Part 1 : Tragedy and Hope

Tragedy and  Hope
A History of The
World in our Time
Carroll Quigley

Preface 

The expression "contemporary history" is probably self-contradictory, because what is contemporary is not history, and what is history is not contemporary. Sensible historians usually refrain from writing accounts of very recent events because they realize that the source materials for such events, especially the indispensable official documents, are not available and that, even with the documentation which is available, it is very difficult for anyone to obtain the necessary perspective on the events of one's own mature life. But I must clearly not be a sensible or, at least, an ordinary historian, for, having covered, in an earlier book, the whole of human history in a mere 271 pages, I now use more than 1300 pages for the events of a single lifetime. There is a connection here. It will be evident to any attentive reader that I have devoted long years of study and much original research, even where adequate documentation is not available, but it should be equally evident that whatever value this present work has rests on its broad perspective. I have tried to remedy deficiencies of evidence by perspective, not only by projecting the patterns of past history into the present and the future but also by trying to place the events of the present in their total context by examining all the varied aspects of these events, not merely the political and economic, as is so frequently done, but by my efforts to bring into the picture the military, technological, social, and intellectual elements as well. 

The result of all this, I hope, is an interpretation of the present as well as the immediate past and the near future, which is free from the accepted cliches, slogans, and self-justifications which mar so much of "contemporary history." Much of my adult life has been devoted to training undergraduates in techniques of historical analysis which will help them to free their understanding of history from the accepted categories and cognitive classifications of the society in which we live, since these, however necessary they may be for our processes of thought and for the concepts and symbols needed for us to communicate about reality, nevertheless do often serve as barriers which shield us from recognition of the underlying realities themselves. The present work is the result of such an attempt to look at the real situations which lie beneath the conceptual and verbal symbols. I feel that it does provide, as a consequence of this effort, a fresher, somewhat different, and (I hope) more satisfying explanation of how we arrived at the situation in which we now find ourselves. 

More than twenty years have gone into the writing of this work. Although most of it is based on the usual accounts of these events, some portions are based on fairly intensive personal research (including research among manuscript materials). These portions include the following: the nature and techniques of financial capitalism, the economic structure of France under the Third Republic, the social history of the United States, and the membership and activities of the English Establishment. On other subjects, my reading has been as wide as I could make it, and I have tried consistently to view all subjects from as wide and as varied points of view as I am capable. Although I regard myself, for purposes of classification, as a historian, I did a great deal of study in political science at Harvard, have persisted in the private study of modern psychological theory for more than thirty years, and have been a member of the American Anthropological Association, the American Economic Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as the American Historical Association for many years.[And we are not going to be afraid to look at, and comment further on accounts of these events not from the usual sources DC] 

Thus my chief justification for writing a lengthy work on contemporary history, despite the necessarily restricted nature of the documentation, must be based on my efforts to remedy this inevitable deficiency by using historical perspective to permit me to project the tendencies of the past into the present and even the future and my efforts to give this attempt a more solid basis by using all the evidence from a wide variety of academic disciplines. 

As a consequence of these efforts to use this broad, and perhaps complex, method, this book is almost inexcusably lengthy. For this I must apologize, with the excuse that I did not have time to make it shorter and that an admittedly tentative and interpretative work must necessarily be longer than a more definite or more dogmatic presentation. To those who find the length excessive, I can only say that I omitted chapters, which were already written, on three topics: the agricultural history of Europe, the domestic history of France and Italy, and the intellectual history of the twentieth century in general. To do this I introduced enough on these subjects into other chapters. 

Although I project the interpretation into the near future on a number of occasions, the historical narrative ceases in 1964, not because the date of writing caught up with the march of historical events but because the period 1962-1964 seems to me to mark the end of an era of historical development and a period of pause before a quite different era with quite different problems begins. This change is evident in a number of obvious events, such as the fact that the leaders of all the major countries (except Red China and France) and of many lesser ones (such as Canada, India, West Germany, the Vatican, Brazil, and Israel) were changed in this period. Much more important is the fact that the Cold War, which culminated in the Cuban crisis of October 1962, began to dwindle toward its end during the next two years, a process which w as evident in a number of events, such as the rapid replacement of the Cold War by "Competitive Coexistence"; the disintegration of the two super-blocs which had faced each other during the Cold War; the rise of neutralism, both within the super-blocs and in the buffer fringe of third-bloc powers between them; the swamping of the United Nations General Assembly under a flood of newly independent, sometimes microscopic, pseudo-powers; the growing parallelism of the Soviet Union and the United States; and the growing emphasis in all parts of the world on problems of living standards, of social maladjustments, and of mental health, replacing the previous emphasis on armaments, nuclear tensions, and heavy industrialization. At such a period, when one era seems to be ending and a different, if yet indistinct era appearing, it seemed to me as good a time as any to evaluate the past and to seek some explanation of how we arrived where we are. 

In any preface such as this, it is customary to conclude with acknowledgment of personal obligations. My sense of these is so broad that I find it invidious to single out some and to omit others. But four must be mentioned. Much of this book was typed, in her usual faultless way, by my wife. This was done originally and in revised versions, in spite of the constant distractions of her domestic obligations, of her own professional career in a different university, and of her own writing and publication. For her cheerful assumption of this great burden, I am very grateful. 

Similarly, I am grateful to the patience, enthusiasm, and amazingly wide knowledge of my editor at The Macmillan Company, Peter V. Ritner. 

I wish to express my gratitude to the University Grants Committee of Georgetown University, which twice provided funds for summer research. 

And, finally, I must say a word of thanks to my students over many years who forced me to keep up with the rapidly changing customs and outlook of our young people and sometimes also compelled me to recognize that my way of looking at the world is not necessarily the only way, or even the best way, to look at it. Many of these students, past, present, and future, are included in the dedication of this book. 

Carroll Quigley 

Washington, D. C. 

March 8, 1965

Part One

Introduction: 

Western Civilization In 

Its World Setting Chapter 

1

Cultural Evolution in Civilizations 

There have always been men who have asked, "Where are we going?" But never, it would seem, have there been so many of them. And surely never before have these myriads of questioners asked their question in such dolorous tones or rephrased their question in such despairing words: "Can man survive?" Even on a less cosmic basis, questioners appear on all sides, seeking "meaning" or "identity," or even, on the most narrowly egocentric basis, "trying to find myself." 

One of these persistent questions is typical of the twentieth century rather than of earlier times: Can our way of life survive? Is our civilization doomed to vanish, as did that of the Incas, the Sumerians, and the Romans? From Giovanni Battista Vico in the early eighteenth century to Oswald Spengler in the early twentieth century and Arnold J. Toynbee in our own day, men have been puzzling over the problem whether civilizations have a life cycle and follow a similar pattern of change. From this discussion has emerged a fairly general agreement that men live in separately organized societies, each with its own distinct culture; that some of these societies, having writing and city life, exist on a higher level of culture than the rest, and should be called by the different term "civilizations"; and that these civilizations tend to pass through a common pattern of experience. 

From these studies it would seem that civilizations pass through a process of evolution which can be analyzed briefly as follows: each civilization is born in some inexplicable fashion and, after a slow start, enters a period of vigorous expansion, increasing its size and power, both internally and at the expense of its neighbors, until gradually a crisis of organization appears. 

When this crisis has passed and the civilization has been reorganized, it seems somewhat different. Its vigor and morale have weakened. It becomes stabilized and eventually stagnant. After a Golden Age of peace and prosperity, internal crises again arise. At this point there appears, for the first time, a moral and physical weakness which raises, also for the first time, questions about the civilization's ability to defend itself against external enemies. 

Racked by internal struggles of a social and constitutional character, weakened by loss of faith in its older ideologies and by the challenge of newer ideas incompatible with its past nature, the civilization grows steadily weaker until it is submerged by outside enemies, and eventually disappears. 

When we come to apply this process, even in this rather vague form, to our own civilization, Western Civilization, we can see that certain modifications are needed. Like other civilizations, our civilization began with a period of mixture of cultural elements from other societies, formed these elements into a culture distinctly its own, began to expand with growing rapidity as others had done, and passed from this period of expansion into a period of crisis. But at that point the pattern changed.[Face it, the end result of Western Civilization without question,for better or worse is the New World, Yin and Yang collide, the positive ? The energy of the American people, the negative? The politic's of the Corporate United States, and it's weaponization against Americans.Politic's are a very dirty business. Sometimes 55 years is a real advantage. DC]

In more than a dozen other civilizations the Age of Expansion was followed by an Age of Crisis, and this, in turn, by a period of Universal Empire in which a single political unit ruled the whole extent of the civilization. Western Civilization, on the contrary, did not pass from the Age of Crisis to the Age of Universal Empire, but instead was able to reform itself and entered upon a new period of expansion. Moreover, Western Civilization did this not once, but several times. It was this ability to reform or reorganize itself again and again which made Western Civilization the dominant factor in the world at the beginning of the twentieth century.[Nothing left to reform, but I do question if we are being set up to be divided,because the Emperor can't come to grips with the whole Civilization. Do they make 3 or 4, where there was once one.?DC]

As we look at the three ages forming the central portion of the life cycle of a civilization, we can see a common pattern. The Age of Expansion is generally marked by four kinds of expansion: (1) of population, (2) of geographic area, (3) of production, and (4) of knowledge. The expansion of production and the expansion of knowledge give rise to the expansion of population, and the three of these together give rise to the expansion of geographic extent. This geographic expansion is of some importance because it gives the civilization a kind of nuclear structure made up of an older core area (which had existed as part of the civilization even before the period of expansion) and a newer peripheral area (which became part of the civilization only in the period of expansion and later). If we wish, we can make, as an additional refinement, a third, semi-peripheral area between the core area and the fully peripheral area.[This appears to be their next move, the division of the 50 states, I can see a scenario where they sell the American people the benefit's of becoming three country's, North, South, and West of the Mississippi by making the benefits look so attractive to doing so, people will jump at the chance without thinking even a week down the road, never mind 3,5,10 years past. DC]

These various areas are readily discernible in various civilizations of the past, and have played a vital role in historic change in these civilizations. In Mesopotamian Civilization (6000 B.C.-300 B.C.) the core area was the lower valley of Mesopotamia; the semi-peripheral area was the middle and upper valley, while the peripheral area included the highlands surrounding this valley, and more remote areas like Iran, Syria, and even Anatolia. The core area of Cretan Civilization (3500 B.C.-1100 B.C.) was the island of Crete, while the peripheral area included the Aegean islands and the Balkan coasts. In Classical Civilization the core area was the shores of the Aegean Sea; the semiperipheral area was the rest of the northern portion of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, while the peripheral area covered the rest of the Mediterranean shores and ultimately Spain, North Africa, and Gaul. In Canaanite Civilization (2200 B.C.-100 B.C.) the core area was the Levant, while the peripheral area was in the western Mediterranean at Tunis, western Sicily, and eastern Spain. The core area of Western Civilization (A.D. 400 to some time in the future) has been the northern half of Italy, France, the extreme western part of Germany, and England; the semi-peripheral area has been central, eastern, and southern Europe and the Iberian peninsula, while the peripheral areas have included North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and some other areas. 

This distinction of at least two geographic areas in each civilization is of major importance. The process of expansion, which begins in the core area, also begins to slow up in the core at a time when the peripheral area is still expanding. In consequence, by the latter part of the Age of Expansion, the peripheral areas of a civilization tend to become wealthier and more powerful than the core area. Another way of saying this is that the core passes from the Age of Expansion to the Age of Conflict before the periphery does. Eventually, in most civilizations the rate of expansion begins to decline everywhere. [Here in 2020, a fair statement would be, England is totally screwed for their colonist ways, but those reprobates will still try to pass the buck, to it's peripheral like it did with it's abomination from Balfour.Britain can not be trusted plain and simple, they have used America for her gain from the beginning,people tend to forget where they learned the deep dark things. If it's here,it was there first,we have forgotten this at our own peril. DC]

It is this decline in the rate of expansion of a civilization which marks its passage from the Age of Expansion to the Age of Conflict. This latter is the most complex, most interesting, and most critical of all the periods of the life cycle of a civilization. It is marked by four chief characteristics: 

(a) it is a period of declining rate of expansion; 

(b) it is a period of growing tensions and class conflicts; 

(c) it is a period of increasingly frequent and increasingly violent imperialist wars; and 

(d) it is a period of growing irrationality, pessimism, superstitions, and otherworldliness. All these phenomena appear in the core area of a civilization before they appear in more peripheral portions of the society. [are you asking yourself, are we there yet? Man we got it in real time. One has to consider the Internet as its periphery given it's origin, and if growing irrationality, pessimism, superstitions, and otherworldliness does not define the Internet, I don't know what does! DC]

The decreasing rate of expansion of the Age of Conflict gives rise to the other characteristics of the age, in part at least. After the long years of the Age of Expansion, people's minds and their social organizations are adjusted to expansion, and it is a very difficult thing to readjust these to a decreasing rate of expansion. Social classes and political units within the civilization try to compensate for the slowing of expansion through normal growth by the use of violence against other social classes or against other political units. From this come class struggles and imperialist wars. The outcomes of these struggles within the civilization are not of vital significance for the future of the civilization itself. What would be of such significance would be the reorganization of the structure of the civilization so that the process of normal growth would be resumed. Because such a reorganization requires the removal of the causes of the civilization's decline, the triumph of one social class over another or of one political unit over another, within the civilization, will not usually have any major influence on the causes of the decline, and will not (except by accident) result in such a reorganization of structure as will give rise to a new period of expansion. Indeed, the class struggles and imperialist wars of the Age of Conflict will probably serve to increase the speed of the civilization's decline because they dissipate capital and divert wealth and energies from productive to nonproductive activities. [Trying to piss me off by calling this an accident?  What an arrogant prick,thinking no one would catch on when many have caught on ! DC]

In most civilizations the long-drawn agony of the Age of Conflict finally ends in a new period, the Age of the Universal Empire. 

As a result of the imperialist wars of the Age of Conflict, the number of political units in the civilization are reduced by conquest. 

Eventually one emerges triumphant. When this occurs we have one political unit for the whole civilization. Just at the core area passes from the Age of Expansion to the Age of Conflict earlier than the peripheral areas, sometimes the core area is conquered by a single state before the whole civilization is conquered by the Universal Empire. When this occurs the core empire is generally a semi-peripheral state, while the Universal Empire is generally a peripheral state.[We being that peripheral to across the pond, we need to stop catering to Britain like we have over the last 107 years. She along with the Roman Curia have hijacked a responsibility of the US Congress, that of coining the nation's money. We need to take that back! DC] 

Thus, Mesopotamia's core was conquered by semiperipheral Babylonia about 1700 B.C., while the whole of Mesopotamian civilization was conquered by more peripheral Assyria about 725 B.C. (replaced by fully peripheral Persia about 525 B.C.). 

In Classical Civilization the core area was conquered by semiperipheral Macedonia about 336 B.C., while the whole civilization was conquered by peripheral Rome about 146 B.C. 

In other civilizations the Universal Empire has consistently been a peripheral state even when there was no earlier conquest of the core area by a semi-peripheral state. 

In Mayan Civilization (1000 B.C.-A.D. 1550) the core area was apparently in Yucatan and Guatemala, but the Universal Empire of the Aztecs centered in the peripheral highlands of central Mexico. 

In Andean Civilization (1500 B.C.-A.D. 1600) the core areas were on the lower slopes and valleys of the central and northern Andes, but the Universal Empire of the Incas centered in the highest Andes, a peripheral area. [They just had to go higher to get away from the violence until the new world found them.More on that violence later DC]

The Canaanite Civilization (2200 B.C.-146 B.C.) had its core area in the Levant, but its Universal Empire, the Punic Empire, centered at Carthage in the western Mediterranean. 

If we turn to the Far East we see no less than three civilizations. Of these the earliest, Sinic Civilization, rose in the valley of the Yellow River after 2000 B.C., culminated in the Chin and Han empires after 200 B.C., and was largely destroyed by Ural-Altaic invaders after A.D. 400. 

From this Sinic Civilization, in the same way in which Classical Civilization emerged from Cretan Civilization or Western Civilization emerged from Classical Civilization, there emerged two other civilizations: 

(a) Chinese Civilization, which began about A.D. 400, culminated in the Manchu Empire after 1644, and was disrupted by European invaders in the period 1790-1930, and 

(b) Japanese Civilization, which began about the time of Christ, culminated in the Tokugawa Empire after 1600, and may have been completely disrupted by invaders from Western Civilization in the century following 1853.[Western Civilization= code word for England, all throughout Quigley's narrative, see I wonder about the use of words invaders and civilization in such close proximity, to cause me to think, 'not that civilized' if I have a say. DC] 

In India, as in China, two civilizations have followed one another. Although we know relatively little about the earlier of the two, the later (as in China) culminated in a Universal Empire ruled by an alien and peripheral people. Indic Civilization, which began about 3500 B.C., was destroyed by Aryan invaders about 1700 B.C. Hindu Civilization, which emerged from Indic Civilization about 1700 B.C., culminated in the Mogul Empire and was destroyed by invaders from Western Civilization in the period 1500-1900. 

Turning to the extremely complicated area of the Near East, we can see a similar pattern. Islamic Civilization, which began about A.D. 500, culminated in the Ottoman Empire in the period 1300-1600 and has been in the process of being destroyed by invaders from Western Civilization since about 1750.[yeah I'm seeing a pattern all right, called invaders from Western Civilization. Americans ought not to be involved in this. DC] 

Expressed in this way, these patterns in the life cycles of various civilizations may seem confused. But if we tabulate them, the pattern emerges with some simplicity. 

From this table a most extraordinary fact emerges. Of approximately twenty civilizations which have existed in all of human history, we have listed sixteen. Of these sixteen, twelve, possibly fourteen, are already dead or dying, their cultures destroyed by outsiders able to come in with sufficient power to disrupt the civilization, destroy its established modes of thought and action, and eventually wipe it out. Of these twelve dead or dying cultures, six have been destroyed by Europeans bearing the culture of Western Civilization. When we consider the untold numbers of other societies, simpler than civilizations, which Western Civilization has destroyed or is now destroying, societies such as the Hottentots, the Iroquois, the Tasmanians, the Navajos, the Caribs, and countless others, the full frightening power of Western Civilization becomes obvious. 

                               Universal     Final                                     Their                                   

Civilization      Its Dates                  Empire                                                                                                                                                                                 Invasion Dates 

Mesopotamian 6000 B.C.-              Assyrian                                                                

                                                                                         Greeks 335 B.C.- 300  B.C.                               

                                                                                       Persian— 300 B.C. 725-333 B.C. 

Egyptian         5500 B. C.-              Egyptian                Greeks 334 B. C.- 300 B. C. 300 B.C. 

Cretan            3500 B. C.-           Minoan-Dorian 1200 B. C.- 1150 B. C. 

                                                                                                 Mycenaean Greeks 1000 B. C. 

Indic               3500 B. C. -              Harappa?                                                                                                                                                          Aryans 1800 B. C.- 1700 B. C. 1600 B.C. 

Canaanite       2200 B. C. -                 Punic              Romans 264 B. C. - 100 B. C. 146 B. C. 

Sinic               2000 B. C. -                  Chin                          Ural-Altaic A. D. 200 A. D. 400                                                                                                                      Han 500 

Hittite 1800 -                                   Hittite                              Indo- 1200 B. C. - 1150 

                                                                                                    European A. D. 1000 

Classical         1150 B. C. -               Roman                                           Germanic 

                                                                                               A. D. 350 - A. D. 500- 600 

Andean          1500 B. C. -                 Inca                            Europeans 1534 A. D. 1600 

Mayan            1000 B. C. -                Aztec                            Europeans 1519 A. D. 1550 

Hindu             1800 B. C. -                Mogul                Europeans 1500 - A. D. 1900 1900 

Chinese             400 -                      Manchu                       Europeans 1790 - 1930 1930 

Japanese        850 B. C. - ?            Tokugawa                                  Europeans 1853 - 

Islamic           500 B. C. - ?             Ottoman                                    Europeans 1750 - 

Western 350 - ?                       United States?                                  Future? ? 

Orthodox 350 - ?                             Soviet                                         Future? ? 

One cause, although by no means the chief cause, of the ability of Western Civilization to destroy other cultures rests on the fact that it has been expanding for a long time. This fact, in turn, rests on another condition to which we have already alluded, the fact that Western Civilization has passed through three periods of expansion, has entered into an Age of Conflict three times, each time has had its core area conquered almost completely by a single political unit, but has failed to go on to the Age of the Universal Empire because from the confusion of the Age of Conflict there emerged each time a new organization of society capable of expanding by its own organizational powers, with the result that the four phenomena characteristic of the Age of Conflict (decreasing rate of expansion, class conflicts, imperialist wars, irrationality) were gradually replaced once again by the four kinds of expansion typical of an Age of Expansion (demographic, geographic, production, knowledge). From a narrowly technical point of view, this shift from an Age of Conflict to an Age of Expansion is marked by a resumption of the investment of capital and the accumulation of capital on a large scale, just as the earlier shift from the Age of Expansion to the Age of Conflict was marked by a decreasing rate of investment and eventually by a decreasing rate of accumulation of capital. 

Western Civilization began, as all civilizations do, in a period of cultural mixture. In this particular case it was a mixture resulting from the barbarian invasions which destroyed Classical Civilization in the period 350-700. By creating a new culture from the various elements offered from the barbarian tribes, the Roman world, the Saracen world, and above all the Jewish world (Christianity), Western Civilization became a new society. 

This society became a civilization when it became organized, in the period 700-970, so that there was accumulation of capital and the beginnings of the investment of this capital in new methods of production. 

These new methods are associated with a change from infantry forces to mounted warriors in defense, from manpower (and thus slavery) to animal power in energy use, from the scratch plow and two-field, fallow agricultural technology of Mediterranean Europe to the eight-oxen, gang plow and three-field system of the Germanic peoples, and from the centralized, state-centered political orientation of the Roman world to the decentralized, private-power feudal network of the medieval world. 

In the new system a small number of men, equipped and trained to fight, received dues and services from the overwhelming majority of men who were expected to till the soil. From this inequitable but effective defensive system emerged an inequitable distribution of political power and, in turn, an inequitable distribution of the social economic income. This, in time, resulted in an accumulation of capital, which, by giving rise to demand for luxury goods of remote origin, began to shift the whole economic emphasis of the society from its earlier organization in self-sufficient agrarian units (manors) to commercial interchange, economic specialization, and, by the thirteenth century, to an entirely new pattern of society with towns, a bourgeois class, spreading literacy, growing freedom of alternative social choices, and new, often disturbing, thoughts. 

From all this came the first period of expansion of Western Civilization, covering the years 970-1270. At the end of this period, the organization of society was becoming a petrified collection of vested interests, investment was decreasing, and the rate of expansion was beginning to fall. Accordingly, Western Civilization, for the first time, entered upon the Age of Conflict. This period, the time of the Hundred Years' War, the Black Death, the great heresies, and severe class conflicts, lasted from about 1270 to 1420. By the end of it, efforts were arising from England and Burgundy to conquer the eve of Western Civilization. But, just at that moment, a new Age of Expansion, using a new organization of society which circumvented the old vested interests of the feudal manorial system, began. 

This new Age of Expansion, frequently called the period of commercial capitalism, lasted from about 1440 to about 1680. The real impetus to economic expansion during the period came from efforts to obtain profits by the interchange of goods, especially semi-luxury or luxury goods, over long distances. In time, this system of commercial capitalism became petrified into a structure of vested interests in which profits were sought by imposing restrictions on the production or interchange of goods rather than by encouraging these activities. This new vested-interest structure, usually called mercantilism, became such a burden on economic activities that the rate of expansion of economic life declined and even gave rise to a period of economic decline in the decades immediately following 1690. The class struggles and imperialist wars engendered by this Age of Conflict are sometimes called the Second Hundred Years' War. The wars continued until 1815, and the class struggles even later. As a result of the former, France by 1810 had conquered most of the eve of Western Civilization. But here, just as had occurred in 1420 when England had also conquered part of the core of the civilization toward the latter portion of an Age of Conflict, the victory was made meaningless because a new period of expansion began. Just as commercial capitalism had circumvented the petrified institution of the feudal-manorial system (chivalry) after 1440, so industrial capitalism circumvented the petrified institution of commercial capitalism (mercantilism) after 1820. [The so called 'Elite' are no such thing, most are cowards as the underlined above shows.DC]

The new Age of Expansion which made Napoleon's military-political victory of 1810 impossible to maintain had begun in England long before. It appeared as the Agricultural Revolution about 1725 and as the Industrial Revolution about 1775, but it did not get started as a great burst of expansion until after 1820. Once started, it moved forward with an impetus such as the world had never seen before, and it looked as if Western Civilization might cover the whole globe. The dates of this third Age of Expansion might be fixed at 1770-1929, following upon the second Age of Conflict of 1690-1815. The social organization which was at the center of this new development might be called "industrial capitalism." In the course of the last decade of the nineteenth century, it began to become a structure of vested interests to which we might give the name "monopoly capitalism." As early, perhaps, as 1890, certain aspects of a new Age of Conflict, the third in Western Civilization, began to appear, especially in the core area, with a revival of imperialism, of class struggle, of violent warfare, and of irrationalities. 

By 1930 it was clear that Western Civilization was again in an Age of Conflict; by 1942 a semi-peripheral state, Germany, had conquered much of the core of the civilization. That effort was defeated by calling into the fray a peripheral state (the United States) and another, outside civilization (the Soviet society). It is not yet clear whether Western Civilization will continue along the path marked by so many earlier civilizations, or whether it will be able to reorganize itself sufficiently to enter upon a new, fourth, Age of Expansion. If the former occurs, this Age of Conflict will undoubtedly continue with the fourfold characteristics of class struggle, war, irrationality, and declining progress. In this case, we shall undoubtedly get a Universal Empire in which the United States will rule most of Western Civilization. This will be followed, as in other civilizations, by a period of decay and ultimately, as the civilization grows weaker, by invasions and the total destruction of Western culture. On the other hand, if Western Civilization is able to reorganize itself and enters upon a fourth Age of Expansion, the ability of Western Civilization to survive and go on to increasing prosperity and power will be bright. Leaving aside this hypothetical future, it would appear thus that Western Civilization, in approximately fifteen hundred years, has passed through eight periods, thus: 

1. Mixture 350-700

2. Gestation, 700-970 

3A. First Expansion, 970-1270 

4A. First Conflict, 1270-1440 

Core Empire: England, 1420 

3B. Second Expansion, 1440-1690 

4B. Second Conflict, 1690-1815 

Core Empire: France, 1810 

3C. Third Expansion, 1770-1929 

4C. Third Conflict, 1893- 

Core Empire: Germany, 1942 

The two possibilities which lie in the future can be listed as follows: 

      Reorganization              Continuation of the Process 

3D. Fourth Expansion, 1944- 

                                  5. Universal Empire (the United States) 

6. Decay 

7. Invasion (end of the civilization) 

From the list of civilizations previously given, it becomes somewhat easier to see how Western Civilization was able to destroy (or is still destroying) the cultures of six other civilizations. In each of these six cases the victim civilization had already passed the period of Universal Empire and was deep in the Age of Decay. In such a situation Western Civilization played a role as invader similar to that played by the Germanic tribes in Classical Civilization, by the Dorians in Cretan Civilization, by the Greeks in Mesopotamian or Egyptian Civilization, by the Romans in Canaanite Civilization, or by the Ayrans in Indic Civilization. 

The Westerners who burst in upon the Aztecs in 1519, on the Incas in 1534, on the Mogul Empire in the eighteenth century, on the Manchu Empire after 1790, on the Ottoman Empire after 1774, and on the Tokugawa Empire after 1853 were performing the same role as the Visigoths and the other barbarian tribes to the Roman Empire after 377. In each case, the results of the collision of two civilizations, one in the Age of Expansion and the other in the Age of Decay, was a foregone conclusion. Expansion would destroy Decay. 

In the course of its various expansions Western Civilization has collided with only one civilization which was not already in the stage of decay. This exception was its half brother, so to speak, the civilization now represented by the Soviet Empire. 

It is not clear what stage this "Orthodox" Civilization is in, but it clearly is not in its stage of decay. It would appear that Orthodox Civilization began as a period of mixture (500-1300) and is now in its second period of expansion. The first period of expansion, covering 1500- 1900, had just begun to change into an Age of Conflict (1900-1920) when the vested interests of the society were wiped away by the defeat at the hands of Germany in 1917 and replaced by a new organization of society which gave rise to a second Age of Expansion (since 1921)

During much of the last four hundred years culminating in the twentieth century, the fringes of Asia have been occupied by a semicircle of old dying civilizations (Islamic, Hindu, Chinese, Japanese). These have been under pressure from Western Civilization coming in from the oceans and from Orthodox Civilization pushing outward from the heart of the Eurasian land mass. 

The Oceanic pressure began with Vasco da Gama in India in 1498, culminated aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay in 1945, and still continued with the Anglo-French attack on Suez in 1956. 

The Russian pressure from the continental heartland was applied to the inner frontiers of China, Iran, and Turkey from the seventeenth century to the present. 

Much of the world's history in the twentieth century has arisen from the interactions of these three factors (the continental heartland of Russian power, the shattered cultures of the Buffer Fringe of Asia, and the oceanic powers of Western Civilization). 

Chapter 2—

Cultural Diffusion 

in Western Civilization 

We have said that the culture of a civilization is created in its core area originally and moves outward into peripheral areas which thus become part of the civilization. This movement of cultural elements is called "diffusion" by students of the subject. It is noteworthy that material elements of a culture, such as tools, weapons, vehicles, and such, diffuse more readily and thus more rapidly than do the nonmaterial elements such as ideas, art forms, religious outlook, or patterns of social behavior. For this reason the peripheral portions of a civilization (such as Assyria in Mesopotamian Civilization, Rome or Spain in Classical Civilization, and the United States or Australia in Western Civilization) tend to have a somewhat cruder and more material culture than the core area of the same civilization. 

Material elements of a culture also diffuse beyond the boundaries of a civilization into other societies, and do so much more readily than the nonmaterial elements of the culture. For this reason the nonmaterial and spiritual elements of a culture are what give it its distinctive character rather than its tools and weapons which can be so easily exported to entirely different societies. Thus, the distinctive character of Western Civilization rests on its Christian heritage, its scientific outlook, its humanitarian elements, and its distinctive point of view in regard to the rights of the individual and respect for women rather than in such material things as firearms, tractors, plumbing fixtures, or skyscrapers, all of which are exportable commodities. 

The export of material elements in a culture, across its peripheral areas and beyond, to the peoples of totally different societies has strange results. As elements of material culture move from core to periphery inside a civilization, they tend, in the long run, to strengthen the periphery at the expense of the core because the core is more hampered in the use of material innovations by the strength of past vested interests and because the core devotes a much greater part of its wealth and energy to nonmaterial culture. Thus, such aspects of the Industrial Revolution as automobiles and radios are European rather than American inventions, but have been developed and utilized to a far greater extent in America because this area was not hampered in their use by surviving elements of feudalism, of church domination, of rigid class distinctions (for example, in education), or by widespread attention to music, poetry, art, or religion such as we find in Europe. A similar contrast can be seen in Classical Civilization between Greek and Roman or in Mesopotamian Civilization between Sumerian and Assyrian or in Mayan Civilization between Mayan and Aztec. 

The diffusion of culture elements beyond the boundaries of one society into the culture of another society presents quite a different case. The boundaries between societies present relatively little hindrance to the diffusion of material elements, and relatively greater hindrance to the diffusion of nonmaterial elements. Indeed, it is this fact which determines the boundary of the society, for, if the nonmaterial elements also diffused, the new area into which they flowed would be a peripheral portion of the old society rather than a part of a quite different society. The diffusion of material elements from one society to another has a complex effect on the importing society. In the short run it is usually benefitted by the importation, but in the long run it is frequently disorganized and weakened. 

When white men first came to North America, material elements from Western Civilization spread rapidly among the different Indian tribes. The Plains Indians, for example, were weak and impoverished before 1543, but in that year the horse began to diffuse northward from the Spaniards in Mexico. Within a century the Plains Indians were raised to a much higher standard of living (because of ability to hunt buffalo from horseback) and were immensely strengthened in their ability to resist Americans coming westward across the continent. 

In the meantime, the trans-Appalachian Indians who had been very powerful in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries began to receive firearms, steel traps, measles, and eventually whiskey from the French and later the English by way of the St. Lawrence. These greatly weakened the woods Indians of the trans-Appalachian area and ultimately weakened the Plains Indians of the trans-Mississippi area, because measles and whiskey were devastating and demoralizing and because the use of traps and guns by certain tribes made them dependent on whites for supplies at the same time that they allowed them to put great physical pressure on the more remote tribes which had not yet received guns or traps. 

Any united front of reds against whites was impossible, and the Indians were disrupted, demoralized, and destroyed. 

In general, importation of an element of material culture from one society to another is helpful to the importing society in the long run only if it is 

(a) productive, 

(b) can be made within the society itself, and 

(c) can be fitted into the nonmaterial culture of the importing society without demoralizing it. 

The destructive impact of Western Civilization upon so many other societies rests on its ability to demoralize their ideological and spiritual culture as much as its ability to destroy them in a material sense with firearms. 

When one society is destroyed by the impact of another society, the people are left in a debris of cultural elements derived from their own shattered culture as well as from the invading culture. 

These elements generally provide the instruments for fulfilling the material needs of these people, but they cannot be organized into a functioning society because of the lack of an ideology and spiritual cohesive. Such people either perish or are incorporated as individuals and small groups into some other culture, whose ideology they adopt for themselves and, above all, for their children. 

In some cases, however, the people left with the debris of a shattered culture are able to reintegrate the cultural elements into a new society and a new culture. They are able to do this because they obtain a new nonmaterial culture and thus a new ideology and morale which serve as a cohesive for the scattered elements of past culture they have at hand. Such a new ideology may be imported or may be indigenous, but in either case it becomes sufficiently integrated with the necessary elements of material culture to form a functioning whole and thus a new society. 

It is by some such process as this that all new societies, and thus all new civilizations, have been born. In this way, Classical Civilization was born from the wreckage of Cretan Civilization in the period 1150 B.C.— 900 B.C., and Western Civilization was born from the wreckage of Classical Civilization in the period A.D. 350—700. It is possible that new civilizations may be born in the debris from the civilizations wrecked by Western Civilization on the fringes of Asia. In this wreckage is debris from Islamic, Hindu, Chinese, and Japanese civilizations. lt would appear at the present time that new civilizations may be in the throes of birth in Japan, possibly in China, less likely in India, and dubiously in Turkey or Indonesia. 

The birth of a powerful civilization at any or several of these points would be of primary significance in world history, since it would serve as a counterbalance to the expansion of Soviet Civilization on the land mass of Eurasia. 

Turning from a hypothetical future to a historical past, we can trace the diffusion of cultural elements within Western Civilization from its core area across peripheral areas and outward to other societies. Some of these elements are sufficiently important to command a more detailed examination. 

Among the elements of the Western tradition which have diffused only very slowly or not at all are a closely related nexus of ideas at the basis of Western ideology. These include Christianity, the scientific outlook, humanitarianism, and the idea of the unique value and rights of the individual. But from this nexus of ideas have sprung a number of elements of material culture of which the most noteworthy are associated with technology. These have diffused readily, even to other societies. This ability of Western technology to emigrate and the inability of the scientific outlook, with which such technology is fairly closely associated, to do so have created an anomalous situation: societies such as Soviet Russia which have, because of lack of the tradition of scientific method, shown little inventiveness in technology are nevertheless able to threaten Western Civilization by the use, on a gigantic scale, of a technology almost entirely imported from Western Civilization. A similar situation may well develop in any new civilizations which come into existence on the fringes of Asia. 

The most important parts of Western technology can be listed under four headings: 

1. Ability to kill: development of weapons 

2. Ability to preserve life: development of sanitation and medical services 

3. Ability to produce both food and industrial goods 

4. Improvements in transportation and communications 

We have already spoken of the diffusion of Western firearms. The impact which these have had on peripheral areas and other societies, from Cortez's invasion of Mexico, in 1519 to the use of the first atom bomb on Japan in 1945, is obvious. Less obvious, but in the long run of much greater significance, is the ability of Western Civilization to conquer disease and to postpone death by sanitation and medical advances. 

These advances began in the core of Western Civilization before 1500 but have exercised their full impact only since about 1750 with the advent of vaccination, the conquest of plague, and the steady advance in saving lives through the discovery of antisepsis in the nineteenth century and of the antibiotics in the twentieth century. 

These discoveries and techniques have diffused outward from the core of Western Civilization and have resulted in a fall in the death rate in western Europe and America almost immediately, in southern Europe and eastern Europe somewhat later, and in Asia only in the period since 1900. The world-shaking significance of this diffusion will be discussed in a moment. 

Western Civilization's conquest of the techniques of production are so outstanding that they have been honored by the term "revolution" in all history books concerned with the subject. The conquest of the problem of producing food, known as the Agricultural Revolution, began in England as long ago as the early eighteenth century, say about 1725. The conquest of the problem of producing manufactured goods, known as the Industrial Revolution, also began in England, about fifty years after the Agricultural Revolution, say about 1775. The relationship of these two "revolutions" to each other and to the "revolution" in sanitation and public health and the differing rates at which these three "revolutions" diffused is of the greatest importance for understanding both the history of Western Civilization and its impact on other societies.[ conquest of the techniques of production in other words conquest of labor DC]

Agricultural activities, which provide the chief food supply of all civilizations, drain the nutritive elements from the soil. Unless these elements are replaced, the productivity of the soil will be reduced to a dangerously low level. In the medieval and early modern period of European history, these nutritive elements, especially nitrogen, were replaced through the action of the weather by leaving the land fallow either one year in three or even every second year. This had the effect of reducing the arable land by half or one third. The Agricultural Revolution was an immense step forward, since it replaced the year of fallowing with a leguminous crop whose roots increased the supply of nitrogen in the soil by capturing this gas from the air and fixing it in the soil in a form usable by plant life. Since the leguminous crop which replaced the fallow year of the older agricultural cycle was generally a crop like alfalfa, clover, or sainfoin which provided feed for cattle, this Agricultural Revolution not only increased the nitrogen content of the soil for subsequent crops of grain but also increased the number and quality of farm animals, thus increasing the supply of meat and animal products for food, and also increasing the fertility of the soil by increasing the supply of animal manure for fertilizers. 

The net result of the whole Agricultural Revolution was an increase in both the quantity and the quality of food. Fewer men were able to produce so much more food that many men were released from the burden of producing it and could devote their attention to other activities, such as government, education, science, or business. It has been said that in 1700 the agricultural labor of twenty persons was required in order to produce enough food for twenty-one persons, while in some areas, by 1900, three persons could produce enough food for twenty-one persons, thus releasing seventeen persons for non-agricultural activities. 

This Agricultural Revolution which began in England before 1725 reached France after 1800, but did not reach Germany or northern Italy until after 1830. As late as 1900 it had hardly spread at all into Spain, southern Italy and Sicily, the Balkans, or eastern Europe generally. In Germany, about 1840, this Agricultural Revolution was given a new boost forward by the introduction of the use of chemical fertilizers, and received another boost in the United States after 1880 by the introduction of farm machinery which reduced the need for human labor. These same two areas, with contributions from some other countries, gave another considerable boost to agricultural output after 1900 by the introduction of new seeds and better crops through seed selection and hybridization. 

These great agricultural advances after 1725 made possible the advances in industrial production after 1775 by providing the food and thus the labor for the growth of the factory system and the rise of industrial cities. Improvements in sanitation and medical services after 1775 contributed to the same end by reducing the death rate and by making it possible for large numbers of persons to live in cities without the danger of epidemics. 

The "Transportation Revolution" also contributed its share to making the modern world. This contribution began, slowly enough, about 1750, with the construction of canals and the building of turnpikes by the new methods of road construction devised by John L. McAdam ("macadamized" roads). Coal came by canal and food by the new roads to the new industrial cities after 1800. After 1825 both were greatly improved by the growth of a network of railroads, while communications were speeded by the use of the telegraph (after 1837) and the cable (after 1850). 

This "conquest of distance" was unbelievably accelerated in the twentieth century by the use of internal-combustion engines in automobiles, aircraft, and ships and by the advent of telephones and radio communications. The chief result of this tremendous speeding up of communications and transportation was that all parts of the world were brought closer together, and the impact of European culture on the non-European world was greatly intensified. 

This impact was made even more overwhelming by the fact that the Transportation Revolution spread outward from Europe extremely rapidly, diffusing almost as rapidly as the spread of European weapons, somewhat more rapidly than the spread of European sanitation and medical services, and much more rapidly than the spread of European industrialism, European agricultural techniques, or European ideology. 

As we shall see in a moment, many of the problems which the world faced at the middle of the twentieth century were rooted in the fact that these different aspects of the European way of life spread outward into the non-European world at such different speeds that the non-European world obtained them in an entirely different order from that in which Europe had obtained them. 

One example of this difference can be seen in the fact that in Europe the Industrial Revolution generally took place before the Transportation Revolution, but in the non European world this sequence was reversed. 

This means that Europe was able to produce its own iron, steel, and copper to build its own railroads and telegraph wires, but the non-European world could construct these things only by obtaining the necessary industrial materials from Europe and thus becoming the debtor of Europe. 

The speed with which the Transportation Revolution spread out from Europe can be seen in the fact that in Europe the railroad began before 1830, the telegraph before 1840, the automobile about 1890, and the wireless about 1900. The transcontinental railroad in the United States opened in 1869; by 1900 the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Cape-to-Cairo railroad were under full construction, and the Berlin-to-Baghdad enterprise was just beginning. By that same date—1900—India, the Balkans, China, and Japan were being covered with a network of railroads, although none of these areas, at that date, was sufficiently developed in an industrial sense to provide itself with the steel or copper to construct or to maintain such a network. Later stages in the Transportation Revolution, such as automobiles or radios, spread even more rapidly and were being used to cross the deserts of the Sahara or of Arabia within a generation of their advent in Europe. 

Another important example of this situation can be seen in the fact that in Europe the Agricultural Revolution began before the Industrial Revolution. Because of this, Europe was able to increase its output of food and thus the supply of labor necessary for industrialization. But in the non-European world (except North America) the effort to industrialize generally began before there had been any notable success in obtaining a more productive agricultural system. As a result, the increased supply of food (and thus of labor) needed for the growth of industrial cities in the non-European world has generally been obtained, not from increased output of food so much as from a reduction of the peasants' share of the food produced. In the Soviet Union, especially, the high speed of industrialization in the period 1926-1940 was achieved by a merciless oppression of the rural community in which millions of peasants lost their lives. The effort to copy this Soviet method in Communist China in the 1950'5 brought that area to the verge of disaster. 

The most important example of such differential diffusion rates of two European developments appears in the difference between the spread of the food-producing revolution and the spread of the revolution in sanitation and medical services. This difference became of such worldshaking consequences by the middle of the twentieth century that we must spend considerable time examining it.

In Europe the Agricultural Revolution which served to increase the supply of food began at least fifty years before the beginnings of the revolution in sanitation and medical services which decreased the number of deaths and thus increased the number of the population. The two dates for these two beginnings might be put roughly at 1725 and 1775. As a result of this difference, Europe generally had sufficient food to feed its increased population. When the population reached a point where Europe itself could no longer feed its own people (say about 1850), the outlying areas of the European and non European worlds were so eager to be industrialized (or to obtain railroads) that Europe was able to obtain non-European food in exchange for European industrial products. This sequence of events was a very happy combination for Europe. But the sequence of events in tile non-European world was quite different and much less happy. Not only did the non-European world get industrialization before it got the revolution in food production; it also got the revolution in sanitation and medical services before it got a sufficient increase in food to take care of the resulting increase in population. As a result, the demographic explosion which began in northwestern Europe early in the nineteenth century spread outward to eastern Europe and to Asia with increasingly unhappy consequences as it spread. The result was to create the greatest social problem of the twentieth-century world. 

Most stable and primitive societies, such as the American Indians before 1492 or medieval Europe, have no great population problem because the birthrate is balanced by the death rate. In such societies both of these are high, the population is stable, and the major portion of that population is young (below eighteen years of age). This kind of society (frequently called Population Type A) is what existed in Europe in the medieval period (say about 1400) or even in part of the early modern period (say about 1700). As a result of the increased supply of food in Europe after 1725, and of men's increased ability to save lives because of advances in sanitation and medicine after 1775, the death rate began to fall, the birthrate remained high, the population began to increase, and the number of older persons in the society increased. This gave rise to what we have called the demographic explosion (or Population Type B). As a result of it, the population of Europe (beginning in western Europe) increased in the nineteenth century, and the major portion of that population was in the prime of life (ages eighteen to forty-five), the arms bearing years for men and the childbearing years for women. 

At this point the demographic cycle of an expanding population goes into a third stage (Population Type C) in which the birthrate also begins to fall. The reasons for this fall in the birthrate have never been explained in a satisfactory way, but, as a consequence of it, there appears a new demographic condition marked by a falling birthrate, a low death rate, and a stabilizing and aging population whose major part is in the mature years from thirty to sixty. As the population gets older because of the decrease in births and the increase in expectation of life, a larger and larger part of the population has passed the years of hearing children or bearing arms. This causes the birthrate to decline even more rapidly, and eventually gives a population so old that the death rate begins to rise again because of the great increase in deaths from old age or from the casualties of inevitable senility. Accordingly, the society passes into a fourth stage of the demographic cycle (Population Type D). This stage is marked by a declining birthrate, a rising death rate, a decreasing population, and a population in which the major part is over fifty years of age. 

It must be confessed that the nature of the fourth stage of this demographic cycle is based on theoretical considerations rather than on empirical observation, because even western Europe, where the cycle is most advanced, has not yet reached this fourth stage. However, it seems quite likely that it will pass into such a stage by the year 2000, and already the increasing number of older persons has given rise to new problems and to a new science called geriatrics both in western Europe and in the eastern United States. 

As we have said, Europe has already experienced the first three stages of this demographic cycle as a result of the Agricultural Revolution after 1725 and the Sanitation-Medical Revolution after 1775. As these two revolutions have diffused outward from western Europe to more peripheral areas of the world (the lifesaving revolution passing the food-producing revolution in the process), these more remote areas have entered, one by one, upon the demographic cycle. This means that the demographic explosion (Population Type B) has moved outward from western Europe to Central Europe to eastern Europe and finally to Asia and Africa. By the middle of the twentieth century, India was fully in the grasp of the demographic explosion, with its population shooting upward at a rate of about 5 million a year, while Japan's population rose from 55 million in 1920 to 94 million in 1960. A fine example of the working of this process can be seen in Ceylon where in 1920 the birthrate was 40 per thousand and the death rate was 32 per thousand, but in 1950 the birthrate was still at 40 while the death rate had fallen to 12. Before we examine the impact of this development on world history in the twentieth century let us look at two brief tables which will clarify this process. 

The demographic cycle may be divided into four stages which we have designated by the first four letters of the alphabet. These four stages can be distinguished in respect to four traits: the birthrate, the death rate, the number of the population, and its age distribution. The nature of the four stages in these four respects can be seen in the following table: 

The Demographic Cycle

Stage              A          B              C              D 

Birthrate      High       High        Falling       Low 

Death rate   High       Falling        Low        Rising 

Numbers    Stable      Rising       Stable      Falling 

Age            Many       Many         Many      Many old 

                 young     in prime  Middle-aged

Distribution(Below18)(18-45)    (Over 30)  (Over 50) 

The consequences of this demographic cycle (and the resulting demographic explosion) as it diffuses outward from western Europe to more peripheral areas of the world may be gathered from the following table which sets out the chronology of this movement in the four areas of western Europe, central Europe, eastern Europe, and Asia: 

Diffusion of the Demographic Cycle 

Areas Western  Central   Eastern 

Dates Europe   Europe    Europe      Asia 

1700       A          A            A            A 

1800       B          A            A            A _______ 

1850       B     |    B            A            A 

|________________ 

1900       C          B      |     B            A 

|________________ 

1950       C          C             B     |     B 

|____________ 

2000       D          D            C            B 

In this table the line of greatest population pressure (the demographic explosion of Type B population) has been marked by a dotted line. This shows that there has been a sequence, at intervals of about fifty years, of four successive population pressures which might be designated with the following names: 

Anglo-French pressure, about 1850 

Germanic-Italian pressure, about 1900 

Slavic pressure, about 1950 

Asiatic pressure, about 2000 

This diffusion of pressure outward from the western European core of Western Civilization can contribute a great deal toward a richer understanding of the period 1850- 2000. It helps to explain the Anglo-French rivalry about 1850, the Anglo-French alliance based on fear of Germany after 1900, the free-world alliance based on fear of Soviet Russia after 1950, and the danger to both Western Civilization and Soviet Civilization from Asiatic pressure by 2000. 

These examples show how our understanding of the problems of the twentieth century world can be illuminated by a study of the various developments of western Europe and of the varying rates by which they diffused outward to the more peripheral portions of Western Civilization and ultimately to the . non-Western world. In a rough fashion we might list these developments in the order in which they appeared in western Europe as well as the order in which they appeared in the more remote non-Western world: 

Developments in Western Europe 

1. Western ideology 

2. Revolution in weapons (especially firearms) 

3. Agricultural Revolution 

4. Industrial Revolution 

5. Revolution in sanitation and medicine 

6. Demographic explosion 

7. Revolution in transportation and communications 

Developments in Asia 

1. Revolution in weapons 

2. Revolution in transport and communications 

3. Revolution in sanitation and medicine 

4. Industrial Revolution 

5. Demographic explosion 

6. Agricultural Revolution 

7. And last (if at all), Western ideology 

Naturally, these two lists are only a rough approximation to the truth. In the European list it should be quite clear that each development is listed in the order of its first beginning and that each of these traits has been a continuing process of development since. In the Asiatic list it should be clear that the order of arrival of the different traits is quite different in different areas and that the order given on this list is merely one which seems to apply to several important areas. Naturally, the problems arising from the advent of these traits in Asiatic areas depend on the order in which the traits arrive, and thus are quite different in areas where this order of arrival is different. The chief difference arises from a reversal of order between items 3 and 4. 

The fact that Asia obtained these traits in a different order from that of Europe is of the greatest significance. We shall devote much of the rest of this book to examining this subject. At this point we might point out two aspects of it. In 1830 democracy was growing rapidly in Europe and in America. At that time the development of weapons had reached a point where governments could not get weapons which were much more effective than those which private individuals could get. Moreover, private individuals could obtain good weapons because they had a high enough standard of living to afford it (as a result of the Agricultural Revolution) and such weapons were cheap (as a result of the Industrial Revolution). By 1930 (and even more by 1950) the development of weapons had advanced to the point where governments could obtain more effective weapons (dive-bombers, armored cars, flamethrowers, poisonous gases, and such) than private individuals. Moreover, in Asia, these better weapons arrived before standards of living could be raised by the Agricultural Revolution or costs of weapons reduced sufficiently by the Industrial Revolution. Moreover, standards of living were held down in Asia because the Sanitation Medical Revolution and the demographic explosion arrived before the Agricultural Revolution. As a result, governments in Europe in 1830 hardly dared to oppress the people, and democracy was growing; hut in the non-European world by 1930 (and even more by 1950) governments did dare to, and could, oppress their peoples, who could do little to prevent it. When we add to this picture the fact that the ideology of Western Europe had strong democratic elements derived from its Christian and scientific traditions, while Asiatic countries had authoritarian traditions in political life, we can see that democracy had a hopeful future in Europe in 1830 but a very dubious future in Asia m 1950. 

From another point of view we can sec that in Europe the sequence of Agricultural-Industrial-Transportation revolutions made it possible for Europe to have rising standards of living and little rural oppression, since the Agricultural Revolution provided the food and thus the labor for industrialism and for transport facilities. But in Asia, where the sequence of these three revolutions was different (generally: Transportation-Industrial-Agricultural), labor could be obtained from the Sanitary-Medical Revolution, but food for this labor could be obtained only by oppressing the rural population and preventing any real improvements in standards of living. 

Some countries tried to avoid this by borrowing capital for railroads and steel mills from European countries rather than by raising capital from the savings of their own people, but this meant that these countries became the debtors (and thus to some extent the subordinates) of Europe. Asiatic nationalism usually came to resent this debtor role and to prefer the role of rural oppression of its own people by its own government. The most striking example of this preference for rural oppression over foreign indebtedness was made in the Soviet Union in 1928 with the opening of the Five-Year plans. Somewhat similar but less drastic choices were made even earlier in Japan and much later in China. But we must never forget that these and other difficult choices had to be made by Asiatics because they obtained the diffused traits of Western Civilization in an order different from that in which Europe obtained them. 

Chapter 3

Europe's Shift to 

the Twentieth Century 

While Europe's traits were diffusing outward to the non-European world, Europe was also undergoing profound changes and facing difficult choices at home. These choices were associated with drastic changes, in some cases we might say reversals, of Europe's point of view. These changes may be examined under eight headings. The nineteenth century was marked by 

(1) belief in the innate goodness of man; 

(2) secularism; 

(3) belief in progress; 

(4) liberalism; 

(5) capitalism; 

(6) faith in science; 

(7) democracy; 

(8) nationalism. 

In general, these eight factors went along together in the nineteenth century. They were generally regarded as being compatible with one another; the friends of one were generally the friends of the others; and the enemies of one were generally the enemies of the rest. 

Metternich and De Maistre were generally opposed to all eight; Thomas Jefferson and John Stuart Mill were generally in favor of all eight.. 

The belief in the innate goodness of man had its roots in the eighteenth century when it appeared to many that man was born good and free but was everywhere distorted, corrupted, and enslaved by bad institutions and conventions. As Rousseau said, "Man is born free yet everywhere he is in chains." Thus arose the belief in the "noble savage," the romantic nostalgia for nature and for the simple nobility and honesty of the inhabitants of a faraway land. If only man could be freed, they felt, freed from the corruption of society and its artificial conventions, freed from the burden of property, of the state, of the clergy, and of the rules of matrimony, then man, it seemed clear, could rise to heights undreamed of before—could, indeed, become a kind of superman, practically a god. It was this spirit which set loose the French Revolution. It was this spirit which prompted the outburst of self-reliance and optimism so characteristic of the whole period from 1770 to 1914. [Actually the underlining influence in France was the spirit of Zionism DC]

Obviously, if man is innately good and needs but to be freed from social restrictions, he is capable of tremendous achievements in this world of time, and does not need to postpone his hopes of personal salvation into eternity. Obviously, if man is a god-like creature whose ungod-like actions are due only to the frustrations of social conventions, there is no need to worry about service to God or devotion to any other worldly end. Man can accomplish most by service to himself and devotion to the goals of this world. Thus came the triumph of secularism.[That is straight from the Wide Path of Destruction DC]

Closely related to these nineteenth century beliefs that human nature is good, that society is bad, and that optimism and secularism were reasonable attitudes were certain theories about the nature of evil.. 

To the nineteenth century mind evil, or sin, was a negative conception. It merely indicated a lack or, at most, a distortion of good. Any idea of sin or evil as a malignant positive force opposed to good, and capable of existing by its own nature, was completely lacking in the typical nineteenth-century mind. To such a mind the only evil was frustration and the only sin, repression. 

Just as the negative idea of the nature of evil flowed from the belief that human nature was good, so the idea of liberalism flowed from the belief that society was bad. For, if society was bad, the state, which was the organized coercive power of society, was doubly bad, and if man was good, he should be freed, above all, from the coercive power of the state. Liberalism was the crop which emerged from this soil. In its broadest aspect liberalism believed that men should be freed from coercive power as completely as possible. In its narrowest aspect liberalism believed that the economic activities of man should be freed completely from "state interference." This latter belief, summed up in the battle-cry "No government in business," was commonly called "laissez-faire." Liberalism, which included laissez-faire, was a wider term because it would have freed men from the coercive power of any church, army, or other institution, and would have left to society little power beyond that required to prevent the strong from physically oppressing the weak.

From either aspect liberalism was based on an almost universally accepted nineteenth century superstition known as the "community of interests." This strange, and unexamined, belief held that there really existed, in the long run, a community of interests between the members of a society. It maintained that, in the long run, what was good for one member of society was good for all and that what was bad for one was had for all. But it went much further than this. The theory of the "community of interests" believed that there did exist a possible social pattern in which each member of society would be secure, free, and prosperous, and that this pattern could be achieved by a process of adjustment so that each person could fall into that place in the pattern to which his innate abilities entitled him. This implied two corollaries which the nineteenth century was prepared to accept: 

(1) that human abilities are innate and can only be distorted or suppressed by social discipline and 
(2) that each individual is the best judge of his own self-interest. 

All these together form the doctrine of the "community of interests," a doctrine which maintained that if each individual does what seems best for himself the result, in the long run, will be best for society as a whole.. 

Closely related to the idea of the "community of interests" were two other beliefs of the nineteenth century: the belief in progress and in democracy. The average man of 1880 was convinced that he was the culmination of a long process of inevitable progress which had been going on for untold millennia and which would continue indefinitely into the future. This belief in progress was so fixed that it tended to regard progress as both inevitable and automatic. Out of the struggles and conflicts of the universe better things were constantly emerging, and the wishes or plans of the objects themselves had little to do with the process. [Well the Liberals are having trouble with their progress these days DC]

The idea of democracy was also accepted as inevitable, although not always as desirable, for the nineteenth century could not completely submerge a lingering feeling that rule by the best or rule by the strong would be better than rule by the majority. But the facts of political development made rule by the majority unavoidable, and it came to he accepted, at least in western Europe, especially since it was compatible with liberalism and with the community of interests. 

Liberalism, community of interests, and the belief in progress led almost inevitably to the practice and theory of capitalism. Capitalism was an economic system in which the motivating force was the desire for private profit as determined in a price system. Such a system, it was felt, by seeking the aggrandization of profits for each individual, would give unprecedented economic progress under liberalism and in accord with the community of interests. In the nineteenth century this system, in association with the unprecedented advance of natural science, had given rise to industrialism (that is, power production) and urbanism (that is, city life), both of which were regarded as inevitable concomitants of progress by most people, but with the greatest suspicion by a persistent and vocal minority. 

The nineteenth century was also an age of science. By this term we mean the belief that the universe obeyed rational laws which could be found by observation and could be used to control it. This belief was closely connected with the optimism of the period, with its belief in inevitable progress, and with secularism. The latter appeared as a tendency toward materialism. This could be defined as the belief that all reality is ultimately explicable in terms of the physical and chemical laws which apply to temporal matter. 

The last attribute of the nineteenth century is by no means the least: nationalism. It was the great age of nationalism, a movement which has been discussed in many lengthy and inconclusive books but which can be defined for our purposes as "a movement for political unity with those with whom we believe we are akin." As such, nationalism in the nineteenth century had a dynamic force which worked in two directions. 

On the one side, it served to bind persons of the same nationality together into a tight, emotionally satisfying, unit. 

On the other side, it served to divide persons of different nationality into antagonistic groups, often to the injury of their real mutual political, economic, or cultural advantages. 

Thus, in the period to which we refer, nationalism sometimes acted as a cohesive force, creating a united Germany and a united Italy out of a medley of distinct political units. 

But sometimes, on the other hand, nationalism acted as a disruptive force within such dynastic states as the Habsburg Empire or the Ottoman Empire, splitting these great states into a number of distinctive political units. 

These characteristics of the nineteenth century have been so largely modified in the twentieth century that it might appear, at first glance, as if the latter were nothing more than the opposite of the former. This is not completely accurate, but there can be no doubt that most of these characteristics have been drastically modified in the twentieth century. 

This change has arisen from a series of shattering experiences which have profoundly disturbed patterns of behavior and of belief, of social organizations and human hopes. Of these shattering experiences the chief were the trauma of the First World War, the long drawn-out agony of the world depression, and the unprecedented violence of destruction of the Second World War. Of these three, the First World War was undoubtedly the most important. To a people who believed in the innate goodness of man, in inevitable progress, in the community of interests, and in evil as merely the absence of good, the First World War, with its millions of persons dead and its billions of dollars wasted, was a blow so terrible as to be beyond human ability to comprehend. 

As a matter of fact, no real success was achieved in comprehending it. The people of the day regarded it as a temporary and inexplicable aberration to be ended as soon as possible and forgotten as soon as ended. Accordingly, men were almost unanimous, in 1919, in their determination to restore the world of 1913. 

This effort was a failure. After ten years of effort to conceal the new reality of social life by a facade painted to look like 1913, the facts burst through the pretense, and men were forced, willingly or not, to face the grim reality of the twentieth century. The events which destroyed the pretty dream world of 1919-1929 were the stock-market crash, the world depression, the world financial crisis, and ultimately the martial clamor of rearmament and aggression. 

Thus depression and war forced men to realize that the old world of the nineteenth century had passed forever, and made them seek to create a new world in accordance with the facts of present-day conditions. This new world, the child of the period of 1914-1945, assumed its recognizable form only as the first half of the century drew to a close. 

In contrast with the nineteenth-century belief that human nature is innately good and that society is corrupting, the twentieth century came to believe that human nature is, if not innately bad, at least capable of being very evil. Left to himself, it seems today, man falls very easily to the level of the jungle or even lower, and this result can be prevented only by training and the coercive power of society.[What a donkey,it was your elitist friends creating the wars, and stock market crash's, man is not who you think it is.man is much more DC]

Thus, man is capable of great evil, but society can prevent this. Along with this change from good men and bad society to bad men and good society has appeared a reaction from optimism to pessimism and from secularism to religion. At the same time the view that evil is merely the absence of good has been replaced with the idea that evil is a very positive force which must be resisted and overcome. The horrors of Hitler's concentration camps and of Stalin's slave-labor units are chiefly responsible for this change. 

Associated with these changes are a number of others. The belief that human abilities are innate and should be left free from social duress in order to display themselves has been replaced by the idea that human abilities are the result of social training and must be directed to socially acceptable ends. 

Thus liberalism and laissez-faire are to be replaced, apparently, by social discipline and planning. 

The community of interests which would appear if men were merely left to pursue their own desires has been replaced by the idea of the welfare community, which must be created by conscious organizing action. 

The belief in progress has been replaced by the fear of social retrogression or even human annihilation. 

The old march of democracy now yields to the insidious advance of authoritarianism, and the individual capitalism of the profit motive seems about to be replaced by the state capitalism of the welfare economy. 

Science, on all sides, is challenged by mysticisms, some of which march under the banner of science itself; urbanism has passed its peak and is replaced by suburbanism or even "flight to the country"; and nationalism finds its patriotic appeal challenged by appeals to much wider groups of class, ideological, or continental scope.. 

We have already given some attention to the fashion in which a number of Western European innovations, such as industrialism and the demographic explosion, diffused outward to the peripheral non-European world at such different rates of speed that they arrived in Asia in quite a different order from that in which they had left western Europe. 

The same phenomenon can be seen within Western Civilization in regard to the nineteenth-century characteristics of Europe which we have enumerated. For example, nationalism was already evident in England at the time of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588; it raged through France in the period after 1789; it reached Germany and Italy only after 1815, became a potent force in Russia and the Balkans toward the end of the nineteenth century, and was noticeable in China, India, and Indonesia, and even Negro Africa, only in the twentieth century. 

Somewhat similar patterns of diffusion can be found in regard to the spread of democracy, of parliamentary government, of liberalism, and of secularism. The rule, however, is not so general or so simple as it appears at first glance. The exceptions and the complications appear more numerous as we approach the twentieth century. Even earlier it was evident that the arrival of the sovereign state did not follow this pattern, enlightened despotism and the growth of supreme public authority appearing in Germany, and even in Italy, before it appeared in France. 

Universal free education also appeared in central Europe before it appeared in a western country like England. Socialism also is a product of central Europe rather than of western Europe, and moved from the former to the latter only in the fifth decade of the twentieth century. These exceptions to the general rule about the eastward movement of modern historical developments have various explanations. Some of these are obvious, but others are very complicated. 

As an example of such a complication we might mention that in Western Europe nationalism, industrialism, liberalism, and democracy were generally reached in this order. But in Germany they all appeared about the same time. To the Germans it appeared that they could achieve nationalism and industrialism (both of which they wanted) more rapidly and more successfully if they sacrificed liberalism and democracy. Thus, in Germany nationalism was achieved in an undemocratic way, by "blood and iron," as Bismarck put it, while industrialism was achieved under state auspices rather than through liberalism. 

This selection of elements and the resulting playing off of elements against one another was possible in more peripheral areas only because these areas had the earlier experience of western Europe to study, copy, avoid, or modify. Sometimes they had to modify these traits as they developed. This can be seen from the following considerations. 

When the Industrial Revolution began in England and France, these countries were able to raise the necessary capital for new factories because they already had the Agricultural Revolution and because, as the earliest producers of industrial goods, they made excessive profits which could he used to provide capital. 

But in Germany and in Russia, capital was much more difficult to find, because they obtained the Industrial Revolution later, when they had to compete with England and France, and could not earn such large profits and also because they did not already have an established Agricultural Revolution on which to build their Industrial Revolution. 

Accordingly, while western Europe, with plenty of capital and cheap, democratic weapons, could finance its industrialization with liberalism and democracy, central and eastern Europe had difficulty financing industrialism, and there the process was delayed to a period when cheap and simple democratic weapons were being replaced by expensive and complicated weapons. This meant that the capital for railroads and factories had to be raised with government assistance; liberalism waned; rising nationalism encouraged this tendency; and the undemocratic nature of existing weapons made it clear that both liberalism and democracy were living a most precarious existence. 

As a consequence of situations such as this, some of the traits which arose in western Europe in the nineteenth century moved outward to more peripheral areas of Europe and Asia with great difficulty and for only a brief period. Among these less sturdy traits of western Europe's great century we might mention liberalism, democracy, the parliamentary system, optimism, and the belief in inevitable progress. These were, we might say, flowers of such delicate nature that they could not survive any extended period of stormy weather. That the twentieth century subjected them to long periods of very stormy weather is clear when we consider that it brought a world economic depression sandwiched between two world wars. 

Next
Part Two—Western Civilization to 1914 
46s

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