How New Is The Idea That Things Change Over Time?

[Raphael]

A long time ago, I read an article about an medieval European history book. That is, not a history book about medieval Europe, but a history book written in medieval Europe. Unfortunately, I don't remember the title of the book.

What I found interesting was that, according to the article, the book described the world as largely static. Except for the founding of Christianity, the world is described as having been mostly the same since relatively soon after Creation. For instance, according to the article, the book describes ancient Athens as a place where young aristocrats fought each other in chivalrous tournaments. So the worldview of the authors seems to have been that the world had been the same since people had become numerous enough to form organized societies, and would stay the same until Judgment Day.

Which makes me wonder: how common was this belief, historically speaking, and when did it start to disappear?

[zompist]

Which makes me wonder: how common was this belief, historically speaking, and when did it start to disappear?

Well, I'd add to your depiction of premodern attitudes that many cultures, from Europe to India to China, were convinced that society had deterioriated. There was an earlier period where kings were wiser, warriors were bolder, everyone was virtuous, and music didn't sound like noise.

It's clear from (say) Jerome K. Jerome or Mark Twain, writing in the late 1800s, that people thought that society was changing fast. Jerome notes the dizzying pace of change, and Twain's Connecticut Yankee is all about how modern Americans were way smarter than Dark Age Britons. The rise of science fiction, which focuses on change, dates to the mid 1800s.

By contrast, Orwell's review of Charles Dickens points out that Dickens (only a generation older than Twain) almost never referred to modern things and had no evident idea of progress, as opposed to moral reform.

Arguably, though, people were conscious of change during the Renaissance, in the form of nostalgia for a simpler and more heroic time. Malory and Cervantes, for instance, wrote about knight-errantry (admiringly and satirically, respectively) at a time when warfare had already shifted to gunpowder weapons. (Previously, as you note, Europeans assumed that the classical world looked and acted just like theirs.)The Renaissance had a self-image of rediscovering classical knowledge, but people had a new willingness to consider new, non-classical ideas about the world.

A couple more data points: Adam Smith was conscious of historical change in the Scottish economy (e.g. the rise of banking). On the other hand his contemporary Edward Gibbon seems to judge the Roman Empire using precisely the political circumstances of 18th century Britain.

Oh, one more thing: non-European areas generally started to see that something was going wrong in the 1800s. In India, during the 1700s (fighting with Britain and France).

[Raphael]

Thank you, that's all very interesting!

Oh, one more thing: non-European areas generally started to see that something was going wrong in the 1800s. In India, during the 1700s (fighting with Britain and France).

This reminds me of a completely different thing that I also read a long time ago: a chapter on medieval and early modern Indian history, written by an Indian historian, as his contribution to a multi-author, multi-volume "world history" (which, as a whole, was unfortunately rather eurocentric). The historian claimed that, when the British first arrived in India, for a while, the Indians didn't suspect that anything bad was happening, because at first, they saw the British as simply yet another ethnic minority specialized in certain professions, such as trade, soldiering, administration, and tax collection- and they already had a tradition of groups like that. And by the time the Indians realized that the British saw themselves as their new rulers, it was too late.

What do you make of that?

[zompist]

This reminds me of a completely different thing that I also read a long time ago: a chapter on medieval and early modern Indian history, written by an Indian historian, as his contribution to a multi-author, multi-volume "world history" (which, as a whole, was unfortunately rather eurocentric). The historian claimed that, when the British first arrived in India, for a while, the Indians didn't suspect that anything bad was happening, because at first, they saw the British as simply yet another ethnic minority specialized in certain professions, such as trade, soldiering, administration, and tax collection- and they already had a tradition of groups like that. And by the time the Indians realized that the British saw themselves as their new rulers, it was too late.

What do you make of that?

There was definitely a thing where Indians expected the Brits to act like a traditional Indian ruler-- e.g. keeping order, taking care of hungry people during a famine. Even the Mughals had mastered those skills.

The British faced some serious resistance, notably from Mysuru, which had an able ruler and French allies, and its own trading companies and gunpowder factories. The French did fairly well in battle, as well-- except that Paris didn't consider India worth it. It was probably right: India brought in huge tax revenues but governing it and expanding its empire was very costly-- the American Revolution in part happened because the Brits needed to raise taxes to pay for all that.

Also, of course, India was divided into many states, most of which were more interested in fighting each other than the British.