[Jeff Lebowski]

That differs from other cultures how?

It is the frequency of the violence - Frankopan states the historical records shows that with the civilizations of the east, after the violence there were prolonged (or longer in comparison to the western world) of peace. It's in his book - more examples and more explanation with citations so perhaps you would enjoy the read (and different perspective).

I believe his position can be summed up (I will not do a good job of this so apologies): In the East with the silk roads trade and exchange were carried out amongst differing cultures.
The west however would travel to a place and build a fort. Then they would essentially steal the riches - and this was enforced with violence and legitimated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

Frankopan hardly downplays conflict and violence, but he argues that such was the commercial vitality of the Silk Roads that matters of faith were often shoved aside in the pursuit of riches. In another bit of provocative revisionism, Frankopan rescues the Mongols from the contempt of posterity. These notorious baddies were actually enlightened statesmen, Frankopan contends, who used violence selectively (and yes, brutally) to bring their subjects into line. Hardly barbarians, they were savvy in their business dealings and governing style.

The fiscal conservatives of their day, the Mongols did brisk business with traders from Genoa and Venice in the 13th century. “Sensitive pricing and a deliberate policy of keeping taxes low were symptomatic of the bureaucratic nous of the Mongol Empire, which gets too easily lost beneath the images of violence and wanton destruction. In fact, the Mongols success lay not in indiscriminate brutality but in their willingness to compromise and co-operate, thanks to the relentless effort to sustain a system that renewed central control.”

If forbearance (traffic in slavery aside) in the pursuit of riches was generally the rule in Central Asia, the same thing can’t be said about the European empires that rose in the 15th and 16th centuries. These seaborne ventures – first Portugal and Spain, then Great Britain – profoundly altered the balance of world power.

The silver flowing from the New World coursed through European capitals, as a powerful middle class with disposable income to spend and invest rose up. The coffers of the Ottoman Empire filled with revenue from trade. Frankopan highlights a golden age of Ottoman architecture and the triumphs of the Safavid dynasty in Persia. Isfahan became one the glories of the Muslim world, “like a paradise”, one observer who visited the city noted, “with charming buildings, parks in which the perfume of the flowers uplifted the spirit, and streams and gardens”. Yet, such cultural richness came at a price, as thousands of miles away, the Americas were stripped of its natural resources, its indigenous people wiped out or enslaved. Frankopan takes a dim view of the European colonial project and Europe in general. For much of the first half of his account, Europe is a backwater – it was the civilisations of the east that mattered. He contends that the rise of Europe was a disturbing phenomenon, because here was a continent that was almost pathologically violent, its constituent powers constantly at war with one another.

Of political philosopher Thomas Hobbes and his great work Leviathan, Frankopan remarks, “only a European author could have concluded that the natural state of man was to be in a constant state of violence; and only a European author would have been right”. This is fair enough, up to a point. But he does not dig deep enough. The last third of Frankopan’s otherwise stunning book flags a bit as he explains the decline of the civilisations of the Silk Roads. His research remains impeccable but his argument is not as sophisticated or supple as it is in his preceding sections.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts...-asia-1.133255

-PS: those crusaders were not gallant knights fighting for their faith (as described) rather low lifes, that had no prospects and were looking for some redemption or getting absolved from their crimes. The carnage they wrought was unique.

Using a wide range of primary sources, including several poorly exploited accounts in Arabic, Crowley paints a picture of a dysfunctional, argumentative, petty world that attracted fools, mercenaries, charlatans and — as the shocked Jacques de Vitry, the scholar and archbishop of Acre, put it — foreigners who had run away from their own lands because of “various appalling crimes”. Occasionally someone important and powerful would turn their attention to the east; but results were usually fleeting — sometimes even counter-productive.

https://www.ft.com/content/f16c6f3e-...0-026e07cbe5b4