Once upon a time, we were told that the peoples of the Western world — which includes countries like Australia and New Zealand, although located in the Eastern Hemisphere — are heirs and trustees of Western civilization, imbalances and excesses included.  Often referred to simply as “the West,” Western civilization is a broad concept used to understand the cultural, social, political, and economic norms, traditions, values, and institutions that originated in or are associated with Europe.  It has its roots in Ancient Greece and Rome as well as in Christianity, humanism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. It values rationalism, democracy, and individual freedoms and rights.

Later on, Marxist and otherwise far-left historians argued that the history of the West is marked by exploitation and conflict among different social classes, from feudal lords and serfs in the Middle Ages to capitalists and workers in the modern era.  Marxists, in particular, introduced the concept of cultural hegemony, formulated by Antonio Gramsci to describe ideological domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.  In other words, according to this type of approach, the dominant cultural norms and values of Western civilization serve to maintain the power of the ruling class.

As of now, the left-wing narrative is that Western civilization is an illusion.  Postmodern and deconstructionist historians have claimed that the West is a late invention of the 18th-century philosopher. Skeptical of the grand narratives that have historically been used to describe Western civilization, such as progress, enlightenment, etc., they argue that these narratives often oversimplify complex histories and marginalize alternative perspectives.

It is in this context that the new book How the World Made the West, written by Josephine Quinn, professor of ancient history at Oxford University, needs to be read.  It’s aimed to bring to fulfillment the goal and the dream of legions of leftists the world over and from time immemorial.  Quinn’s purpose is not to trash what generations of schoolchildren and college students have been taught to take pride in as Western values and achievements.  Rather, she wants to demolish the underlying concept of what she calls “civilizational thinking,” which suggests that there is no such thing as “Western civilization.”  By the way, as she puts it, this “civilizational thinking” provided the cultural rationale for western European supremacy during the 19th century, enabling colonial expansion and racial hierarchies.

Quinn points out that Western civilization would not exist without its Islamic, African, Indian, and Chinese influences, and that so-called Western values — freedom, rationality, justice and tolerance — are not only or originally Western.  Rather, “the West itself is in large part a product of long-standing links with a much larger network of societies.”

Nobody has ever thought that ancient cultures existed in hermetical separation.  The trouble with Quinn is that if there are no monolithic “civilizations,” she seems to deny even that there are (at least) distinct cultures.  This is, quite frankly, the same as thinking a square has five sides, a challenge to common sense and to the most evidence-based certainties.

In short, Quinn’s radicalism — or a (perhaps unconscious) desire to please the “woke” and “cancel culture” people — is her Achilles heel.  It is inevitable, at this point, to recall G.K. Chesterton’s prophetic words:

Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.

What is perhaps most surprising about the book is its warm welcome from critics in the United Kingdom, where How the World Made the West was published by Bloomsbury on February 29, 2024.  This unequivocally means that the capitulation of the British cultural establishment to “woke” culture — and  other elite obsessions — is complete.  Take a look at these reviews to get an idea: “The history of the West is not quite what you learned in school” (The Economist), “How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn review — rethinking ‘civilisation’” (The Guardian), “The myth of ‘the West’” (New Statesman), “How the World Made the West — a scuttling of civilisational myths” (Financial Times).

The latter has a good question (after generous praise):

At the end of this supremely professional history, I was left with the question of who is it for? Approaching the 50th anniversary of Edward Said’s seminal Orientalism, our undergraduates certainly don’t lack for cultural relativism or calls for decolonisation. In the UK, Generation Z already has precious little appetite for defending “western civilisation”, with a recent YouGov poll showing 38 per cent of under-40s say they would refuse to serve in the armed forces in the event of a new world war, and 30 per cent say they would not serve even if Britain was facing imminent invasion.

The book will be published in North America by Penguin Random House on September 3, 2024.

Samuel Robert Piccoli is a blogger and the author of several books, among them Being Conservative from A to Z (2014) and Blessed Are the Free in Spirit (2021).  He lives in the Venice area.

Image: Korido via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.