How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity (62 page)

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Authors: Rodney Stark

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Even successfully building an industrialized society is not tantamount to becoming modern in the Western sense, as the case of China illustrates. To use the classic phrase the scholar Karl A. Wittfogel coined more than a half century ago, modern China remains an “Oriental despotism.”
41

A substantial degree of individual freedom is inseparable from Western modernity, and this still is lacking in much of the non-Western world.

No doubt Western modernity has its limitations and discontents. Still, it is far better than the known alternatives—not only, or even primarily, because of its advanced technology but because of its fundamental commitment to freedom, reason, and human dignity.

Notes

 

 

Introduction: What You
Don’t
Know about the Rise of the West

 

1.

Ricketts et al., 2011. On September 21, 2008, the
New York Times
ran a long article on efforts to restore “Western Civilization” courses, headlined “Conservatives Try New Tack on Campuses.” This article prompted renewed efforts at the University of Texas that culminated in the elimination of the “Western Civilization” course.

2.

Thornton, 2000 (he rejects that position).

3.

Shaw, 2012; Kimball, 2008: 56.

4.

Bernal, 1987.

5.

Goldstone, 2009; Nasr, 1968; Saliba, 2007.

6.

Frank, 2011; Wallerstein, 1974, 2004.

7.

Frank, 1998; Hobson, 2004; Pomeranz, 2000.

8.

Stark, 2009. When the Turks took Constantinople in 1453, they breached the walls with cannons cast for them by Hungarian craftsmen. (See McNeill, 1982.)

9.

Most recently Ian Morris, 2010.

10.

Hanson, 2001: 16.

11.

Diamond, 1998; Cipolla, 1965.

12.

Mendelssohn, 1976.

13.

Marx and Engels,
The Communist Manifesto
.

14.

McCloskey, 2010: 6, 8.

15.

Marx [1845] 1998: 61.

16.

Mornet, 1947 (translation by Christopher Hill, 1980: 2–3).

17.

Osborne, 2006: 60.

Chapter 1: Stagnant Empires and the Greek “Miracle”

 

1.

Taagepera, 1978, 1979.

2.

Oppenheim, 1977; Saggs, 1989.

3.

Harris [1977] 1991: 235.

4.

Wilkinson, 2010: 37–38.

5.

Harris [1977] 1991: 172–73.

6.

Ghirshman, 1955.

7.

Jones, 1987: xxiii–xxiv.

8.

Harris [1977] 1991: 234.

9.

Jones, 1987: 5.

10.

See: Wittfogel [1957] 1981: 71–72.

11.

Quoted in Wilkinson, 2010: 342.

12.

Grossman, 1963.

13.

Wilkinson, 2010: 344.

14.

Russell, 1967: 99.

15.

Dawson, 1972: 62.

16.

Hartwell, 1966, 1967, 1971; McNeill, 1982.

17.

Reade, 125: 108.

18.

McNeill, 1963: 40.

19.

Finley, 1965: 29.

20.

Moritz, 1958.

21.

Lewis, 2002: 118; Gimple, 1976.

22.

I see no need to refute the nonsense that the Greeks stole it all from Africa: Bernal, 1987.

23.

Hamilton [1930] 1993: 24–25.

24.

Herodotus,
The History
, bk. 8; Hansen, 2006b.

25.

Grant, 1988: xiii.

26.

Hansen, 2006b.

27.

Chandler, 1987: 461.

28.

Lacey, 2011: 125.

29.

Migeotte, 2009: 16.

30.

Ibid.

31.

Hanson, 2001: 17.

32.

Chirot, 1985.

33.

Grant, 1988: 28.

34.

Jones [1987] 2003: 2.

35.

Lacey, 2011: 136.

36.

Quote in Lacey, 2011: 135.

37.

Herodotus based his account on conversations with Athenian veterans of the battle. We can be certain about the number of Athenian dead, since they were buried in a common grave mound and the name of each was inscribed on one of three small marble monuments placed at the site. The mound can still be visited; two of the monuments have disappeared, the third is now in the Athens Museum.

38.

Hanson, 2001, 2009.

39.

Lacey, 2011: 189.

40.

Although Greek armies consisted of citizen volunteers, during peacetime some adventuresome souls were always willing to fight elsewhere for pay.

41.

Hanson, 2001: 2.

42.

Ibid., 279–333.

43.

Plato,
Laches.

44.

Tod, 1948: 2:204.

45.

Hanson, 2001: 329.

46.

Josephus,
Jewish War
3:107

47.

Austin and Vidal-Naquet, 1972: 107.

48.

Johnson, 2003: 48.

49.

Austin and Vidal-Naquet, 1972; French, 1964; Finley, 1973, 1981; Migeotte, 2009; Scheidel, Morris, and Saller, 2007.

50.

Migeotte, 2009; Scheidel, Morris, and Saller, 2007.

51.

Morris, 2009: 113.

52.

Migeotte, 2009: 21; Scheidel, Morris, and Saller, 2007: 42.

53.

Scheidel, Morris, and Saller, 2007: 11.

54.

Reden, 2007: 400.

55.

Cohen, 1992: 3.

56.

Ibid., 61.

57.

Harris, 1989: 329.

58.

Harris, 1989; Thomas, 1992.

59.

Lyons, 2010: 13.

60.

Harris, 1989: 58–59.

61.

As quoted by Xenophon,
Memorabilia of Socrates
, 1:6:14.

62.

Spoken by Prometheus in Aeschylus’s
Prometheus Unbound
(ca. 442 BC).

63.

Boardman, 1988; Johnson, 2003.

64.

Johnson, 2003: 60–64.

65.

Brockett and Hildy, 2007.

66.

Ulrich and Pisk, 1963.

67.

Williams, 1903.

68.

Beye, 1987; Whitmarsh, 2004.

69.

Cuomo, 2007; Finley, 1959; Major, 1996; Moritz, 1958; White, 1984; Wilson, 2002.

70.

Cuomo, 2007.

71.

Ibid.

72.

West, 2001: 140.

73.

Needham, 1956: 581.

74.

Herodotus,
The History
, 2:19

75.

Freeman, 1999: 150.

76.

Anaxagoras,
Fragments of Anaxagoras
, frag. 12.

77.

Whitehead [1929] 1979: 39.

78.

Plato,
Phaedo
, 95.

79.

McLendon, 1959: 90.

80.

Wild, 1949: 8.

81.

Caird, 1904; McLendon, 1959; Wolfson, 1947.

82.

Plato,
Laws
, bk. 10.

83.

Plato,
Republic.

84.

Plato,
Laws.

85.

In Lindberg, 1992: 54.

86.

See: Aristotle,
On the Heavens
and
Metaphysics
.

87.

Aristotle,
Eudemian Ethics
.

88.

Aristotle,
Metaphysics
.

89.

Stark, 2005.

90.

Freeman, 1999: 6.

91.

Westermann, 1941.

92.

Freeman, 1999: 121.

93.

For a summary, see Finley, 1980.

94.

Vogt, 1974: 25.

95.

Freeman, 1999: 3.

96.

Aristotle,
Constitution of Athens
, 24.

97.

Kroeber’s findings were replicated by Gray, 1958.

98.

Roberts, 1998: 38.

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