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The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (Studies in Critical Social Sciences, 28) Reprint Edition

by Ricardo Duchesne (Author)

4.7 37 ratings

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This extensively researched book argues that the development of a libertarian culture was an indispensable component of the rise of the West. The roots of the West's superior intellectual and artistic creativity should be traced back to the aristocratic warlike culture of Indo-European speakers. Among the many fascinating topics discussed are: the ascendancy of multicultural historians and the degradation of European history; China's ecological endowments and imperial windfalls; military revolutions in Europe 1300-1800; the science and chivalry of Henry the Navigator; Judaism and its contribution to Western rationalism; the cultural richness of Max Weber versus the intellectual poverty of Pomeranz, Wong, Goldstone, Goody, and A.G. Frank; change without progress in the East; Hegel's Phenomenology of the [Western] Spirit; Nietzsche and the education of the Homeric Greeks; Kojeve's master-slave dialectic and the Western state of nature; Christian virtues and German aristocratic expansionism.

ISBN-10

9004232761
ISBN-13

978-9004232761
Edition

Reprint
Publisher

Brill Academic Pub
Publication date

August 28, 2012
Language

English
Dimensions

6 x 1 x 9 inches
Print length

527 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

World historians should read Duchesne's controversial book and join him in debate. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
D.M. Fahey (Miami University), Choice, November 2011

From the Back Cover

This extensively researched book argues that the development of a libertarian culture was an indispensable component of the rise of the West. The roots of the West's superior intellectual and artistic creativity should be traced back to the aristocratic warlike culture of Indo-European speakers. Among the many fascinating topics discussed are: the ascendancy of multicultural historians and the degradation of European history; China's ecological endowments and imperial windfalls; military revolutions in Europe 1300-1800; the science and chivalry of Henry the Navigator; Judaism and its contribution to Western rationalism; the cultural richness of Max Weber versus the intellectual poverty of Pomeranz, Wong, Goldstone, Goody, and A.G. Frank; change without progress in the East; Hegel's Phenomenology of the [Western] Spirit; Nietzsche and the education of the Homeric Greeks; Kojeve's master-slave dialectic and the Western state of nature; Christian virtues and German aristocratic expansionism. "The Uniqueness of Western Civilization" is every inch the embodiment of the striving spirit the author finds so characteristic of the endeavors of Western man -- a hankering after high achievement and a wish to make one s mark through the overthrow of accepted opinion. But Duchesne is no polemicist. For all its argumentative power, "The Uniqueness of Western Civilization" is old-school scholarship at its best; consequential, closely reasoned, richly evidenced, and professionally courteous. Stephen Balch, Chairman of the National Association of Scholars With this book, Duchesne...becomes more than a good man -- he stakes his claim to being thought a sage..."Uniqueness" may persuade readers to ponder on the ineffable nature of the human soul. It will certainly become an indispensable reference on the great passages of history. Eric Jones, author of "The European Miracle" World historians should read Duchesne's controversial book and join him in debate. Summing Up: Highly recommended. D.M. Fahey, Miami University in "Choice," November 2011

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Brill Academic Pub; Reprint edition (August 28, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 527 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9004232761
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9004232761
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.64 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,205,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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4.7 37 ratings

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Jonathan Huntoon

A scholarly review of the study and interpretation of Western Civilization and History

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2011

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Richard Duchesne's book examines (the history of) the history of Western Civilization. He examines the economists', the historians', and the philosophers' understanding and arguments throughout this scholarship. Duchesne also examines the arguments made by each scholar-- how they present their case that either the 'West' is dominant or not, has always been dominant or not, and whether their is something unique about Western culture, history or something else that has or has not engendered the Western world we live in today. Duchesne answers in the affirmative in all these cases.

The book is a good overview of Western history as well, and I have found the references to be quite intriguing. It is obvious that a ton of research has gone into this project, and we are rewarded with this synthesis. I have since purchased some of the books he has examined and am enjoying these reads as well. The history of the philosophy on Western civilization is most rewarding, as he contextualizes the writings of Hegel, Weber, Spengler, Nietzsche, and others.

The book is bound well and the paper is good too. The hardcover makes the book a lasting one.

My inspiration for buying the book were two things: my recent travel to China, and the listening of this podcast on the New Books in history website: [...] The podcast will give you a good feel for the tone of the book.

One last note, this is a scholarly book. It is filled with references, citations, etc. This may be an issue for non-scholar types, but I made it through.

Bottom line: get it if you're interested in why the world is the way it is today instead of something else. That's my take anyway.

51 people found this helpful

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W. McFarland

I have a habit of "one staring" over-priced academic books ...

Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2018

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I have a habit of "one staring" over-priced academic books. This one gets 5 stars from me, and I say it is well worth the steep price. My only complaint is the sequence in which the chapters are laid out. It begins explaining the various theories on Western Civilization, including those ones designed to undermine its pillars (see: "The Long March Through the Institutions" on wikipedia). This book ranges from the Proto-Indo-Europeans to the modern era in a manner most articulate and informative. This is scholarly (yet accessible), so if you are looking for entertainment, this is not for you.

13 people found this helpful

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B

A must read.

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2021

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Duchesne systematically dismantles every antiwhite argument used to subvert academia over the last century and shows that the methods and arguments were entirely without merit, being little more than psychological warfare. Highly recommended.

3 people found this helpful

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Will Johnston

Thorough and captivating

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2013

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Read this if you love history and wonder what made the west different from, and resoundingly more productive of art and freedom and philosophy and material wealth than, other cultures. Told with a sensible deference to the true accomplishments of eastern societies but a brisk rejection of the incoherent "world system" muddle of those academic historians who describe every western success as borrowed from or exploited from another culture. What a breath of fresh air.

23 people found this helpful

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Elmo

A great work

Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2019

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Excellent well written, well researched & well sourced scholarly work. Would recommend.

5 people found this helpful

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Ms. Linda Miilu

Duschene

Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2013

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This is a fascinating history book. Each section reveals something I did not know. I highly recommend this book for all history buffs.

14 people found this helpful

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Jonathan Burack

World Historians, Read this Book!

Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2011

I can't predict that this book will be a classic for years to come, but I do think it should be. In recent decades, the field of world history has been relentless in its downgrading of the idea of Western uniqueness in pursuit of a supposed multicultural purity of point of view. In this book, Ricardo Duchesne calls into question much of the key scholarly research seeking to justify this anti-Eurocentric spirit, he also makes it clear just how much we are losing by denying the unique heritage of our Western cultural and intellectual journey. And the "we" in this case is not only the West itself, but all of humanity.

In the book's first half, Duchesne undertakes a vigorous and exhaustive interrogation of the entire gamut of academic world history's current pace-setters (Andre Gunder Frank; Immanuel Wallerstein and world systems theories: Pomeranz-Wong-Goldstone et all on the Great Divergence; Patrick Manning on Big History; Felipe Fernandez-Armesto; John Hobson on the East's influence on the West; Jack Goody, etc.). It is a tour de force challenge to the prevailing academic paradigm in this field. It deals specifically and rigorously with the work of the above mentioned scholars and incorporates and summarizes a huge amount of the research of many others who in various ways challenge the paradigm - David Landes, Joel Mokyr, Aaron Maddison, Joseph Bryant, Margaret Jacobs, Peer Vries (partially), Edward Grant, Toby Huff, Harold Berman, Victor David Hanson, and a number of others.

Duchesne explores a great many facets of the debate among these scholars, but I will mention just one: the arguments about the "Great Divergence," of the West, or England, from China. It is inescapable from Duchesne's exhaustive review of the counter-evidence that there is an enormous amount of solid research calling into question the contentions of Kenneth Pomeranz, Bin Wong, Jack Goldstone et al that China and Europe were economically similar through the 1700s and that only England's luck at having nearby coal and bonus land resources from its colonies gave it an edge. (Goldstone's view is somewhat different from this but results in the same overall conclusion - that the West was in no way uniquely enabled by its cultural history to launch the industrial age). In my view the evidence Duchesne reviews is pretty conclusive against this theory, but it is clear in any case that those defending the theory simply do not deal with much of this evidence rigorously, if at all.

I do not think anyone will be able intelligently to defend or criticize the prevailing paradigm any more without grappling with Duchesne's thorough analysis. He comes down solidly on the side of the critics of the current paradigm, but he deals honestly and rigorously with the ideas of those he disputes - plus he gives all of them plenty of credit for advancing the field as they have in many ways.

Duchesne devotes the second part of his book mainly to his own theory about the uniqueness of Western civilization. That theory is definitely not a mindless Eurocentric celebration of the West. It is much more of an acquired-taste/hard-liquor take on Western uniqueness - stressing as it does the role of a uniquely aggressive, restless, aristocratic-warrior derived individualism, which Duchesne traces back to the Indo-European horse-riding nomads of the Pontic steppes. It is this combination of qualities he sees as forming the matrix within which the West's rationalism, science, philosophy, art and literature, as well as its industrial drive and dynamism, war-fighting proclivity, and imperialism evolved. I happen to find his take intriguing, bracing and clarifying, I admit. But even if you don't, you cannot expect to understand the debate at the very heart of this field without finding out what Duchesne's take is and grappling with it. Aside from his case for "uniqueness," which will excite opposition I am sure, his stress on culture and intellectual life, ideas, over the current sociological and economic emphasis is in my opinion long overdue.

(By the way, one of the ironies in Duchesne's analysis is his view that the multicultural critique of "Eurocentrism" is itself as Western as can be, a manifestation of a unique "negativity" inherent in the dynamics of Western culture, with its constant and restless curiosity about what is just over the horizon, what is unknown and unbounded - or, to put it in more fashionable words, the "Other.")

Duchesne's exploration of Western individualism and rationalism, with extensive discussions of Max Weber, Hegel, Homer, Nietzche, is more speculative than his analysis of research in the first half of the book. For one thing, in anthropological and sociological terms his own insights rest heavily on what is still only indistinctly known about Europe and the Pontic steppes back a good three thousand years BCE or more. Otherwise, they arise out of extensive explorations of the thought of some key philosophers and social theorists, most of whom are not considered relevant to this field, but should be. It will not be easy to convince the unconvinced that Duchesne's speculations in this realm are provable, but his ideas will still clarify the terms of debate even for those who disagree with them.

Unfortunately, the book is idiotically overpriced. I sincerely hope a cheap paperback is being planned, because at this point few will be able to afford the fee. A thorough discussion and debate about this book and its implications is going to be unavoidable if the field is to advance and recover a vitality it is now in danger of losing.

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Proud Graduate Student

Amazing work of scholarship!

Reviewed in Canada on October 26, 2019

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As one American reviewer said, this book is bound to become a classic. It is extremely well researched, debates multicultural historians in their own terms while debunking their arguments. The book shows that Europeans were the most accomplished people in history; it uses the philosopher Hegel in a very original and profound way. The chapter on the Indo-Europeans is brilliant. I see this book as a German interpretation of Western civilization -- Weber, Nietzsche, Spengler, Kant, and Hegel play big roles. It is heavy reading. Anyone trying to diminish or ignore this author's work fears the truth.

4 people found this helpful

Gabor Laszlo Varkonyi

A grandiose account on the uniqueness of the West

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 26, 2011

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I have never heard the name of Ricardo Duchesne before, but this work establishes him as one of the best social scientists, at least in my view. (Disclaimer: I'm not a social scientist.) The book stretches several millenia and topics, of which I can only give some samples.

Duchesne views Western civilization (starting with the Greeks, and, as we'll see, actually much earlier) as largely unique among the large cultures of the world. He explains that many of the multiculturalists are actually relying on Western ideas of universal human equality, or of the equality of cultures across the globe (a uniquely Western idea, not a wonder that most multiculturalists are in fact Westerners), and similar ideas. So while many people argue that the West is a non-existent civilization, or that it's the worst or most aggressive civilization - well, the West is the only culture which produced people criticizing their own culture in these terms.

Duchesne's point of view is largely Hegelian and non-materialistic, which makes it possible for him to think not in terms of economic development only. He accepts that for example Western Europe was not more developed circa 1750 than China - but in the same time makes a very good case of why it was largely unlikely that China would ever have had an industrial revolution, whereas it was only a question of time in the West. One compelling case is the case of Western science: China had a lot of practical knowledge, but didn't have anything like modern science, for example no Chinese philosopher or scientist ever made fame (before the Europeans arrived, that is) by disproving the theories held at his time, whereas in the West it was and is the dream of any scientist - to disprove received wisdom.

He debunks many of the politically correct statements of "world-history". The statement that "China (or India, the Middle East, etc.) had similar science to the West" I just mentioned, another one is that "China was on the verge of industrial revolution in the 13th century". While it's true that the Chinese were very close to inventing the steam engine, but it would have been just that - highly developed medieval technology plus the steam engine. The industrial revolution meant a constant flow of inventions, which after the first half century increasingly needed modern science - which was present in Europe by the time of the Industrial Revolution, but was absent in China in both the 13th and the 18th centuries. This is not to deny the genius of the Chinese people, who invented many things way before the Europeans started to adapt them. However, the Europeans showed a quite pronounced readiness to adapt anything foreign. (Just as the contemporary Chinese and Japanese are ready to adapt foreign inventions.) Duchesne is convincing when he argues that actually adapting foreign technologies (which most of the time meant modifications and adjustments to local circumstances, and often involved several improvements) is just as much a sign of vitality and inventiveness as inventions themselves.

Finding new limits, overcoming obstacles for their own sake, questioning knowledge - this is what Duchesne calls an aristocratic spirit. Striving for the best, being the best by virtue - that is what the ancient Greeks equated aristocracy with. Although we nowadays tend to think of aristocracy only as an oppressive and exploitative class, Duchesne shows that it is an oversimplification. The aristocrats were obligated to be virtuous, for example almost all of the philosophers and political and military leaders we now remember of as "the Greeks" were in fact aristocrats by birth, even the leaders of democracy. Now Duchesne shows that this was a feature of many European warrior-aristocracies (and for a long time even after they were largely civilized), and that many of the general population were co-opted to that spirit.

Another unique feature of European was a relatively egalitarian (actually egalitarian-aristocratic) spirit. (Only aristocrats were members of the group of equals, serfs etc. had no equality, obviously.) A king in Europe was usually a first among equals, at least among the aristocrats, at the very least no member of the nobility or aristocracy had to kowtow or prostrate themselves before a king. This is in quite in contrast to the despotic cultures of the rest of the world, almost anywhere. While some other warrior aristocracies (most notably Japan) had similar "noblesse oblige" ethos, the egalitarianism was missing. (The notion that for example the king or overlord also had obligations to the vassals, not only the other way around, and when breaking the terms, the vassals had the right to resist.)

Duchesne shows quite compellingly that most of the unique features go back millenia, and he traces it back to the Indo-European bands that gradually conquered much of Europe sometime in the 5th-3rd millenia BC. These bands then became the warrior aristocracies, and slowly superimposed their languages and also to a large extent their spirits on the European populations at large.

I think the strength of the book is the only weakness: the lack of a materialistic perspective makes it such a compelling reading, and this is what makes him notice unique things (e.g. Greek democracy - in spite of its many flaws, which the Greeks themselves were the first to point out, it was an institution without parallel outside of Europe until modern times), which are not so readily noticeable to evolutionists (who tend to concentrate on economic development only). On the other hand, first, I think that striving for prestige (which in his view is evolutionarily disadvantageous) can actually have evolutionary benefits (depending on a number of parameters), and this could be an - admittedly lowly, materialistic - explanation for such high spirits. He also never mentions the possibility of genetic differences among European and non-European populations, even while he believes that these traits are very persistent, apparently even present in much of present-day populations. (On the other hand, since there's no evidence to date for such differences, and neither do I think it would be easy for anybody to get grants to investigate, it's probably better not to mention it.)

16 people found this helpful

Janet

Scholarship at its best. A must read for anyone interested in where ...

Reviewed in Canada on January 16, 2017

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Scholarship at its best. A must read for anyone interested in where we've come from and where we might be going to.

3 people found this helpful

Rik Storey

The great western civ text of our time and probably for some time yet

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 26, 2015

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The great milestone of western civ studies of our time and probably for quite sometime yet. This book handles all other relevant texts and interpretations of repute in this area of study, old and new, with objective fairness and scholarly thoroughness. I cannot recommend this enough to those interested in western history, particularly those suffering from 'white guilt' or just looking for an alternative to the status quo Marxist and materialist perspectives. Prepare to be refreshed, whether beginner or scholar.

5 people found this helpful

Mruczek

Excellent read! Highly recommended

Reviewed in Canada on May 17, 2018

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Excellent read! Highly recommended.

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