Theory
In An Inner Asian Approach to the Historical Geography of China (1947), Lattimore explored the system through which humanity affects the environment and is changed by it, and concluded that civilization is molded by its own impact on the environment. He lists the following pattern:
- A primitive society pursues some agricultural activities, but is aware that it has many limitations.
- Growing and evolving, the society begins to change the environment. For example, depleting its game supply and wild crops, it begins to domesticate animals and plants. It deforests land to create room for these activities.
- The environment changes, offering new opportunities. For example, it becomes grasslands.
- Society changes in response, and reacts to the new opportunities as a new society. For example, the once-nomads build permanent settlements and shift from a hunter-gatherer mentality to a farming society culture.
- The reciprocal process continues, offering new variations.
Read more about this topic: Owen Lattimore
Famous quotes containing the word theory:
“Won’t this whole instinct matter bear revision?
Won’t almost any theory bear revision?
To err is human, not to, animal.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“By the “mud-sill” theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be—all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly.... Free labor insists on universal education.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)