How the West was won

by Ben Soton

How The World Made the West by Josephine Quinn; Bloomsbury Publishing 2024, 576pp, Hbk £30.

The idea of ‘Western civilisation’ distinct from the rest of the world is the basis of reactionary ideology in it’s liberal, conservative and even fascist formats.  Reactionaries would have us believe that Western values such as democracy and individualism originated in the Greco-Persian Wars of the fifth century BC.  This thinking underpins much of European imperialism’s actions over the last few hundred years.
In her recent book How the World Made the West, Josephine Quinn debunks some of these myths. She correctly points out that democracy, even in its limited form, was not unique to ancient Athens.  Many citi8es in Mesopotamia also had citizens’ assemblies, mostly made up of wealthy dignitaries.  In fact even, according to Herodotus, the Persian nobleman Otanes toyed with the idea of introducing a limited form of democracy. Quinn also points out that the position of women in ancient Athens was far worse than in contemporary Persia.          
The book, starts around 2500 BC, with the first sailing vessels and ends around 1500 AD, with the European opening up of the Americas.  Quinn’s work, which is highly readable and contains much useful information has similarities with recent works such as Peter Frankopan’s Silk Roads.  Both works place considerable emphasis on economics, namely trade, as a motor for world history whilst Marxists place prime emphasis on class struggle as the main engine of history. The author alludes to this when she points out that Roman slaves may have joined invading barbarian tribes in order to seek a more egalitarian lifestyle. Quinn’s thesis is that rather than various rival civilisations; there was one single civilisation cemented together by trade routes resulting in cultural and economic exchange.  Quinn propagates a cosmopolitan liberal view of history; in which merchants and trades are the drivers of human development. An example of this outlook can be seen in Bettany Hughes's Treasures of the World, in which the historian, whilst highly critical of socialism paints the Ottoman Empire as some sort of all you can eat food buffet.  
Not to say that trade did not play an important role in human development; the ancient Silk Road (which was actually a series of routes) was arguably the information superhighway of its day.  Nonetheless the Silk Road was a product of the pre-capitalist world; dependent on large-land based empires ruled over by absolute monarchs.  Much of the traders’ wealth was swallowed up in taxation hindering economic development beyond feudalism.   
How The World Made the West ends with the European opening up of the Americas; this enabled the overland trade routes to be circumvented. This led to the establishment of maritime European empires; where the wealth of power of traders became so great that European monarchies soon became dependent on them and hence the development of capitalism. But the only thing superior about the West was its location.