(Ehret’s Redefinition of “Civilization” — Ehret Does Use the Word “Civilization” but Only in the Way One Applies “Western Civilization” — Referring to a Set …

(Ehret’s Redefinition of “Civilization” — Ehret Does Use the Word “Civilization” but Only in the Way One Applies “Western Civilization” — Referring to a Set of Peoples and Societies Who Share Many Fundamental Cultural Ideas and Practices Because Their Cultural Worlds Are Rooted in a Shared More Ancient Historical Tradition, a “Culture Area” Being a Collection of Peoples from Different Such Civilizations Who Through Centuries of Cross-Cultural Interaction Have Undergone Cultural Convergence, This Lens Encouraging Inclusive Attention to Both Intangible Culture and Material Life and to the Varied Ways Humans Have Responded to Their Experiences Across Time and Around the Globe — “That After All Is What History Is About”): In his own writings Ehret does use the word “civilization,” but only in the way that one applies the term “Western civilization” — as referring to a set of peoples and societies who share many fundamental cultural ideas and practices because their cultural worlds are rooted in a shared, more ancient historical tradition. From this perspective, a “culture area” is a collection of peoples from different such civilizations who, because of centuries of cross-cultural interaction, have undergone cultural convergence by building on a mix of ideas and practices coming from those originally separate, more ancient historical backgrounds. Looking at history through the lens of ancient, common-origin historical traditions and of culture areas encourages us to be inclusive in our reach. Doing so broadens and deepens our historical understanding of humanity. It focuses our attention on the histories of both intangible culture and material life — on the cultural experiences of peoples, both varied and shared, all around the world; on the varied and differing ways we humans have responded to those experiences across time and around the globe; and on the range of beliefs and cultural mechanisms that people, in all our human variety, have created to cope with and give meaning to their encounters with the world around them. “That, after all, is what history is about.” And with that sentence — quiet, unadorned, final — Ehret closes the argument. Not with a flourish, not with a peroration, but with a simple declaration of purpose. History is about the full range of human experience. Not the experience of kings alone, or of monument builders alone, or of the peoples whom the Western academy has deemed “civilized.” All of it. Everyone. Everywhere. That is what this book has demonstrated across six chapters and three hundred thousand years: that the human story is one story, told in ten thousand voices, and that Africa’s voice — the oldest, the most various, the most consequential — has been silenced for too long. The silence ends here.