Everyone the World's Navel

[guthrie]

"I want to know when exactly did men begin to sit down and think in terms of that continent over there- that's Asia. This one, the Americas. That over there is Africa and so on."
Then:
"well wouldn't it have been the first time someone successfully established some sort of trade route that reached more that a 100 miles or so? something like that?"


I keep using 2,000 years as a kind of a benchmark familiar to all. From the rough context of the thread, we're talking about europe mostly, and I dont think we really thought about continents etc until the last 6 or 700 years, whereas there were trade routes over 100 miles long long, before that, ie well over 2,000 years ago.

 

[gendanken]

Pollux:

Well...Americans didn't really start to think of themselves as Americans up until a little before the Revolution. They thought of themselves as English or Italian. Maybe if the E.U took a firmer hold of Europe (instead of being a mere Confederacy), turned nations into states, the real idea of Europe would take hold.

Do a girl a favor, will you? Ferme le bouche.

They thought of themselves as New Englanders, or more generically, colonials, and, according to you,.....................Europe doesn't even exist yet.

Sarge:

I think that naming of the continents as a whole came about when the realization hit that other lands existed, vast lands and for convenience one name had to be given to a particular area because too many different and divided nation existed among these lands. Asia for example...Sailors or the army realized that identifying the land nation by nation was too cumbersome so one name had to be applied to a large piece of land for easy catogerization...possibly a sort of an Acronym perhaps for those involved in travel

Yes, but I'm looking for targets. Like so...

Mephura:

Well, well, well...
If we are going to turn to the public, let's at least be fair about it

As in:

"Mathew published his own gospel among the Hebrews in their own tounge, when Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome and founding the church there.... .............(a big ass clause I will not risk the carpal tunnel to type out for you since I'm getting this from a book)...............

Then John, the disciple of the lord, who also leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living in Euphesus in Asia"
- Irenaeus, a Bishop of Lyons born somwhere around the second half of the first centry in his "Adversus Haereses."



Blasted. It seems that not only Europe was being called by name by the 4th century but here stands Miss Asia fully chirstened in the *2nd* century, well before the globetrotters and brave explores of the 14th and 15th centuries.

I concede. However, you know this already.

Xerxes:

Anyways - back to the question. I don't know exactly when the first big wars were fought in Europe, but I'd guess earliest around 5-6 thousands of years ago at the beginning of the Jewish calendar. Maybe they didn't think of themselves as 'Europeans,' but there were just enough differences to have classifications, and enough commnication to know who you belonged to.

Excellent info and all that hogwash.

I've had my questions answered already.


All other participants- grand mercis for coming. Now let my thread die.

 

[Redrover]

Ferme le bouche.

Try ferme la bouche, or, even better, ferme ta bouche

Then John, the disciple of the lord, who also leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living in Euphesus in Asia"
- Irenaeus, a Bishop of Lyons born somwhere around the second half of the first centry in his "Adversus Haereses."

Yeah, but Irenaeus used asia as a term representing the middle east, not the whole asian continent. He probably used it not as the name of a continent but as the name of a region, much like Gaul or Greece.

 

[gendanken]

Try ferme la bouche, or, even better, ferme ta bouche

Shut the fuck up sounds better.

I came back for this:

Yeah, but Irenaeus used asia as a term representing the middle east, not the whole asian continent. He probably used it not as the name of a continent but as the name of a region, much like Gaul or Greece.

!

Proof, please.

 

[Spyke]

[quoteThey thought of themselves as New Englanders, or more generically, colonials,[/quote]

Those of English background thought of themselves as English. English in Virginia, English in Massachusetts, yes, but still Englishmen.

 

[hypewaders]

Europe's collective identity as an operative political whole is only beginning to be seriously considered for the first time as we post. American exceptionalism will continue to accelerate the process.

 

[guthrie]

Not necesasrily. Remember the parcelling up of the rest of the world during the Imperial race for power and resources. I suppose if you mean purely acting as a whole, almost as one country, then yes, it is the first time really, apart from maybe the crusades.