The Undivided Past (52 page)

    1.
D. Hartley,
Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty and His Expectations, Part the Second
(London, 1749), p. 355.

    2.
R. Williams,
Keywords
(London, 1976), p. 48; emphasis in Boswell’s original.

    3.
L. Wolff,
Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment
(Stanford, 1994), pp. 12–13; L. Febvre, “Civilisation: Evolution of a Word and a Group of Ideas,” in P. Burke, ed.,
A New Kind of History: From the Writings of Febvre
(New York, 1973), pp. 219–57; F. Braudel,
On History
(Chicago, 1980), p. 180.

    4.
B. Bowden, “The Ideal of Civilisation: Its Origins and Socio-Political Character,”
Critical Review of International and Political Philosophy
7 (2004): 28–34, 36–41; N. Elias,
The Civilising Process
(Oxford, 2000 ed.), pp. 10, 24–27.

    5.
T. Todorov,
The Fear of Barbarians: Beyond the Clash of Civilizations
(Chicago, 2010), pp. 14–28.

    6.
W. R. Jones, “The Image of the Barbarian in Medieval Europe,”
Comparative Studies in Society and History
13 (1971): 376–407; A. Pagden,
The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology
(Cambridge, 1986 ed.), pp. 15–26; Pagden,
Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West
(Oxford, 2008), pp. 32–34, 61–62.

    7.
Wolff,
Inventing Eastern Europe
, pp. 4–5.

    8.
M. de Montaigne,
Essays
(Harmondsworth, 1991 ed.), pp. 231,
1114–15; C. Geertz,
Available Light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics
(Princeton, 2000), p. 45.

    9.
F. Furet, “Civilization and Barbarism in Gibbon’s
History
,” in G. W. Bowersock, J. Clive, and S. R. Grubard, eds.,
Edward Gibbon and the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(Cambridge, Mass., 1977), pp. 159–66; J. W. Burrow,
Gibbon
(Oxford, 1985), pp. 39–40, 80, 84.

  10.
J. G. A. Pocock,
Barbarism and Religion
, vol. 4,
Barbarians, Savages and Empires
(Cambridge, 2005), pp. 2, 158–61; R. Porter,
Gibbon
(London, 1988), p. 5.

  11.
Burrow,
Gibbon
, pp. 39–40, 67–69, 81; Porter,
Gibbon
, pp. 136, 138–40.

  12.
Porter,
Gibbon
, pp. 143–45.

  13.
Burrow,
Gibbon
, pp. 42–51, 86–87.

  14.
Porter,
Gibbon
, p. 81; Pocock,
Barbarians, Savages and Empires
, p. 92.

  15.
Porter,
Gibbon
, pp. 145, 152–53.

  16.
S. Runciman, “Gibbon and Byzantium,” in Bowersock et al.,
Gibbon and the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, pp. 53–60.

  17.
Burrow,
Gibbon
, p. 76; Pocock,
Barbarians, Savages and Empires
, pp. 11–22, 96, 133.

  18.
Wolff,
Inventing Eastern Europe
, pp. 13, 357.

  19.
For brief recent accounts, see J. Spence,
The Chan’s Great Continent: China in Western Minds
(London, 1998), pp. 56–61; K. Teltscher,
The High Road to China: George Bogle, the Panchen Lama, and the First British Expedition to Tibet
(New York, 2006), pp. 247–50; J. Lovell,
The Great Wall: China Against the World, 1000 BC–AD 2000
(London, 2006), pp. 2–12; H. G. Gelber,
The Dragon and the Foreign Devils: China and the World, 1100 BC to the Present
(London, 2007), pp. 160–65. For earlier, anniversary accounts, see A. Singer,
The Lion and the Dragon: The Story of the First British Embassy to the Court of the Emperor Qianlong in Peking, 1792–1794
(London, 1992); A. Peyrefitte,
The Collision of Two Civilisations: The British Expedition to China, 1792–94
(London, 1993, trans. J. Rothschild). The Chinese word “yi,” often translated as the pejorative “barbarian,” is thought by some scholars, in certain circumstances, to be more inclusive than confrontational, and that it should be translated descriptively and nonpejoratively as “the foreign peoples,” or “outsiders,” or “strangers”: see J. L. Hevia,
Cherishing Men from Afar: Quuing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793
(Durham, N.C., 1995), pp. 120–21. I am grateful to Professor Susan Naquin for this reference.

  20.
J. S. Mill,
Essays on Politics and Culture
(London, 1962 ed.), pp. 51–52; Bowden, “Ideal of Civilisation,” p. 34; P. Mandler,
History and National Life
(London, 2002), p. 42.

  21.
J. P. Parry,
The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalism, National Identity, and Europe, 1830–1886
(Cambridge, 2006), pp. 20–22, 187, 248;
J. Osterhammel,
Europe, the “West” and the Civilizing Mission
(London, 2006).

  22.
N. Elias,
Über den Prozess der Zivilisation
, 2 vols. (Basel, 1939).

  23.
J. G. Herder,
Outlines of a Philosophy of History
(London, 1800), p. 421.

  24.
T. Newark, introduction to T. Hodgkin,
Huns, Vandals and the Fall of the Roman Empire
(London, 1996 ed.), pp. xxii–xxiv; T. S. Brown, “Gibbon, Hodgkin and the Invaders of Italy,” in R. McKitterick and R. Quinault, eds.,
Edward Gibbon and Empire
(Cambridge, 1997), pp. 148–54.

  25.
Braudel,
On History
, pp. 181–82; Bowden, “Ideal of Civilisation,” pp. 39–40.

  26.
Bowden, “Ideal of Civilisation,” pp. 40–41.

  27.
P. Fussell,
The Great War and Modern Memory
(Oxford, 1975), pp. 75, 79, 82.

  28.
A. J. Toynbee,
The Western Question in Greece and Turkey: A Study in the Contact of Civilisations
(London, 1922), p. 328; Wolff,
Inventing Eastern Europe
, p. 366. For Spanish versions of these characterizations of the Central and Entente powers during the First World War, see R. Carr,
Modern Spain, 1875–1980
(Oxford, 1980), pp. 81–82.

  29.
Bowden, “Ideal of Civilisation,” p. 40; A. Kuper,
Culture: The Anthropologists’ Account
(Cambridge, Mass., 1999), p. 8; W. A. Kaufmann,
Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist
(Princeton, 1950), pp. 87, 316–17, 339, 362.

  30.
C. Bell,
Civilization: An Essay
(New York, 1928), pp. 3, 15, 17.

  31.
R. Quinault, “Winston Churchill and Gibbon,” in McKitterick and Quinault,
Edward Gibbon and Empire
, pp. 317–32; W. Churchill, “Civilisation,” in R. S. Churchill, ed.,
Into Battle: Speeches by the Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill CH, MP
(London 1941), pp. 35–36.

  32.
R. A. Butler,
The Art of the Possible
(London, 1971), p. 85.

  33.
Quoted in F. Fernández-Armesto,
Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature
(New York, 2001), p. 20.

  34.
Newark, introduction to
Huns, Vandals
, p. xxiv; H. Rauschning,
Hitler Speaks
(London, 1939), p. 87.

  35.
Wolff,
Inventing Eastern Europe
, pp. 369–70.

  36.
A. Piganiol,
L’Empire chrétien (325–395)
(Paris, 1947), p. 422; P. Courcelle,
Histoire littéraire des grandes invasions germaniques
(Paris, 1948), passim. Nor were such views confined to French scholars, for British
historians writing in the aftermath of the Second
World War also saw the fall of the Roman Empire through the lens of their perceptions of 1939–45. In 1952, J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, who had interrogated high-ranking German prisoners, published a book entitled
The Barbarian West, 400–1000
, which began with a chapter sketching out the “civilization” that was “threatened” by the “barbarians.” Having
surveyed the secure achievements of the Roman Empire, the author ended, apocalyptically (and autobiographically), “upon such a world, the
Huns fell”: J. M. Wallace-Hadrill,
The Barbarian West, 400–1000
(3rd ed., London, 1967), pp. 9, 20.

  37.
S. Freud,
Civilization and Its Discontents
(New York, 1961 ed.), pp. 66–71; Todorov,
Fear of Barbarians
, pp. 24–25. Another proponent of this view was the historian George Macaulay Trevelyan, who, like his near contemporary
Winston Churchill, had also read
Gibbon as a young man. But his conclusion at the end of the Second
World War was more somber, for while he rejoiced in the eventual Allied victory, he was convinced that the long and devastating war had “cooked the goose of civilization” and that humanity was now living in “an age steadily lapsing and finally rushing into barbarism.” See D. Cannadine,
G. M. Trevelyan: A Life in History
(London, 1992), pp. 168, 175.

  38.
E. J. Hobsbawm, “Barbarism: A User’s Guide,”
New Left Review
206 (1994): 45, 49.

  39.
W. Benjamin,
Illuminations
(London, 1970 ed.), p. 258; B. Wasserstein,
Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in Our Time
(Oxford, 2007), pp. 1, 793.

  40.
Here is one recent example, its title full of sub-Gibbonian vocabulary: B.-H. Lévy,
Life in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism
(New York, 2008). In fact, Lévy was criticizing the anti-Americanism that he believed characterizes much of the contemporary European left, and it was to this group that he gave the title “new barbarians.” See also M. B. Salter,
Barbarians and Civilization in International Relations
(London, 2002).

  41.
W. Goffart,
Barbarians and Romans, AD 48–54: The Techniques of Accommodation
(Princeton, 1980), esp. pp. 3–39; Goffart, “Rome, Constantinople and the Barbarians,”
American Historical Review
86 (1981): pp. 275–306; Goffart, “The Theme of ‘the Barbarian Invasions,’ ” in E. Chrysos and A. Schwartz, eds.,
Das Reich und die Barbaren
(Veroffentlichungen des Instituts fur österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 29; Vienna, 1989), pp. 87–107; both reprinted in Goffart,
Rome’s Fall and After
(London, 1989).

  42.
P. Brown,
The World of Late Antiquity, AD 150–750
(London, 1971), pp. 122–23; H. Wolfram,
History of the Goths
(Berkeley, 1988), esp. pp. 158–59; P. Amory,
People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554
(Cambridge, 1997), pp. xi, 1–6, 13–14; J. M. H. Smith, “Did Women Have a Transformation of the Roman World?”
Gender and History
12 (2000): 553–54; Smith,
Europe After Rome: A New Cultural History, 500–1000
(Oxford, 2005), pp. 7–9, 253–67; P. S. Wells,
Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered
(New York, 2008), pp. xi–xv.

  43.
B. Ward-Perkins,
The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization
(Oxford,
2005); P. Heather, “The Huns and the End of the Roman Empire in Western Europe,”
English Historical Review
110 (1995): 4–41; Heather,
The Fall of the Roman Empire
(London, 2005).

  44.
Ward-Perkins,
Fall of Rome
, p. 181; P. Brown, G. Bowersock, and A. Cameron, “The World of Late Antiquity Revisited,”
Symbolae osloenses
72 (1997): 5–90; G. Bowersock, “The Vanishing Paradigm of the Fall of Rome,” in Bowersock,
Selected Papers on Late Antiquity
(Bari, 2000), pp. 187–97. For recent attempts to synthesize these opposing views, see G. Halsall,
Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568
(Cambridge, 2007), esp. pp. 19–22; C. Wickham,
After Rome
(London, 2009), ch. 4. For a broader view of these recent disagreements, see N. Etherington, “Barbarians Ancient and Modern,”
American Historical Review
116 (2011): 31–57.

  45.
E. Durkheim and M. Mauss, “Note on the Notion of Civilization,”
Social Research
38 (1971), p. 812; the article was originally published in
L’Année sociologique
12 (1913): 46–50.

  46.
Fernández-Armesto,
Civilizations
, p. 18. For some of the interwar writing on civilization, see E. Huntington,
Civilization and Climate
(New Haven, 1922); A. Schweitzer,
The Decay and Restoration of Civilization
(London, 1932); V. G. Childe,
Man Makes Himself
(London, 1936).

  47.
F. J. Teggart,
The Processes of History
(New Haven, 1918), pp. 4, 6.

  48.
Ibid., pp. 13–14, 37, 112, 119, 151; W. H. McNeill,
Arnold J. Toynbee: A Life
(Oxford, 1989), pp. 100–101.

  49.
H. Stuart Hughes,
Oswald Spengler: A Critical Estimate
, rev. ed. (New York, 1962), pp. 36–64.

  50.
O. Spengler,
The Decline of the West
, 2 vols. (London, 1934), vol. 1, p. 107; Hughes,
Spengler
, p. 11.

  51.
Spengler,
Decline of the West
, vol. 1, pp. 31, 106, 355; Hughes,
Spengler
, p. 72; Braudel,
On History
, pp. 182, 188; Fernández-Armesto,
Civilizations
, p. 18.

  52.
Spengler,
Decline of the West
, vol. 1, Tables i–iii. In vol. 2, Spengler added three more culture-civilizations: the Babylonian, the Mexican, and the Russian.

  53.
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 32, 36.

  54.
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 151.

  55.
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 38–39, 167; Hughes,
Spengler
, p. 7.

  56.
Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 159–73.

  57.
Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 55–83, 171.

  58.
Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 38–42, 162–63, 332; McNeill,
Toynbee
, p. 101.

  59.
For one cogent contemporary critique of Spengler, see R. G. Collingwood, “Oswald Spengler and the Theory of Historical Cycles,”
Antiquity
1 (1927): 311–25, 435–46; for a contemporary popularization, see
E. H. Goddard and P. A. Gibbons,
Civilisation or Civilisations: An Essay in the Spenglerian Philosophy of History
(London, 1926).