CHENG, Rita K.L., HUI, Ka Yin, Journey through History – New Topic Based Series 1, Hong Kong, Aristo Educational Press Ltd., 256 p.

 

Journey through History – New Topic Based Series 1 is a history textbook for Secondary 1 students in Hong Kong. It features the “birth and interactions of regional civilizations”, the first of three big chronological themes that in their entirety make up the junior secondary history course. In the following years, students would be exposed to the themes “growth and expansion of the West” (S2) and the move “towards a multi-polar and interdependent world” (S3). The present book is divided into four larger topics that students will discuss during one school year. This review discusses the volume in light of current, mostly Anglophone, debates on world history as a field of research and teaching.

 

The first topic is entitled “Human Needs: Past and Present”. It discusses human history from the beginnings of humankind until the last millennium before the common era. The account therefore starts with the appearance of the first hominids and humans and omits larger contextualisations that could go back until the Big Bang. Students learn the out-of-Africa hypothesis, that is the dominant explanation that various hominid species emerged in Africa and migrated to other continents in successive waves. A map on page 11 provides examples of different forms of hominid and human species that lived at different places throughout Eurasia, thereby making readers belief in a multiregional origin of humans and inducing students to think that different forms of homo sapiens emerged at different places. A stronger focus on the migration of homo sapiens from Africa to other continents, and a fun related map, would help students to better understand the spread of our species over the globe. The topic then introduces the main characteristics of the long Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age, when humans were hunters and gatherers, as well as the subsequent Neolithic, when people started to perform agriculture and to live in villages. 

 

One misses the information that this transition was crucially enabled by environmental factors, that is the end of the ice age. Subsequently the topic introduces the notion of “civilisation” with reference to societies that emerged from 4000BCE onwards. Civilised societies were urbanised, technologically advanced, used writing systems and had sophisticated systems of government and religion. Notwithstanding the need for simplification for S1 students, one would have hoped for a more reflexive discussion of the term “civilisation”, as this notion, particularly in its opposition to “barbarism”, has been repeatedly abused during the last centuries. The topic then outlines the four major early civilisations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus valley and the Huanghe valley and even provides a short outlook on the Americas. In its attempt to more or less evenly discuss the first organised societies throughout Afro-Eurasia, this topic presents a comparative history of world civilizations. In this topic, China is discussed as one part of the world.

 

The next topic “The Development of European civilization” covers the period from ancient Greece to the end of the Middle Ages. For the Greek period the city states Sparta and Athens are compared to each other, for the Roman times the evolution from republic to empire is explained. The topic pays special attention to major political concepts, such as oligarchy, democracy and republic. Important civilizational achievements, for example in law, art architecture and philosophy (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) are also presented. Subsequently, feudal society, the manorial system and knighthood are introduced as main characteristics of medieval Europe. For the final centuries of the Middle Ages the chapter also approaches the rise of cities and universities. This is awkwardly followed by a separate discussion of Christianity and its strong influences that had not been mentioned before and forces the authors to jump back to the beginning of the common era. The plague pandemic, or Black Death, in the fourteenth century, appears as one of the events concluding the Middle Ages. Other classical societies that were contemporaneous to ancient Greece and Rome, such as the Han dynasty in China or the Mauryan Empire in India, are not mentioned. Providing a genealogy from ancient Greece and Rome to medieval (and thereby modern) Europe and largely omitting connections to other continents, this is a clearly Eurocentric topic. With its Western civilisation narrative it is the most classical chapter of the textbook. However, there are two contexts where other world regions appear in this chapter. A short comparison is made of the migration movements that brought the Western Roman Empire and the Jin dynasty to fall at roughly the same historical moment. Secondly, the chapter evokes new techniques from the Arab world that contributed to the end of the Middle Ages. This latter assertion, mentioned in only one short sentence, is significant, as it undermines the supposed Eurocentric continuity from the ancient and medieval societies to European early modernity. Instead of gaining strength through itself, Europe only gained strength because it imported Eastern (Arab) knowledge. The rationale for this idea is provided in the next chapter.

 

 “The Rise of Islamic Civilization and Cultural Interactions between Europe and Asia in Medieval Times” has been newly introduced to the curriculum. The presentation of Islamic civilisations is only one concern of the topic, for it largely deals with cultural contacts among the societies of Eurasia. Accordingly, the topic starts out by explaining the emergence of Islam, its religious foundations as well as the split between its Sunni and Shia forms. The “Arabian Empire” – a term that is not commonly used in research literature – is followed from its early expansion until its distraction centuries later trough the Reconquista on the Iberian peninsula and the invasion of the Mongols. The civilisational achievements of the Islamic world in the fields of mathematics, medicine, literature etc. are pointed out. Beyond its intrinsic characteristics, the Islamic world is presented as a central crossroads for cultural contacts in Eurasia, well connected to the land and maritime Silk Roads. Students learn, for example, that the knowledge to produce paper was one of the technologies that travelled from China through the Arabian realm to Europe. Underlining the superiority of Islamic science and highlighting its contribution to the ulterior rise of Europe, the topic introduces an anti-Eurocentric perspective. This becomes most obvious when the treatment of wounded patients in Christian Europe and the Islamic world is contrasted: In the former, attendees just prayed and observed the patient perishing, while in the latter the treatment was based on scientific rationality and often saved the patient. By stressing cross-border connections and the circulation of peoples, goods and ideas, this topic is for sure the historiographically most innovative of the volume. The topic presents how China was connected through land and sea lanes to its westerly neihbours, but China (and India) are not discussed as such, no mention is made, for example, of the Tang dynasty.

 

The final topic introduces the “History, Culture and Heritage of Early Hong Kong Region”. It presents the first settlements on the territory of today’s Hong Kong and follows a set of key traditions and social structures until today. It is repeatedly mentioned that “Mainlanders came to live in Hong Kong”. Such terms are confusing and misleading for time periods when entities such as a Chinese “Mainland” and “Hong Kong” did not exist. Much of the topic then talks about the development of local festivals during the last decades. This sudden shift from macrohistorical observations on Eurasia to an ethnographically enriched, and chronologically disconnected, local history is surely problematic. Of course, this chapter reflects the demands of the current secondary curriculum. After all, however, one can ask why Hong Kong is treated as part of world history. It might make more sense to integrate Hong Kong history with Chinese history. Another solution could be to use the Hong Kong context to illustrate the macrohistorical developments that were the object of the previous part, but such an approach might be equally challenging.

 

The four topics of the volume present four different narratives, grounded in four different historiographic traditions: civilizational comparison, Western civilisation, Eurasian connections and local history. The textbook thereby tells four different stories that do not combine to a coherent ensemble, nor do they logically follow up on each other. No meaningful connections are made between the different parts and the students will have difficulties making these connections themselves. They might be left confused and disoriented.

 

The volume in this sense reflects the troubled identity of Hong Kong. Hong Kong, as seen through this textbook, is drawn between its past as a colony under Anglo-Saxon domination, its aspired future of newly increased Eurasian connectivity and a past of local traditions. One can even say that the various topics of the volume represent different political projects. European civilisation is introduced as championing democracy with a direct link being – rather anachronistically, many would argue – made between Athens and the American and French revolutions. Such a framing ultimately legitimises the ongoing global domination of the transatlantic powers. On the other hand, the topic on cultural contacts centred on the Arabian sphere highlights economic, technological and cultural exchange in Eurasia. Europe here appears as a long-time inferior backwater that could only rise because it adopted the Chinese and Arabic knowledge. Such interpretations are by now common sense, but in this context they express the resurgence of those parts of Eurasia that had for a long time been under European domination. The brilliant medieval past announces the future. The new topic on Islam therefore not only talks about Arabic civilisation, but introduces a complete new way of understanding Eurasian history. It is not surprising that here mention is made of the “One Belt One Road” project. This topic therefore inscribes itself in the construction of new links throughout Eurasia under China’s leadership. In addition, the Hong Kong topic stands for a localist approach, although its political ambitions are not clearly spelled out.

 

Maybe this cacophony actually represents world history at its best. Human life developed in a chaotic way and every attempt to put it in a coherent narrative signifies an act of power that entails many problems. Still, Hong Kong students might profit from a more cohesive overall narrative throughout the secondary history curriculum. One could also try to treat all world regions more equally.

 

In this textbook China is often not presented as part of world history. Of course, this can be explained by the curricular division into “history” and a distinct “Chinese history” which constitute different subjects in Hong Kong. Still, students might profit from studying China in a global context which would allow them to discover the world starting from their own cultural background. This is not only true for the Eurasian connections of the Tang dynasty. The Han and Roman empires also invite enlightening comparisons during the period of classical societies.

 

A final word can be said about the style of the textbook. One can feel how the authors tried to use a simple language, making the text accessible to students. However, the explanations are often confusing. Many passive construction make the text cryptic rather than easy. Here and there a little more text would be necessary to better explain complex issues. The authors should trust more in the intelligence of their student audience.