I never realized the plague was so beneficial to peasants. They got a wage hike, more political freedom, and a chance to climb the feudal ladder. All it took were a few infected flees to wipe out half of Europe's population. Despite the plague's horrific impact – it took Europe two centuries to restore its 14th century population – society kept progressing.
This trend appears to be hallmark of the last millennium. Even during the bloodiest periods of history, European society was advancing.
Five-hundred years ago, Martin Luther unknowingly began centuries of religious wars with the posting of his 95 Theses. But he also fostered the birth of Protestantism that would liberate millions from the stranglehold of a corrupt Catholic Church.
The American and French Revolutions of the 18th century were bloody and destructive, yet they would re-make history, opening the door to greater equality and the spread of democracy worldwide.
While we would've been much better off without Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini, World War II kicked off an era of economic expansion and relative peace that has lasted to this day.
The unspoken conclusion of Ian Mortimer's book, Centuries of Change, is that societies are resilient and generally on the upswing. From a Westerner's point of view, anyway.
That's an important footnote because the past millennium was far less positive for non-Europeans. For the natives of Hispaniola, an island today shared by Haiti and Dominican Republic, Christopher Columbus was not a hero but a tyrant of epic distinction. His merciless acts of torture and genocide eliminated 80% of the island's people in a few short years. The purpose of his travels were not just to discover, but to conquer.
This pattern would repeat itself across North and South America, Asia and Africa, as European nations became maritime superpowers. The technological prowess of the European continent was too much for any primitive society to overcome. Destruction was exported across the globe in various forms, but namely through guns and disease.
Slavery, which had been abolished in Europe by the 11th Century, also made a resurgence in the 16th Century thanks to world travelers. It was only through the lens of the Enlightenment and moral crusaders of the 19th Century that slavery would end. As we know, it took a four-year civil war.
Here again, one could make the twisted argument that death and destruction bore the seeds of a greater future. But for whom? As the prime beneficiaries of this progress, we tend to downplay the significance of the consequent collateral damage, a euphemism too often used in the discourse of war.
The millions that were killed for the sake of a better world may not agree with our positive revisionist history, no more than residential school survivors would suggest their oppression was worth being "educated" by Europeans.
Humanity has been cruel and continues to be. Today's advancements in human rights, economics and democracy are remarkable in light of the last millennium's horrors.
But they are and will continue to be tested.
History assures us of that.
