How Hyperpowers Rise In Amy Chua's 'Day Of Empire'

“Day of Empire” Essay
By Matt Kreiss
Ward 2nd “Day of Empire” by Amy Chua begins to discuss the overall topic of how hyperpowers rise and more importantly how they fall throughout history. The thesis shows that the hyperpowers were “extraordinarily pluralistic and tolerant during its rise to preeminence”. Tolerance is by far the biggest reason the hyperpowers of that time including, the Mongolians, the Spanish, the Romans, the British, the Chinese and even the hyperpowers of present time got to where they are. The Achaemenids was the Great Persian Empire that was founded in 559 BC. The founder was Cyrus the Great and his empire lasted over two centuries. Cyrus was tolerant, especially through religion. This is how the Persians were able to survive. A strategy Cyrus used to gain the trust of people he conquered was going to honor the temple, cults, and local gods of their culture. The Persian world
power was passed to Alexander, in 324 BC. He was the son of the Macedonian King Phillip. To the Achaemenids, tolerance was just a means of good politics, but with this tolerance the Persian Empire developed a wide variety of diverse cultures and religions. Having this cultural diversity made for a stable economy, because the different cultures would trade and export/import their different goods. “The Achaemenid Kings turned cultural diversity into a source of synergy and strength.” (Pg. 18). Rome was founded by Romulus in 753 BC, the Roman Empire lasted for an amazing two millennia’s. The Romans literally set a new and very high standard for being tolerant. Chua expresses in this chapter that being a Roman was the best thing that could happen to you in their time period. Chua also shows us that having a big diverse society can lead to intolerance, which would be the fall of an empire. An example could be the Jews, after the Romans befriended the Jews, they revolted against them because the Roman Emperor Titus violated sacred Jewish temples, which is a sign of intolerance. The Roman Empire had a very extensive economy, reaching even the Far East. The Roman economy grew so big that by 289 BC, they had to develop bronze coins to meet the commercial needs of the empire. Being Roman was extremely beneficial socially, for example just being a Roman citizen meant that your death punishment would be less painful if a crime was committed. The Romans viewed themselves as superior to other races, perhaps the reason for their inevitable down fall. In the third chapter Chua uses her personal experience of her visits to China because of her mixed heritage, to prove a valid point. Buddhism spread too much of China in the year 618, this became a very influential factor for the rise of the Chinese Empire. The Empires initial start to form was with the help of Emperor Taizhong, who ruled from the year 626 to 649. Taizhong’s empire, the Tang Dynasty, rose to power and lost it all again because of a nomadic group, known as the Turks who forced Tang armies to leave China and took control of the Silk Road. During this rebellion against the Tang Dynasty, called the An Lushan rebellion, China used much tolerance to blend with the barbarians, which allowed for the control of other territories. Chinese typically do not combine their blood with other non Chinese because they believe it to be contaminating their “pure” blood line. That intolerance is what caused for the ultimate fall of the empire. The effects of the Chinese empire were largely social and political factors. Major topics through the Chinese reign include religion and bloodline, which was very important to the Chinese culture. Bloodline was an extremely big deal, because the Chinese think of their blood as pure. This led to a few political factors as well about Emperors and Empresses being mixed races. Present day China has not fully changed the way they think about this topic. Chua explains that they are still very much the same in her visit to her ancestral roots in China. When she was there the locals started to take picture of her daughter simply because she was mixed and not pure in their eyes. A boy named Temjuin was born in the year 1162 and later became the great and powerful Genghis Khan.
He was the strong foundation of the Mongol Empire. With his skill and technique on conquering other territories he served as a role model for other future rulers. Genghis Khans strategy of very barbaric fighting styles and showing no mercy to his opponents gave the Mongols their terrified name throughout China. A strategy he would use consisted of him terrifying and destroying the neighboring villages of the capitols he was attempting to conqueror, then the Mongols who survived the raids went on to put fear into the next city. A reason Genghis Khans army grew to be so superior over others is because he would recruit the scholars, and other educated people from the places he claimed. The Mongol Empire expanded far across China but Genghis Khan only conquered a small portion. It was his grand children who fully expanded the empire. In 1251, Mongke became the Great Khan and his reign was considered the greatest wave of Mongol conquest to sweep the
earth. The Mongols were nomads so they weren’t strong economically. They conquered many riches but didn’t know what to do with them. The Mongols didn’t have a strong central government instead they were spread out to all the territories they possessed. Sometimes they had to take over new land just because they were out of food. The Mongol Empire showed other great nations that a barbaric society could become a powerful hyperpower, this made for different social effects. This also allowed the Mongols to take their enemies by surprise. Genghis Khan turned these barbarians into one of the greatest Empires to rule over China and into an extraordinary empire that would go down in history.