands and Iran and India making bank.

Iberian exploration was an attempt to break into this monopoly by growing their own crops in their own territory.

Yeah that's what I believe too. I think it possibly started with the Franks, but I don't believe it was sololy them. I think the Rise in Islam definitely had a big factor. I think those Germanic Tribes that formed Kingdoms is what gave us the Modern shape of Europe.

What I am really arguing though is that Islam changed the shape of Europe to what would have been much more of the Mediterranean annexed into the shape of Europe.

I disagree, mostly because the West coincided with the extent of Frankish expansion and cultural influence. It's highly unlikely the Berbers of North Africa would have been incorporated the same way the Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians were - there was plenty of trouble already trying to subdue the Gallo-Romans of Aquitaine and Provence.

Now, if the Vandals were around, maybe, but the Byzantines saw to that long before the Arabs ever invaded.

Maybe I'm missing something or just dont know enough on the History?

I wasn't saying the berbers would be part of Europe, if anything theyd be pushed back.

I'm saying that if not for Islams rise and expansion, that the old Roman world would still be part of western society. Something like pic related, where as addition to bottom pic, top pic would also be part. But its only an underlining factor and an opinion that I have. I know a lot of people on here don't like to admit that Islam was powerful but it is what it is.

Also was saying that the Germanics shaped modern Europes shape as a society. Created early borders, established early alliances and such. Like yeah we've had wars in Europe but the Borders have more or less been the same to the concrete places like Scandinavia, France, England, Germany some what. The acception is land East of Germany/ North of the Byzantines as well as Spain.

Maybe I'm missing something you mentioned. Or just repeating my annoying bullshit.

Then let me start from the top. See, the old Roman world was only considered so because of extensive Roman colonization. The reason Tunisia was considered part of the same sphere as Spain, France, and Italy is entirely because a lot of Romans moved there, dominating the region politically, militarily, and eventually economically and culturally. This Latinized the local population until they identified closely with the Roman settlers while the tribes that never did were pushed to the margins.

Then came the various plagues, barbarian invasions, and civil wars of the late empire, and the urban population of the Western Mediterranean was absolutely devastated. In North Africa by the sixth century Roman settlement was pushed all the way to the coast with several Berber kingdoms established in the aftermath of several raids and migrations into old Roman territory. The only connection to the rest of Europe, the Church, had since then severely declined, and unlike the Germanic tribes who were Christian heretics initially these Berber clans were pagan and Jewish.

There was no chance of pushing them back anymore than there was a chance for the Byzantines to push back the Franks and Lombards.

1st part I know well of.

>In North Africa by the sixth century Roman settlement was pushed all the way to the coast with several Berber kingdoms established in the aftermath of several raids and migrations into old Roman territory.

This is where my knowledge is fuzzy. My mistake, was in the understanding that Berbers were not active in conquest of Old Roman Land in the 6th century.

Go figure my knowledge of only roughly 100 years difference is my downfall.

Any places where I can get some more information, besides the obvious Wikipedia bs.

This may not be what people except but here is what I believe on the subject. The Antonine Plague, Plague of Cyprian, Plague of Justinian, and the Black Death all killed a greater percentage of Mediterranean population then the inland population. Living on a effective giant natural transportation network does have draw backs.

Not him, but I think Chris Wickham's The Inheritance of Rome is right up your alley. It talks about a lot of what's been discussed in this thread concerning the transition between the old Roman order and the tripartite cultural division of the Mediterranean that followed.

"western society" is christianity

before that, the medditerranean was simply "the civilized world", all round it there was nothing but barbarians or natural barriers like the sahara or the steppes or the alps, etc., except in the east of course

after islam invaded and conquered africa and asia. what's left of the ancient christian world became "the west" and the barbarians in the north and east of them joined "the west" after they were christianized