ebook img

The Uniqueness of Western Civilization PDF

540 Pages·2012·10.59 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview The Uniqueness of Western Civilization

Th e Uniqueness of Western Civilization Studies in Critical Social Sciences Series Editor David Fasenfest Wayne State University Editorial Board Chris Chase-Dunn, University of California-Riverside G. William Domhoff , University of California-Santa Cruz Colette Fagan, Manchester University Martha Gimenez, University of Colorado, Boulder Heidi Gottfried, Wayne State University Karin Gottschall, University of Bremen Bob Jessop, Lancaster University Rhonda Levine, Colgate University Jacqueline O’Reilly, University of Brighton Mary Romero, Arizona State University Chizuko Ueno, University of Tokyo VOLUME 28 Th e Uniqueness of Western Civilization By Ricardo Duchesne LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011 On the cover: Th e Horned helmet, Vikso, Zealand, Denmark, Late Bronze Age, 11th-10th BC. Photo: Lennart Larsen, the National Museum of Denmark. Th is book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Duchesne, Ricardo. Th e uniqueness of Western civilization / by Ricardo Duchesne. p. cm. -- (Studies in critical social sciences, ISSN 1573-4234 ; v. 28) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-19248-5 (hbk. : alk. paper) 1. Civilization, Western. 2. Civilization, Western--Historiography. 3. Civilization, Western--Philosophy. 4. Eurocentrism. 5. Multiculturalism. 6. Liberty--Western countries--History. I. Title. CB245.D757 2011 909'.09821--dc22 2010047453 ISSN 1573-4234 ISBN 978 90 04 19248 5 Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Th e Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Th e Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. CONTENTS Preface .........................................................................................................ix Chapter One Th e Fall of Western Civilization and the Rise of Multicultural World History .....................................................1 Early World Historians and the Idea of Progress ....................................1 Termination of the Western Civilization Course ....................................4 World History Texts from the 1920s to the 1940s ...................................6 World History Texts in the 1960s ...........................................................11 Rise of Dependency Th eory ....................................................................13 Wallerstein’s World-System and Critical Th eory ..................................16 Franz Boas’s Relativism and Marvin Harris’s Cultural Materialism ...........................................................................19 Th e Conversion of William McNeill: From “Rise of the West” to “Interactive Webs” ................................................................23 Cultural Relativism, Scientifi c Materialism, and Humanism Combined .........................................................................27 Th e Exclusion of Sociobiology ................................................................32 Kant’s “unsocial sociability” ....................................................................38 Progress and the State of Nature .............................................................42 Dynamic Man versus Reactive Man ......................................................45 Th e Ascendancy of Multicultural World Historians ............................51 Patrick Manning: It Takes an African Village to Write World History .......................................................................................56 Disparaging the West: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto ..............................62 Chapter Two Eurocentrism over Sinocentrism ................................71 Th e Basic Empirical Claims of the Revisionists ...................................71 Th e Two Arguments of Re-Orient. .........................................................74 One Asian World System? .......................................................................79 Th e Role of Colonial Profi ts ....................................................................83 Trade, Power, and Liberty: the Secret of British Imperial Success ...................................................................................................87 China’s “high-level equilibrium trap” ....................................................93 Th e “Geographical Limits” of China’s Post-1400 Extensive Growth .................................................................................96 vi contents Was Eighteenth Century Europe following a Malthusian path? .....................................................................................................102 Was traditional China a Low Fertility Regime? ..................................108 Conclusion ..............................................................................................115 Chapter Th ree Whence the Industrial Divergence? .......................117 Th e Basic Propositions of Pomeranz’s “Great Divergence” ...............117 Malthus was Born too Late in a World too New ................................123 End of the Old Malthusian Regime in England .................................130 Standard-of-Living Debate ....................................................................136 New World Resources versus European Resources ...........................140 Was Cheap Coal Suffi cient or Necessary? ...........................................146 Dynamic Rather than Static Comparisons .........................................151 China’s Ecological Endowments and Imperial Windfalls .................153 Chapter Four Th e Continuous Creativity of Europe ......................165 Hobson and the Eastern Origins of the West .....................................165 Eurocentric Historians ...........................................................................167 Imitation, Innovation, and Invention ..................................................172 Revolution in Time ................................................................................174 Th e Printing Revolution ........................................................................179 Th e Science and Chivalry of Henry the Navigator ............................182 Columbus and the Cartographic Revolution ......................................189 Th e Industrial Enlightenment ...............................................................195 Goldstone’s “Happy Chance” versus Jacob’s Scientifi c Ethos ............199 Contingency versus Long Term Patterns ............................................203 Europe’s Solo Act: A Mercantile-Militaristic State? ...........................206 Military Revolutions in Europe 1300-1800 .........................................209 Th e Inter-State System ...........................................................................214 Greek Hoplites and the “Western Way of War” ..................................219 Mercantilism and the Birth of Political Economy ..............................222 Liberty and the States System ...............................................................226 Chapter Five Th e ‘Rise’ of Western Reason and Freedom .............231 Th e West is more than Wealth and Power ..........................................231 Th e Cultural Poverty of the Revisionists .............................................239 Th e Cultural Richness of Max Weber ..................................................246 Judaism and its Contribution to Western Rationalism .....................254 contentvsii Schluchter on the Genetic Developmental Dynamic of the West ...............................................................................................260 Habermas and the Rationalization of Substantive Values .................265 Th e Liberal Democratic Ideals of the West and its Historiography ...................................................................................269 Chapter Six Th e Restlessness of the Western Spirit from a Hegelian Perspective .......................................................................285 Change without Progress in the East ...................................................285 Measuring Human Accomplishments .................................................289 Th e Historiography of Europe’s Revolutions ......................................297 Phenomenology of the Western Spirit .................................................302 Hegel and the Geographical Basis of the “infi nite thirst” of the West...........................................................................................308 Hegel and the Beginnings of Western Reason ....................................312 Hegel on the “desire” of World-Historical Individuals ......................315 Th e Master-Slave Dialectic and its Historical Reference ...................318 Hegel’s Account of the State of Nature .................................................325 Kojeve and the fi ght to the death for pure prestige ............................328 Spengler and the Faustian Soul of the West ........................................333 McNeill and the Indo-European Roots of the West’s Warrior Ethos .....................................................................................338 Chapter Seven Th e Aristocratic Egalitarianism of Indo-Europeans and the Primordial Origins of Western Civilization ......................................................................341 Th e Founding Fathers of the West: Democratic Citizens or Aristocratic Warriors? ..................................................................341 Indo-Europeans as the “Other” of World History .............................345 Th e Distinctive Indo-Europeanization of the West ...........................352 Chariots, Mycenaeans, and Aristocratic Berserkers ..........................363 Aristocratic and Martial Traits .............................................................371 Th e Impact of Indo-Europeans on the Civilizations of the East ................................................................................................377 “Big Man” Feasting and the Origins of Inequality .............................380 Prestige-Seeking Chiefs .........................................................................384 From Simple to Paramount Chiefdoms ...............................................388 “Eastern” Group-Oriented and “Western” Individualizing Chiefdoms ...........................................................................................390 viii contents City-States: Sumerian versus Greek .....................................................399 Th e Autocratic Character of Mesopotamia and Egypt ......................402 Th e Epic of Gilgamesh is not a Heroic Tragedy ...................................410 Chapter Eight Th e Emergence of the Self from the Western ‘State of Nature’ and the Conciliation of Christianity and Aristocratic Liberty ..............................................419 Fukuyama and the Megalothymia of the “fi rst men” of the West...........................................................................................419 Why Hegel’s “Master” Must be Aristocratic ........................................423 Kojeve and the “fi rst appearance” of Self-Consciousness .................428 Charles Taylor and Plato’s Self-Mastery ..............................................431 Th e Beginnings of Genuine Personalities in History .........................435 Nietzsche’s “Homer on Competition” ..................................................441 Arête and the Education of the Greeks ................................................445 Th e Roman Aristocratic Link ...............................................................456 Th e Germanic Barbarian Rejuvenation of the West ..........................460 Feudalism: an Aristocratic Type of Rule .............................................466 Charlemagne’s Continuation of the Western Tradition ....................470 Christian Virtues and Aristocratic Expansionism .............................475 Aristocratic liberty and the Rise of Representative Institutions ..........................................................................................481 Cited Works .............................................................................................489 Index ........................................................................................................519 PREFACE Th is book hasfi ve separate but closely related objectives. First, it seeks to trace the ideological sources behind the multicultural eff ort to “pro- vincialize” the history of Western civilization. It will be argued that the devaluation of Western culture that swept the academic world starting around the 1960s was part of a wider and newly emerging intellec- tual movement that included the rise of anthropological relativism, critical theory, dependency theory, evolutionary materialism, post- modernism, feminism, and identity politics. Th e second aim is to assess the empirical adequacy of a highly infl uential set of revisionist works published in the last two decades dedicated to the pursuit of dismantling the “Eurocentric” consensus on the “rise of the West.” Th e focus will be on explicating, interpreting, connecting, systematizing, supplying background information, and refuting the arguments of multicultural revisionists who claim that there were “surprising similarities” between the West and the non- Western world as late as 1800–30 and that the Industrial Revolution was the one transformation that fi nally set Europe on a diff erent path of development. Th is book is quite determined in its eff orts to demon- strate that the entire revisionist school is founded on precarious and tendentious claims in its attempts to rewrite the history of the West. Th e questionable pursuit of the revisionist school will be addressed by means of a conscientious analytical and detailed review of a vast body of secondary sources and fi ndings. Th e third objective of this book will be to argue that the traditional Eurocentric historiography on the rise of the West still holds much signifi cance despite the unrelenting criticisms it has faced in the last few decades. Th e standard historiography includes the classical expo- nents of Europe’s uniqueness as well as contemporary historians and sociologists whose primary interests are directed towards debating the causes of Europe’s ascendancy. In defending their perspectives, this book will also go beyond them by considering numerous additional sources from historians of Europe who have written about Western achievement from the ancient Greeks to the present. Th e central con- tention will be that the West has always existed in a state of variance from the rest of the world’s cultures. For example, some of the most

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.