Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West

659 Pages·2008·9.49 MB·English

by  Anthony Pagden

W O R L DS AT WAR
THE 2,500-YEAR STRUGGLE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST
U.S.A. $35.00
Canada $40.00
S
PANNING TWO AND A HALF MILLENNIA,
Anthony Pagden's mesmerizing Worlds at War
delves deep into the roots of the "clash of civiliza­
tions" between East and West that has always been
a battle over ideas, and whose issues have never
been more urgent.
Worlds at War begins in the ancient world, where Greece
saw its fight against the Persian Empire as one between free­
dom and slavery, between monarchy and democracy, between
individuality and the worship of men as gods. Here, richly
rendered, are the crucial battle of Marathon, considered the
turning point of Greek and European history; the heroic
attempt by the Greeks to turn back the Persians at Thermo­
pylae; and Salamis, one of the greatest naval battles of all
time, which put an end to the Persian threat forever.
From there Pagden's story sweeps to Rome, which created
the modern concepts of citizenship and the rule of law.
Rome's leaders believed those they conquered to be free,
while the various peoples of the East persisted in seeing their
subjects as property. Pagden dramatizes the birth of
Christianity in the East and its use in the West as an instrument
of government, setting the stage for what would become, and
has remained, a global battle of the secular against the
sacred. Then Islam, at first ridiculed in Christian Europe,
drives Pope Urban II to launch the Crusades, which trans­
form the relationship between East and West into one of
competing religious beliefs.
Modern times bring a first world war, which among its
many murky aims seeks to redesign the Muslim world by
force. In our own era, Muslims now find themselves in
unwelcoming Western societies, while the West seeks to
enforce democracy and its own secular values through occu­
pation in the East. Pagden ends on a cautionary note, warning
that terrorism and war will continue as long as sacred and
secular remain confused in the minds of so many.
(continued on back flap)
(continued from front flap)
Eye-opening and compulsively readable, Worlds at War is
a stunning work of history and a triumph of modern schol
arship. It is bound to become the definitive work on the rea
sons behind the age-old and still escalating struggle that,
more than any other, has come to define the modern
world—a book for anyone seeking to know why "we came to
be the way we are."
A N T H O NY PAGDEN is distinguished professor of
political science and history at the University of California,
Los Angeles. He was educated in Chile, Spain, and France,
and at Oxford. He has been the reader in intellectual history
at Cambridge, a fellow of King's College, a visiting professor
at Harvard, and Harry C. Black Professor of History at Johns
Hopkins University. He is the author of many prizewinning
books, including Peoples and Empires: A Short History of
European Migration, Exploration, and Conquest, from Greece
to the Present and European Encounters with the New World:
From Renaissance to Romanticism. Pagden contributes regu
larly to such publications as The New York Times, Los Angeles
Times, and The New Republic.
Jacket design: Anna Bauer
Jacket art: Eugène Delacroix, The Battle of Giaour and Hassan, after
Byron's poem "Le Giaour," 1835 (Bridgeman Art Library)
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New York, N.Y.
© 2008 by Random House, Inc.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
WORLDS AT WAR
"If you are going to read only one book on the Manichaean
struggle between East and West, this is the book."
—EFRAIM KARSH,
author of Islamic Imperialism: A History
"A masterpiece of stunning scope, readability, and relevance.
Anthony Pagden is as fine a storyteller as he is a scholar. Worlds
at War makes epic battles of the past come alive, not just as
turning points of history but as illuminations of what is hap­
pening today in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan."
—STROBE TALBOTT, president, Brookings Institution,
and author of The Great Experiment
W O R L DS
ATWAR
ANTHONY PAGDEN
RANDOM HOUSE NEW YORK
WORLDS
THE 2,500-YEAR STRUGGLE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST
Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Pagden
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
Title page map courtesy of University of Texas Libraries
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pagden, Anthony.
Worlds at war : the 2,500-year struggle between east and west /
Anthony Pagden.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4000-6067-2
1. World history. 2. East and West. 3. Europe—Relations—Islamic countries.
4. Islamic countries—Relations—Europe. 5. Muslims. 6. Islam.
7. Balance of power. I. Title.
D21.3.P33 2008
909-dc22 2007012878
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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First Edition
Book design by Carol Malcolm Russo
Maps by Virginia Norey
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