How the West Won--part 3

In chapter 3 of his book How the West Won, Rodney Stark takes a look at the Roman Empire. I won't spend a lot of time covering this section, but he regards the Roman Empire at best as a pause in the rise of the West, and more plausibly as a setback.

He shows that much of Roman culture came from the Greeks. Even things like great engineering feats of the Romans did not employ any principles or techniques not well known to the Greeks. In fact, the Romans made little or no use of some known technologies.

Stark sees the rise of Christianity as the most beneficial aspect of the Roman era. He has covered this in previous books, so I won't spend much time on that. One interesting thing that he brought out was the fact that recent historians have refuted the traditional belief that early Christianity was based on poor people and slaves. Most early Christians were actually urbanites and middle-class.

Of course, a big debate has erupted over who or what is responsible for the fall of Rome. Edward Gibbon, a famous British historian, blamed Christianity. He said it debilitated  the martial spirit of the people. Stark points out Rome did fall, but not civilization. Barbarians who came into the Roman Empire wanted to be Romanized. But they did more than copy the Romans. For example, they were far better at metallurgy than the Romans. The Goths and other "barbarians" did not suddenly return to barbarism when Rome fell. Stark claims that once the huge Roman Empire fell, repression ended and the glorious journey toward modernity resumed.

Again, I really like this historian and his writings because he clears the political correctness that has invaded history departments. It's amazing to me that respected, educated people in many fields carry prejudices that blind them to reality. We need to be cautious when we are told something by a person with an advanced degree.

How the West Won--Part 2

This is a second blog dealing with Rodney Stark' s eye-opening book called How the West Won, which dispels lots of modern politically correct ideas about the last 1000 years.

Stark begins by looking at the accomplishments of the Greeks. Their superiority lay in warfare, democracy, economic progress, literacy, the arts, and technology. In addition, the ancient Greeks took the single most significant step toward the rise of Western science when they proposed that the universe is orderly and governed by underlying principles that the human mind could discern through observation and reason. He says these successes were based on many independent, competitive city-states. This progress stagnated as these city-states were submerged beneath new empires. This will be a constant theme of Stark's book – that independence and small government produces far more progress than large, heavily bureaucratic governments. That sounds familiar today with the terrible results of Obamacare, the IRS, Fast and Furious, and other failures of the Obama administration.

Stark then says the idea of progress, so important in the West, was inherent in Jewish conceptions of history and was central to Christian thought from very early days. Add to this the Christian belief in man's rational nature and also in God himself as the epitome of reason. Stark quotes the philosopher John Macmurray, who says," That we think of progress at all shows the extent of the influence of Christianity upon us." To show the uniqueness of the Western approach, Stark looks at life under Islam. Muslims believe strongly in the idea of decline and hold that the universe is inherently irrational – that there is no cause and effect – because everything happens as the direct result of Allah's will at that particular time. Anything is possible. Attempts at science, then, are not only foolish but also blasphemous, in that they imply limits to Allah's power and authority. Later on in the book, Stark will take on the idea that Muslims produced much science and learning. He shows this was only because of the culture sustained by the people the Muslims had conquered.

At the end of chapter 2, Stark points out that throughout the remainder of his book he will demonstrate how the Christian conception of God as the rational creator of a comprehensible universe, who therefore expects the humans will become increasingly sophisticated and informed, continually prodded the West  along the road to modernity.

How the West Won--intro

I just finished a great book dealing with the rise of the West. It's called How the West Won, by Rodney Stark, a noted historian who has impressed me in the past. This one is a keeper too.

He's dealing with what he calls "a flood of absurd, politically correct fabrications, all of them popular on college campuses." For example, he says students are being told that the Greeks copied their whole culture from black Egyptians, that European science originated in Islam, that Western affluence was stolen from non-Western societies.

Stark challenges traditional Western history. He says that the fall of Rome was the single most beneficial event in the rise of Western civilization. In addition, he says the " Dark Ages" never happened (it was actually an era of remarkable progress and innovation that included the invention of capitalism). Furthermore, Stark notes that the Crusaders did not march east in pursuit of land and loot. He claims there was no scientific revolution during the 17th century – these brilliant achievements were part of  long scientific progress that stretched back to the 12th century. He also argues that Europe did not grow rich by draining wealth from its worldwide colonies; in fact, the colonies drained well from Europe.

So, this book challenges a lot of assumptions and a lot of the so-called history that students are receiving these days in school. In the next few blogs I want to go through this book because it's important to know why Western civilization triumphed over other cultures – and why we all should be thankful it did.

Some good books

For this blog I wanted to share some books that I read recently that people might enjoy reading. Here goes –

1. A War like No Other – This is a work by Victor Davis Hanson, a historian and political essayist of the first rank. It's a look at the Peloponnesian War, in which Sparta and Athens fought to the death. By the time you finish reading this, you have a good feeling for the weapons, the psychology, the culture of the people in those days.

2. Rocket Men – This is a historical look at the American space program. But it's more than just a gosh-wow study of the astronauts. Instead, it looks at the machinery, the engineers, the numerous people who helped put the entire program together.

3. The Fatal Shore – Another historical book, this one covers the founding of Australia. We get the story of the criminals who were sentenced and what life was like for them in this bewildering new world.

4. Theodore Rex – One of my favorite characters in American history is Theodore Roosevelt. This is the middle volume of a three-part series devoted to his life. This one focuses on his lively presidency.

5. The Voyage of the Vizcaina – Historians and divers have long sought for the remains of Christopher Columbus's ships that were wrecked in the New World. This gives the account of the search as well as the voyages of Columbus.

6. The Martian – Remember the famous book Robinson Crusoe? Well, this is the same story, but it's science fiction and takes place on Mars. It's what's known as hard science fiction, meaning a great focus on the sciences behind the story.

7. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses – The author does a thorough job of explaining why the Gospels are likely the result of eyewitness testimony rather than dim legends written down many years later. It's good to know we can trust the information in the Gospels to reveal the real Jesus.

As someone once said, "so many good books, so little time." I know that feeling, but it's a good problem that I can live with.