Conquests And Cultures: An International History [Hardcover]

Thomas Sowell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 1998

This book is the culmination of 15 years of research and travels that have taken the author completely around the world twice, as well as on other travels in the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and around the Pacific rim. Its purpose has been to try to understand the role of cultural differences within nations and between nations, today and over centuries of history, in shaping the economic and social fates of peoples and of whole civilizations. Focusing on four major cultural areas(that of the British, the Africans (including the African diaspora), the Slavs of Eastern Europe, and the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere—Conquests and Cultures reveals patterns that encompass not only these peoples but others and help explain the role of cultural evolution in economic, social, and political development.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Another tour de force by one of America's leading public intellectuals. Conquests and Cultures continues in the tradition of Sowell's superb books, Race and Culture and Migrations and Cultures. The series attempts to understand the meaning of cultural differences, including how these differences have influenced the economic and social fates of civilizations, nations, and ethnic groups. This particular installment focuses on how military conquest both destroys culture and spreads it by examining the histories of the English, the Africans, the Slavs, and the indigenous people of the New World. Sowell rejects the cultural relativism that is currently so fashionable in the universities and forthrightly believes that some cultures--understood as "the working machinery of everyday life"--are clearly superior to others. He marshals a massive amount of scholarly material to support his ideas, and capably turns this mountain of data into straightforward prose. --John J.Miller

From Publishers Weekly

Sowell presents this as the final volume in a trilogy that includes Race and Culture (1994) and Migration and Culture (1996). Like its predecessors, the book incorporates two principal themes: that racial, ethnic and national groups have their own particular cultures, and that those cultures are mutable. Sowell offers four case studies?the British, the Africans, the Slavs and the American Indians?in evidence for his argument that the antecedents, processes and consequences of conquest generate broad-spectrum interactions and responses. Cultures in contact with each other usually influence each other even if the matrix is based on domination/submission, he explains. Brutal conquests can lead to the spread of advanced skills. Cultural borrowing is accompanied by genetic diffusion, and both make a mockery of biological racism and behavioral stasis. The key distinction among human communities is, for Sowell, "human capital"?the spectrum of individual and collective learned behaviors that produce distinctive patterns of skills and attitudes. The positive form of this capital is based on flexibility?receptivity to cultural transfers and willingness to apply those transfers in different contexts. Sowell, an economist by training and a conservative by conviction, emphasizes the wealth-creating aspects of human capital and argues for the centrality of achievement to developing group self-esteem. He references his arguments to a wide range of sources from a broad spectrum of disciplines. Academic specialists are likely to join critics of Sowell's emphasis on cultural malleability in accusing him of using the tools of scholarship to support his preconceptions. Sowell's conclusion that the course of history is determined by what peoples do with their opportunities is nevertheless an emotionally and intellectually compelling challenge to determinism in all its variant forms, from Marxism to multiculturalism.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (May 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465013996
• ISBN-13: 978-0465013999
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #369,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Sowell has taught economics at Cornell, UCLA, Amherst and other academic institutions, and his Basic Economics has been translated into six languages. He is currently a scholar in residence at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has published in both academic journals in such popular media as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine and Fortune, and writes a syndicated column that appears in newspapers across the country.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Triumphant panorama of conquests of culture, June 6, 2002

By 

Peter Lorenzi (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conquests And Cultures: An International History (Hardcover)

This is a remarkably thorough, well-researched work on major regions and civilizations around the world -- African, Aztec, Inca, Slav, (bative) American Indian. Sowell documents the case of how geography (harbors, arable land, navigable rivers, freedom from monsoons and tropical disease) and ideas (fundamental beliefs and principles widely shared or disseminated) combine to make the world what it is today.

"Culture" triumphs if it is sustainable and based on a credible concept that can be embraced by others. Other "cultures" fail or disappear when they are conquered by more dominant cultures or collapse from within due to a fundamental weakness or failure to transmit the culture across people and generations.

Much like David Landes' "Wealth and poverty of nations", Sowell shows that societies or cultures that can produce things of value, that educate their young, that innovate, and that encourage personal freedom, initiative, private ownership and advancement based on merit, these cultures are more likely to survive.

Sowell dispels myths about racism, diversity and the equality of all cultures. His research is encyclopedic and well-documented.

An excellent book for a university course on culture, diversity and global development.

27 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, Succinct, Germane!, December 27, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Conquests And Cultures: An International History (Paperback)

It's always delightful to read cogent, well-thought-out and carefully written books. This is no exception, as Dr. Sowell continues to apply a broad education and extensive experience to derive insights that, once made, are startlingly clear and obvious.

Unlike several of the prior reviewers, who seem to feel that their unworkable personal ideology or limited ability to think actually have relevance in a review, I read this book to gain information and insights supported by impeccable research from an intelligent source. It may offend those with little or no education or experience, because it does not run along the same track as their favorite hobby horse(s), but then, reality and truth rarely do. (i.e., if you don't like accurate statistics, nor agree with a sequenced and relevant protrayal of factual information, don't read this book. It might upset any sense of "oughta be this way", or "I wanna believe X -- in contrast to actual events").

Dr. Sowell's insistence on his statements having a factual basis and extensive examples to support his conclusions can be daunting, nonetheless, as with any exercise (mental or physical, for that matter), the more effort you put into something, the greater the result.

Highly recommended, as are all of his books.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The factual information presented here is invaluable., July 8, 2001

By 

hansfreyer (U.S.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conquests And Cultures: An International History (Paperback)

In Thomas Sowell's preface to this book he writes "what matters ultimately is not what themes and conclusions are proposed here, but the facts behind those themes and conclusions." Those facts are presented in "Conquests and Cultures" in a logical, unmanipulative, and engaging way. They are often not very well known, but critical to those people who want to develop and support arguments about the causes and consequences of the social and economic differences between cultural groups. Sowell, of course, presents not only information but analysis of this information, which in turn leads him to conclusions. Many of these conclusions do attack traditionally held left-wing opinions. A few attack right-wing ones. All are very well argued and deserve serious consideration. However, regardless of whether the conclusions are convincing are not, the objective information presented while trying to prove them still stands. Moreover, Sowell is scrupulous about clearly indicating what is fact and what is opinion. As a result, this book is invaluable to all people who want to be fair-minded, knowledgable, and persuasive when discussing issues of cultural assimilation and isolation, of inter-racial interaction, of economic gaps between different groups, and of the past and present situation of developing countries in Eastern-Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa.