In her book How the World Made the West: A 4,000-Year History, Josephine Quinn

examines 4,000 years of the history of the Euro-Afro-Asiatic region, beginning in the

Levant in the 20th century BC and ending with Christopher Columbus's arrival in the

Americas in the 15th century AD. Professor of Ancient History at Oxford University, Quinn

is a renowned historian who has written other award-winning works such as In Search of

the Phoenicians (2017).

Quinn's analysis of 4000 years of history results in a book of more than 500 pages,

Phoenicians, Minoans, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Carthaginians, Moors, Franks, and

Visigoths, among others. These contacts were of various types, including trade, culture,

diplomacy, and war, and it was through such interactions that societies were built and

evolved. A particularly instructive example of these dynamics is the alphabet. As Quinn

explains, the basis for today's alphabets was created in Egypt by Levantine workers in

the 18th or 19th century BC. Because the Egyptian writing system — based on

hieroglyphics — was quite complex, these workers invented a new, simpler system in

which each letter corresponded to a sound. By doing so, they created the first alphabet

in history. Contacts established by sea in the Mediterranean made it possible for this new

system to be disseminated and then adapted by other peoples in the region. This gave

of Indian origin. Quinn uses these examples to reveal that the idea of glocalization

(interaction between the local and the external) is a very ancient one. For the author,

this constant dialogue between peoples is what shaped societies and facilitated progress.

Quinn’s findings and conceptual conclusions have ramifications for Political Science and

International Relations. They are substantiated by extensive research which examines a

very wide range of primary and secondary sources. Her main argument is that, if history

is based on interactions, this means that the idea it was built on civilizations is wrong.

Civilization is generally assumed to refer to a broad group of people with common cultural

traits and values, thus forming part of a coherent whole. These traits and values are

group-specific and are used to distinguish the group from other groups with different

Quinn adds that, at the time, these peoples did not regard themselves in this way. They

saw themselves as members of villages or cities rather than as part of a “civilization.” In

fact, the very concept of civilization only emerged in the 18th century.

If civilizations did not exist as such historically, why then do we speak, for example, of

“Western civilization”? This is the core of the author's academic and political reading. The

idea of the West as a distinct civilization is a construction that only prevailed for political

reasons. According to the author, this construction emerged after the campaigns to expel

Muslims and Jews from the European continent during the Middle Ages. It became

ideology in the eighteenth century based on what she calls “civilizational thinking.”

According to Quinn, this developed in two phases: singular and plural. In the first phase,

nineteenth-century British philosopher, who states that “In savage life there is no

commerce, no manufactures, no agriculture, or next to none: a country rich in the fruits

of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, we call civilized” (page 3).

Civilization, in this singular sense, was theoretically a state to which any human society

could aspire with sufficient effort and education, and all human societies could be ranked

according to their success on this front. European authors, who were proponents of this

vision, presented Europe as the civilizational model to which others could aspire. As a

study of this era indicates, this abstract concept of civilization usefully supported Western

European imperialism. Mill, who worked for the British East India Company for more than

of a linear evolution can be found in liberal economics and politics theories such as the

“modernization theory” developed by Walt Whitman Rostow in his book The Stages of

Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1991).

The second phase, which Quinn refers to as plural, appeared in the nineteenth century

under the influence of the French historian and politician François Guizot. According to

him, civilization not only referred to a stage of social evolution, but also to a specific

human group from a specific location, with its own particular history and attributes, within

which development was an endogenous process. In the light of this definition, there was

not only “civilization,” but “civilizations,” that is, Indian, Greek, Roman, among many

others. According to Guizot, these groups could be defined as civilizations because they

the appeal of science and art. These attributes were disregarded in the Middle Ages and

then recuperated, first, during the Renaissance and, second, by the Enlightenment, and

then formed the basis of the political and cultural system of the nineteenth-century

British Empire. Quinn argues that this conception of “civilization” also made it possible to

excavations of “Minoan” ruins, extolled Crete, calling it “the champion of the European

spirit against the yoke of Asia” (page 27).

the “Islamic,” the “African” or the “Sinic” (Chinese).

According to Quinn, any of these conceptions of civilization are incorrect because they

are not supported by historical facts. She develops her argument by analysing the case

of the West. First, the author argues that there are no “civilizations.” The idea that

humans organize themselves into broad clusters with specific characteristics that

consolidate over time is not a viable one. Nothing occurs spontaneously nor exclusively

endogenously. Everything arises as a result of interactions and influences. This means

that creating distinctions and specificities is useless. Secondly, and following on from the

previous point, the author argues that what might be considered Western in the case of

instances. But there are many more. Legal codes came from Babylon, irrigation from

Assyria, the art of navigation from the Phoenicians, and the wheel came from the Central

Asian steppes. Religion, in the Greek case, is of Eastern origin. Even in the case of

democracy, the author shows how this form of governance first appeared in Assyria

around the 11th century BC. There, holders of public office were selected by a public

lottery that included all citizens, any of whom could be given this responsibility. This form

also eventually became established in Athens.

For all these reasons, an analysis of history based on the idea of civilization is reductive

according to Quinn, because it tends to obscure contacts between peoples over the

centuries, through which that history was made and evolved. The “West” and other social

Despite the important contribution made by the book there are some limitations. The

lack of a conclusion means that there is no development of the theoretical ideas in the

“civilizations,” such as the Chinese, Aztec or Mayan? If so, how? What motivates

interactions? Human nature, circumstances, other reasons?

of post-colonial thought have challenged civilizational thinking. One of the most

emblematic examples being Edward Said's book Orientalism (2021), in which the

American-Palestinian philosopher deconstructs West-East binarism. Other authors

pursuing this line of thought have demonstrated how the “non-Western world” has

historically been a space of technological, social and political innovation. Examples

include The Silk Roads (2018) by Peter Frankopan and The Once and Future World Order

(in press) by Amitav Acharya.

Nevertheless, what makes the author's contribution significant is the scope of her

historical survey, which is mostly based on primary sources. This book will make it even

more difficult to argue the existence of a pure, distinct Western civilization with direct

Acharya, A. (in press). The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will

Survive the Decline of the West. Basic Books.

Frankopan, P. (2018). As rotas da seda: Uma nova história do mundo. Relógio D'Água.

Huntington, S. P. (1999). O choque das civilizações e a mudança na ordem mundial.

Gradiva.

Kipling, R. (1899). The white man’s burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands.

The Kipling Society. https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_burden.htm

Quinn, J. (2017). In search of the Phoenicians. Princeton University Press.