After the agricultural revolution, human societies grew ever larger and more complex, while the imagined constructs sustaining the social order also became more elaborate. Myths and fictions accustomed people, nearly from the moment  of birth, to think in certain ways, to behave in accordance with certain standards, to want certain things, and to observe certain rules. They thereby created artificial instincts that enabled millions of strangers to cooperate effectively. The network of artificial instincts is called culture

作者这章开篇联系了Part Two ， The Agricultural Revolution,先总结了前面一大板块的总体结论，之后联系了Part Three, The Unification of Humankind的大概，把我们顺利带入到另一个大板块里。

从这段内容上看，脱离文化概念本身又刷新了对文化的另一种认知，关于文化的definitions无所谓好坏，仅仅是不同。

Each human group had its own world view and system of social, legal and political arrangement that ran as smoothly as the planets going around the sun.They just kept going at the same pace and in the same direction.. Only a force applied from outside could change them.

Today, most scholars of culture have concluded that the opposite is true. Every culture has its typical belief, norms and values, but these are in constant flux.…Culture are constantly trying to reconcile these contradictions, and this process fuels change.

稳定发展的文化尚且如此，更何况我们人呢，面对瞬息万变的“人流车流信息流”，要每天update才能应对我们的contradiction吧~从文化的发展，人的历史的发展不难看出，不做任何改变和调整就没有继续发展的理由，道理都知道，怎么执行并且一直执行下去才是关键吧。

面对处于constant flux情境里的culture,作者产生这样的疑问;does history have a direction?在下文中也同样给出他的答案;small, simple culture gradually coalesce into bigger and more complex civilisations, so that the world contains fewer and fewer mega-culture, each of which is bigger and more complex.

个人很认同这个观点，无论是从中国文化的发展历程来看还是从单个人的发展角度看，就像水这种物质一样的存在，简单的小部分要进入大环境里的熔炉才得以发展自身壮大自身，当然在这个过程里，简单的且单一的存在也是bigger and more complex。

但是，在这里就产生了疑问，世界上小众的文化是不是会趋于消失的状态，大的文化是不是会逐渐兼并融合其他文化，到无限大的最后，变成了只有一个文化体系的存在，是the biggest and the most complex吗？那历史中出现的分久必合合久必分的现象也是一个发展规律呀，就算是现如今也还在上演这样的戏码，比如英国脱欧，特朗普上台等等一系列国际重要事件都表明，合久必分？越来越趋于bigger and more complex这样的文化也逐渐意识到自身的独特性开始想要保持自己的identity而拒绝进入大熔炉，那之后的the arrow of history又该是何去何从…

然而，作者给出的观点是这样的;these break-up are temporary reversals in an inexorable trend towards unity.

The next three chapters discuss how money,  empires and universal religion spread, and how they laid the foundation of the united world of today. We begin with the story of the greatest conqueror in history, a conqueror possessed of extreme tolerance and adaptability, thereby turning people into ardent disciples. This conqueror is money.

很好奇作者接下来是怎么阐述这三者间的“故事”~

当然，作者一针见血地指出money的魅力，我们并不能说是“拜金”，而是历史发展到这个点的一个自然阶段，我个人并不排斥反而很欢喜，很多事用钱就能解决，极大的便利了我们的生活也极大地简化了我们的生活方式，让事情做起来更高效便捷。那~就努力挣钱呗~