Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West by Anthony Pagden
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Book Summary Author: Anthony Pagden Edition: Hardcover Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 2008-03-25 ISBN: 1400060672 Number of pages: 656 Publisher: Random House |
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Book Reviews of the Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West
Customer Review: The Ballad of East and West
Summary: 4 Stars
The problems with writing a book about the 2,500-year struggle between East and West are manifold: What is East? What is West? What is the essential struggle? And since it has lasted so long, how do you get it all in one volume? UCLA historian Anthony Pagden has made an audacious effort doing just that. In Pagden's view - echoing Kipling - East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.
According to the author, the struggle between East and West can be characterized as a contest between secular, liberal democracies in the West and religious, despotic societies in the East (the East referred to being primarily the Middle East). Pagden's story begins with the Greeks and the Persians. The Greeks in the 5th century AD were a democracy and the Persians under Darius and Xerxes were a classic oriental despotism. This marked the beginning of the struggle known variously as East vs West, Europe vs Asia, secular vs the sacred, etc. The book ends with America in Iraq basically fighting the same battle that has been fought for the last 2,500 years. In this history there is no progress, there is only eternal struggle.
Most people would disagree with this thesis and rightly so. This Manichean worldview seems a gross oversimplification at first glance. Greece, as well as the West as a whole, was not always liberal and secular; it had a long struggle with despotism itself and Christianity did not always see itself as separate from the state. Likewise, the East was not always illiberal and monolithically religious. Islam, for example, during its golden age in Spain was very tolerant of Christianity and Judaism. There is also much diversity within Islam today.
Even though one may not agree with the author's view of the endless struggle between East and West, this book is very informative and very engaging. It tells more about the myths of East and West that inform the historical actors down through history. The so-called civilizing missions of Alexander in India, Napoleon in Egypt, Mehmed the Great in Constantinople, and Americans in Iraq are instances of one civilization trying to convince another of its superior values.
Therein lies the dilemma of Pagden's project. He does not see moral equivalence, for he comes down squarely on the side of secularism and liberal values, as he should. The West, unfortunately, is not always about those things alone; it is, in the eyes of the East, also about imperialism and military conquest. The East, for its part, does not reject Western values; it rejects the West imposing those values, or rather, it wants its own version of those values. In the end we have something much more complex than a standoff between two sets of universal values. There are grey areas on both sides and their boundaries were always shifting.
That being said, Worlds at War is still very good at explaining how these competing worldviews inevitably and inexorably lead to war.