Parallels Between Ancient and Modern Times

The mandate of History can be described as studying our ancestor’s actions, successes and failures with the intent of students attaining the ability to understand parallels between modern times and our ancestral past. This study is conducted in hopes of enlightening the learner’s mind, in order to avert repeating the mistakes made in the past. Norman Cantor was a Professor at New York University where he taught History, Sociology, and Comparative Literature. After he retired from teaching, he wrote a series of books illuminating his life’s work. One of his last published literary works was, “The Last Knight, The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era”. In this profound and deeply enlightening novel he discussed the life of John of Gaunt and his family, as well as the wealth and privileges that were awarded to them for simply being born into nobility. To an educated mind, he successfully drew parallels between the elites of high society today and that of this landed aristocracy of the middle ages, not just in a comparative analysis of their wealth but in the desire to maintain the status quo in regards to the division of the social classes.

The study of the social interactions of society led to some very prominent theories on the social structure of a given society. Karl Marx, who was considered to be the father of conflict theory, claimed that in any society there is a division of social classes, where one group gets and maintains control of the other groups, oftentimes exploiting those of lesser social standing. This consequently leads to a conflict of the social classes in a struggle to gain or maintain power. The names of these distinct social classes have changed over time but their defining characte...

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...t supply of similarities between ancient cultures and modern times. There will always be a division of the social classes. Power, prestige and wealth for the most part seem to be cohesive in nature. As with any form of power over another there will be abuses of the power that is given. Even though the ability to remove this abuser from power has become easier over the centuries, there is still some discrimination amongst the social classes. The only weapon capable of bringing an end to social injustice is an enlightened well-educated mind. It is made evident by Norman Cantor’s book that as much as society seems to advance and change, its social constructs remain relatively unchanged.

Works Cited

Cantor, Norman F. The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the

Modern Era. New York: Free Press, 2004. Print. (pg. 191, 168, 40, 214)