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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3252674, member: 93416&quot;]Nearly 30 years back I came across the interesting book by Donald E Brown reviewed here</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40697993?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40697993?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" rel="nofollow">https://www.jstor.org/stable/40697993?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents</a></p><p><br /></p><p>He asks the question – why do some societies write history and others do not/ His answer takes a very broad brush approach – leaving many caveats – but I found it interesting, and an extension to it I think answers the sort of question you ask.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Romans by and large wrote history, and had a centralised government that attempted to impact rather directly on individuals, and we see this reflected on the coinage itself.</p><p><br /></p><p>Medieval Hindus wrote much more about religion, myth and philosophy rather than history. Government was more a matter of custom and religion than direct central rule. That too is reflected in the coinage.</p><p><br /></p><p>It’s not just Rome vs India of course. The Chinese and Moslems write history, and tend to personalise politics and coin issue. Its not just India that substituted myth instead. There was a drift from history to myth in Europe from the dark ages right down to the renaissance, and sign of this in the coinage. England had kings called Henry, Richard and John, but the pennies call them all Henry (to save confusion as the old joke goes).</p><p><br /></p><p>There are lots of holes in this account – opportunities to point to contradictory facts. But still I find it valuable. Probably what impresses me most is the way the “first historian” Herodotus is kind of created by a society that had already started to use coin, and, in the way I read him, almost gives an account of the history of the politics of the spread of coin use.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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