The Archregimancy wrote:And Neo Prutenia is in de Nile; though better that, I suppose, than in Seine. I'd have written a longer point by point deconstruction of his post, but given how busy I am right now, I've sacrificed my usual rigorous standards for the sake of two cheap puns, one of which I wasn't even the first person to use.
I wouldn't call them cheap, they are quite germane. Still, puns are the second lowest form of humour. I would also advise you to spare yourself the effort and skip on "point by point deconstruction" of my post, unless it's for the sake of others, for a very simple reason. I'm pretty much indifferent to (any) history in the pre-Enlightenment era. Before the Enlightenment we only had a mostly cosmetic difference in culture, awareness, and civilisation. That movement was the pivotal change in the course of human history, the one that established all guiding principles of today and shattered previous ways of thinking (to name a few examples - secularism, the modern nation state, ideologies, the establishment of the scientific method as basic principle in research and, well, science, etc). I don't see any particular differences in any culture or even oikumene beyond cosmetic in the period prior that that event.
Now, there were proto-Enlightenment periods before the one we know, but they never took off. The Renaissance as an example, or the pre-Mongol invasion period in Islamic history. Nevertheless, this pivotal moment happened in Europe first, and it coincided with arguably the first time we can talk about "world" history, since the same Europe had linked the entire world together roughly at the same time, mostly due to their colonial efforts in the western hemisphere and their mercantile enterprises in the eastern hemisphere. I think it's fair to assume that we can't talk about either "world" or "human" history before that point, the time the actual world, or the entirety of (contemporary) mankind had established a common "present", that is started reliably communicating on a global, general level. So, any history before that point, is in my (never) humble opinion neither world history nor human history, only localised history. I'm not saying it isn't important, or irrelevant (I'm just personally mostly indifferent), but we can't take it into the equation. Or at least I won't.
While some might get from my post that I have a eurocentric view or regard history through the lens of European history, this is not the case. I merely equate (most) relevant history, that is world history or human history to "The time span from first reliable global communication to now", which we can assume to be 400 to 500 years. Yes, this means that the European nations can a lionshare of attention in my opinion, but they just had luck. Looking at the results, however, it's those values which formed in that period which were exported throughout the whole world, and it was done by the people who connected the entire world into one community, so I, and with that I mean just I personally, equate "most important/influential river in human history" to most relevant European river in the last 400 to 500 years, which I argue to be the Rhine river. And this is just a "river". The Atlantic and Indian oceans are way more important to world history than just one river.
Also, wine. I'm sorry, but the Grapes beat Wheat. The Nile is fine and dandy, but neither side of that river has added any meaningful wine to the palette. What's the point in even having history and civilisation if we don't get wine out of it?