Civilization: A New History of the Western World

Civilization pulls the beard on many classic text on European history like the Durant series I grew up on. This series was written during the Cold War and could not escape from the fear of the time. The author presents a much needed revision and many intriguing insights. Here's some excerpts: "Generations of schoolchildren have been taught that waves of invaders from Jutland and west Saxony swept into the east and south of Britain as the Romans withdrew. The Celtic inhabitants of the lowlands were then forced back to the far west and North." "This story, which is almost entirely untrue, was largely created in the seventh century (i.e. 300 years later) by Bede." "The Anglo-Saxon cemetery at West Heslerton was placed among Bronze Age burial mounds, and more than 80 percent of the 200 human remains discovered were of people of Celtic, or old British, ancestry -- and none suffered violent deaths or major injuries." (pg. 40-41) What the author is saying is that what we were taught in high school history was wrong. The Anglo-Saxon invasion was a dilution of cultures not an invasion. An invasion fits nicely with modern misconceptions of European behavior. The author also explores many new theories about European history and digs deep into European philosophy to understand who we were 10,000 years ago, how we evolved, and thereby discover who we are now. I found many of the new theories fascinating. Many ideas seemed appropriate for our times. Here's an excerpt: "For three decades from the mid-1840's, free trade seemed to work; the British economy prospered as more controls were lifted and income and other taxes were reduced. It seemed that this was the "natural" way in which an industrial economy should run. But this turned out to be an illusion. It has been convincingly argued (see for example, Gray) that controlled and regulated markets, with their forest of evolving customary restraints, are the product of "natural" human society, brought about by the overriding need for social cohesion, while free markets have to be imposed by a strong authoritarian state." (pg. 350-351). At the time, the British government was controlled by the East Indian company, the first modern corporation. The worker rebellions of the 1840's, the resulting work of Marx and Engels and even the American Revolution were a response to corporate encroachment on individual freedom. I found the modern view of the rise of capitalism and the interaction with the age of discovery very engrossing. European treatment of the natives of America was different than earlier absorption of people in Europe during the early Iron Age and Bronze age. John Keagan, a traditional military historian, would have you believe that all was conquest. To Europeans during the age of discovery, formed by the recent reformation in religion and the explosive growth of nationalism and industrialization, led them to think of the natives as backward, unworthy animals. Wealth, and its entanglement with power,

Western civilization is something that most Americans cherish. But is it really something to be admired without analysis, criticism, or perspective? "Civilization: A New History of the Western World" by Roger Osbourne tries to take a full on scholarly approach to western civilization in its entirety. Pulling no punches, it discusses Hitler as much as it does the cure for Polio, and spans from the early Greek states to the events leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. An original work of seminal scholarship, "Civilization" is educational and interesting in its content, making it a 'must' for history buffs and a welcome addition to both academic and community library World History reference collections.

Civilization a New History of the Western World relates the birth and development of what is known as the western civilization or culture. The author, Roger Osborne, starts his examination of the western world with prehistoric Europe and ends up with the post 9-11 world in less than 500 pages. To his credit, Osborne gives new insights in the spiritual, intellectual, social, and artistic life of the western world. Some insights clearly challenge what some readers have learned in school. Osborne rightly emphasizes that the history of the western civilization has had its ups and downs. History has never been a straight line, but a work in progress. Osborne clearly shows that the Western world tends to consider itself as the lighthouse that wants to bring western values to the rest of humanity regardless of the different views of the local populations on these western values. Osborne repeatedly deplores the tendency for the West to advertise its modus operandi as the best form of organization and its willingness to use force to exact it. Osborne does not seem to fully accept the reality that the ideas that have conquered the world, more specifically capitalism and democracy, emanate from the West. Furthermore, war is as inevitable as death because the modern state aims to be as efficient as possible to wage war when the opportunity arises to maximize its chance of survival and prosperity. Globalization forces more and more non-western countries to adapt to the western imperative that has proven to be the most successful, at least with respect to the political and economic arenas.

I picked this up with a bit of trepidation: For some time, I'd been feeling the need to refresh my memory of Western Civ, so I welcomed the idea of a well-written five-hundred page survey; but I don't have much sympathy for simple-minded notions of The West as Vile Conqueror, or globalization as The Destroyer of What Matters, that many reviewers impute to the author. I was pleased, then, to find this book considerably more balanced than the reviews would lead one to expect. I don't think it's entirely fair to say, for instance, that Osborn is "on the side of" what's local, oral, customary, etc., as if he were some sort of ideologue. He certainly presents the costs of universalistic, abstracted, impersonal modes of social organization, and in so doing he makes one realize that the shape the world has taken under old-fashioned notions of "being civilized" need not have been how history developed. But he does seem to appreciate the allure and value, as well as the costs, of "Western civilization," as it's conventionally conceived, and he has lots of good things to say about how Western notions have promoted freedom and self-respect, and especially artistic vigor, among previously-oppressed groups. One comes away with much richer notions of how people make lives. It is certainly unfair to describe the work as "strident." There's an edge of sorrow and bewilderment to the writing--like, What are we supposed to do now?--and impatience with the sort of Triumphalist tradition in Western Civ that resolutely refuses to think clearly and carefully about the humane costs of our particular way of life and its spread, or to consider the possibility that maybe sometimes, in some parts of the world even today, we'd do well to keep to ourselves our grubby Western ideas of nation-states pursuing written rules and formal processes instead of imposing them at gun point. (Can anyone say, "Iraq"? Anyone who believes that armies can make the Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, etc., settle down into a stable rule-following nation state really needs to read this book.) Because the book is balanced and well argued, I find myself less contemptuous of anti-WTO, anti-capitalist arguments than before I read it. "Ah--so that's what those nutty protesters are going on about," I found myself understanding at various points. I found myself thinking it would be most interesting to have Osborn sit down with Amartya Sen for a conversation on development and goodness, and wondered who would come away having more influenced the other. Reading this book has forced me into some serious reflection on my prior beliefs--and that seems like a worthy reason to recommend any work, to me. Why only four stars? There were a few places where I couldn't tell whether Osborn was summarizing available data or waxing eloquent with speculation, and there were a few places where I found myself thinking, "You can't possibly know that--no one can." But those are not dominant problems with the book, just occas

William Grimes in 'The New York Times' has high praise for the narrative power of this work. He claims it reads like a novel and summarizes forty- thousand years of Western history in five - hundred pages. Osborne comes down hard on Western civilization for dominating native peoples and destroying their cultures. A major example of his is the American treatment of its native Indians. Focusing on this example is perhaps a sign that he is not completely objective and fair when surveying the role of the present standard bearer of Western civilization the United States. Tim Gardam in the Guardian focuses on another aspect of the work. "Osborne is on the side of 'the communal, local, interpersonal, instinctive, extemporary and impressionistic aspects of life which are degraded when customary laws give way to written rules, experience to abstraction'. ...The Renaissance is the repository of the myths' about Western civilisation. The Reformation turned the medieval multitude into the lone Protestant pilgrim. This forged the nation state, which provided 'the national interest', a moral alibi for citizens to behave in ways that would shame us individually. Osborne has written a popular intellectual history but his conclusion that we should not trust the intellectual assumptions on which history is based is too strident to be convincing.. The values of the Enlightenment - individual conscience, rational scepticism, intellectual curiosity - allow us to dissent from our rulers when they co-opt civilisation to their cause." The sense both these reviewers give is that Osborne's message in analyzing the past twenty years of Western history somehow diminishes the credibility of what both clearly consider a tour- de- force, and a work well- worth reading.