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Originally Posted by andyman
The age of empires, Europe was only doing what the Roman Empire had done and what we still do today..
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I agree that the Romans fit into the same bracket as the Greeks. Colonising and enslaving the known world. Modern Europe (Renaissance and onwards) only repeated the process. This is where the ideals of the Enlightenment humanism failed. The belief that it was our moral burden to "liberate" indigenous cultures and it still carries on in this day and age with America trying to convince the world that they have a right to wage war on countries that don't conform to their liberal democratic model.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andyman
The medieval world still had its link with the classical past through Rome, Christianity and the laws that spilt into it.. Early medieval Christianity was very political.
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Again, I agree politics was always a dirty business. But even by the worst standards, political dynasties such as the Medici and the Borgias surely take the biscuit. The reign of Pope Alexander VI and Pope Leo X was a time of such unprecedented nepotism and corruption, that it ultimately resulted in the Protestant Schism.