Ancient Chinese Civilization: the Past, Present and Future

Ancient Chinese Civilization: The Past, Present and Future

Vennis Nash

Professor Michael Briere

HUM 111 – World Cultures I

December 2, 2012

Ancient Chinese contributions and inventions have helped to shape our world. The Chinese civilization is responsible for many innovative ideas and creations that are widely used in today’s world. Some of these unique contributions include silk, paper, pasta, gun powder, alcohol, fireworks, parachutes and the invention of deep drilling for gas. While all of these contributions and inventions are valuable to today’s society; there are several of these items that are ingenious and most relevant to our lives today. These particular contributions have had a profound impact on the history of the world.

The most relevant contributions from the Chinese include paper, alcohol, gun powder/fireworks and the invention of the process for deep drilling for gas. The next few paragraphs will discuss and identify the relevance of each of these contributions from Ancient Chinese civilizations.

Can you imagine a world without paper? If paper did not exist we would not have money, mail, newspapers, magazines, textbooks, labels for canned goods, or boxes for most of the products we use each day. Paper impacts a major part of life around the world. Research has found that Americans consume more than 700 pounds of paper a year (15 Facts About The Paper Industry, 2007). Further research indicates Eastern Europeans and Latin Americans use about 100 pounds of paper annually and Australians use 300 pounds per person annually (15 Facts About The Paper Industry, 2007). Despite the fact that we are moving away from the use of paper money and becoming more cautious about our use of paper products in office and home environments paper is still being used around the world. The invention of paper many years ago continues to be relevant in 2012 around the world.

According to Chinese legend,...