Comprehensive and detailed, a wonderful resource. Each topic covered (such as urban life, international trade, coinage, city organization, employment Comprehensive and detailed, a wonderful resource. Each topic covered (such as urban life, international trade, coinage, city organization, employment structure, urban lifestyle, administrative techniques, military organization, tax structure, agricultural production, prices, etc) is discussed from a three-fold perspective: first looking at North India, from the Indo-Gangetic plains to Bengal, then at Maharashtra and the Deccan together and then at the South, including Karnataka, TN and Kerala. This shifting allows us the reader to constantly compare the topics under discussion within India itself. it would have ben better if some comparison was also afforded with the rest of Asia and Europe under each division. The biggest takeaways are the role of cities in promoting trade and maintaining caste distinctions, the importance of the tax regimes in setting the tone for an empire's economic wake, and the insignificance of political changes as far as long established trade practices are concerned.
Most of the discussion centers on the Mughal period and on the early European phase, primarily due to the limitations of sources. The mature sultanate period is discussed cursorily and pre-1300 is barely touched upon. Pre-Vijayanagara in the south also gets no coverage. In fact, as far as the south is concerned, the book is not very useful. The North-East (Assam) comes in only as an after-thought, in a long appendix.
Despite all this, this Cambridge History is as comprehensive as it could have been with the limited space, though more could have been covered by limiting the amount of repetition that peppers this book. Beyond that most of the faults that can be found with it arise from the unfortunate limitations of source-material and scholarship in the Economic history of India. ...more
Hegel’s Lectures on the ‘Philosophy of History’ are considered to be valuable as an accessible introduction to hi The Evolution & Perfection of Germany
Hegel’s Lectures on the ‘Philosophy of History’ are considered to be valuable as an accessible introduction to his system. Since he works with familiar historical examples here to illustrate his metaphysical system, it is certainly an easier read than some of his purely abstract works (this reviewer ought to know, having entered those hallways and retreated in incomprehension and terror many times by now).
Here Hegel visualizes the major instances of history (for the most part just regurgitating Herodotus) from inside a new theoretic framework, wherein he tracks the movement of the Idea of Freedom and of the Spirit of History (or rather the Idea of Germany! :) ) through the whole of human history and points out its evolutions and the condition that felicitated these changes to his readers.
Samples
“The life of the ever present Spirit is a circle of progressive embodiments, which looked at in one respect still exist be-side each other, and only as looked at from another point of view appear as past”.
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God is thus recognized as Spirit, only when known as the Triune. This new principle is the axis on which the History of the World turns. This is the goal and the starting point of History. “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son,” is the statement of the Bible. This means nothing else than that self- consciousness had reached the phases of development [Momente], whose resultant constitutes the Idea of Spirit, and had come to feel the necessity of comprehending those phases absolutely. This must now be more fully explained.
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...“Part IV: The German World. The German Spirit is the Spirit of the new World. Its aim is the realization of absolute Truth as the unilimited self-determination of Freedom — that Freedom which has its own absolute form itself as its purport.25 The destiny of the German peoples is, to be the bearers of the Christian principle. The principle of Spiritual Freedom — of Reconciliation [of the Objective and Subjective], was introduced into the still simple, unformed minds of those peoples; and the part assigned them in the service of the World- Spirit was that of not merely possessing the Idea of Freedom as the substratum of their religious conceptions, but of producing it in free and spontaneous developments from their subjective self- consciousness.”
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“Germany was traversed by the victorious French hosts, but German nationality delivered it from this yoke. One of the leading features in the political condition of Germany is that code of Rights which was certainly occasioned by French oppression, since this was the especial means of bringing to light the deficiencies of the old system. The fiction of an Empire has utterly vanished. It is broken up into sovereign states. Feudal obligations are abolished, for freedom of property and of person have been recognized as fundamental principles. Offices of State are open to every citizen, talent and adaptation being of course the necessary conditions. The government rests with the official world, and the personal decision of the monarch constitutes its apex; for a final decision is, as was remarked above, absolutely necessary. Yet with firmly established laws, and a settled organization of the State, what is left to the sole arbitrament of the monarch is, in point of substance, no great matter. It is certainly a very fortunate circumstance for a nation, when a sovereign of noble character falls to its lot; yet in a great state even this is of small moment, since its strength lies in the Reason incorporated in it. Minor states have their existence and tranquillity secured to them more or less by their neighbors: they are therefore, properly speaking, not independent, and have not the fiery trial of war to endure. As has been remarked, a share in the government may be obtained by every one who has a competent knowledge, experience, and a morally regulated will. Those who know ought to govern, not ignorance and the presumptuous conceit of “knowing better.” Lastly, as to Disposition, we have already remarked that in the Protestant Church the reconciliation of Religion with Legal Right has taken place. In the Protestant world there is no sacred, no religious conscience in a state of separation from, or perhaps even hostility to Secular Right. This is the point which consciousness has attained, and these are the principal phases of that form in which the principle of Freedom has realized itself; — for the History of the World is nothing but the development of the Idea of Freedom. But Objective Freedom — the laws of real Freedom — demand the subjugation of the mere contingent Will — for this is in its nature formal. If the Objective is in itself Rational, human insight and conviction must correspond with the Reason which it embodies, and then we have the other essential element — Subjective Freedom — also realized.45 We have confined ourselves to the consideration of that progress of the Idea [which has led to this consummation], and have been obliged to forego the pleasure of giving a detailed picture of the prosperity, the periods of glory that have distinguished the career of peoples, the beauty and grandeur of the character of individuals, and the interest attaching to their fate in weal or woe. Philosophy concerns itself only with the glory of the Idea mirroring itself in the History of the World. Philosophy escapes from the weary strife of passions that agitate the surface of society into the calm region of contemplation; that which interests it is the recognition of the process of development which the Idea has passed through in realizing itself — i.e., the Idea of Freedom, whose reality is the consciousness of Freedom and nothing short of it. That the History of the World, with all the changing scenes which its annals present, is this process of development and the realization of Spirit — this is the true Theodicaea, the justification of God in History. Only this insight can reconcile Spirit with the History of the World — viz., that what has happened, and is happening every day, is not only not “without God,” but is essentially His Work.”
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Reader, Beware
This approach means that Hegel is quite disappointed with those civilizations which, according to his framework, stayed static and did not move in the required directions. So china and India gets a very dismissive treatment, which should be enough to irk most readers from those parts of the world. And then Europe gets a very favored and biased treatment as Hegel waxes on about the perfection it has attained in the current stage where the Idea of Freedom has finally triumphed. It is almost an advocation of the End of History and of Perfection already attained.
The book is interesting only as a way to understand Hegel’s system. If one attempts to use it so as to understand history itself or goes in with such expectations, it is going to be a very tiresome ride. Hegel is not an easy co-passenger to have when having a tour of the highlights of history. ...more
The Preservation of The West or Making America Great Again
Huntington polarized his readers, being a book the liberals would rather not believe as it impThe Preservation of The West or Making America Great Again
Huntington polarized his readers, being a book the liberals would rather not believe as it implies religious and cultural differences will continue to divide humanity, and also one that the right would rather ignore, preferring Fukuyama's thesis of Capitalism as the supreme achievement of mankind, over this more accommodating world-view.
Now we are far enough from the end of the Cold War to be able to judge this book more fairly. In the immediate aftermath of the cold war, strategists were looking for a "theory" that will help us understand the world in conceptual terms - the conceptual simplicity of the bipolar cold war world enticed them into believing that a new world order will be formed, which can again be explained under a new framework.
Huntington probably came up with one of the most realistic models - unlike the ideologically divided world before the cold war, the post-Cold War world's inhabitants will increasingly define themselves not on ideological grounds, but on cultural (civilizational, even religious) lines and hence the new world order will be organized around the same. As this happens and various civilizations vie for 'space', inter-civilizational fault-lines will become the new sources of major conflict, especially between "West & the Rest" (primarily economically?) and between "Islam & its Neighbors" (militarily?). These two conflicts along with China's sphinx like role will define the future according to Huntington.
So far so good.
However, as Huntington himself says, the best test of any theory is its predictive capacity. And that is the first place where this cultural or civilizational model of world order falls short. According to Huntington, intra-civilizational conflicts are to die down fast in the post cold war world as core states of each civilization rallies its allies around its own sphere of influence - this would include China taking up its hegemonic role in Asia, the Koreas uniting, the Middle-East somehow redrawing artificial boundaries and creating a core state that can guide them (according to Huntington civilizational stability is not possible with a "core state" rallying the civilization), the South Americas either uniting to form a distinct civilization or just bandwagoning with the west, etc. But the world we see today shows us that most of the real hot zones are along intra-civilizational fault-lines - along fault-lines that are not defined so much by broad civilizational identities, but rather by narrower ethnic, historical and sometimes quite random identities. So the civilizational model might still work, but instead of the small set proposed by Huntington, we might need a much larger set of civilizations to be invoked, which would then render the theory pretty useless.
The second issue is with the real core message of the book - How to protect the western civilization. Huntington is in truth issuing a clarion call to the whole of western civilization' to band together against this new post cold war world which is not exclusively west-facing anymore.
Huntington faces up boldly against Fukuyama's partisan view that Capitalism is the final stage of history (extending Hegel), but falls into the same trap by implying throughout the book that the western culture is the best and is in dire need of preserving, dedicating much of the later part of the work to strategies aimed at this end.
As per this thesis, as the Asian and Islamic civilizations rise into economic prominence, the new world order will also tilt towards them (not to mention the additional demographic and immigrational pressures fueling this). The only way to arrest this tilt and to avoid the tragedy of losing all the culture the west has built up and perfected is for the western countries to set aside their differences and band together, especially the United States.
The book is an exhortation to the US of A to skirt any aspirations to being multi-cultural itself (and thus diluting the holy western culture), but stay pure and take up the mantle of being the core state for the western civilization (and this involves cozying up to Russia too, btw, just fyi) and thus make sure that the new multi-cultural world is still as western in culture as possible. ...more
“The conversion of legend-writing into the science of history was not native to the Greek mind, it was a f
Hubris in History: A Recurring Terror
“The conversion of legend-writing into the science of history was not native to the Greek mind, it was a fifth-century invention, and Herodotus was the man who invented it.”
~ R.G. Collingwood
The prime subject of The Histories is the twenty years (499-479 B.C.E) of war between Greece and Persia for domination of the Greek world. However he intersperses this main narrative with plenty of personal interest stories, “wonders” about firsts and bests, historical parallels and occasionally his own biased judgements, but always making it clear that he is interested only in presenting a viewpoint — he leaves the act of judgement to the reader. We can safely say that it was Herodotus who helped create the concept of the discipline of “history,” in part by stressing and criticizing his sources and accepted traditions. My job is to record what I have been told, make of it what you will - that is the dominant warning note wherever H’s authorial voice intervenes in the narrative. That should be the disclaimer all history books should come with.
All the main themes of the book are evident in its beginning and ending, in keeping with the circular narratives that H prefers to adopt. All the intervening incidents act like reinforcements of the overall thrust inherent in the beginning and ending.
The Beginning: The Parallel Rise of Freedom & Empire
We begin with an insecure Hellenic world, just shaking off the shackles of tyranny and tasting real ambition for the first time. Meanwhile in the other end of the world, an existing empire is being shaped into a fearsome tyrannical force by the new Persian rulers. Soon the Persian empire starts to extend ominously outwards and gobbles up most of the known world. This infringes on a core idea of H — the concept of natural limits and over-extension. Persia is meant to fall. “The Small shall become the Big; and the Big shall become the Small.”
As long as empires are driven by ambition, history is doomed to repeat itself.
The gods set limits and do not allow human beings to go beyond them; Herodotus makes it clear that the Persians have to fail in their plan to conquer Greece, because they have overreached their natural boundaries. Xerxes announces his campaign by telling his advisers that he intends to conquer Greece so that ‘we will make Persian territory end only at the sky’ (7.8).
The Middle: The Clash of Civilizations
Then we are taken through the many over-extensions of the Persian empire under a succession of rulers (in Ionia, Scythia, etc), until they are poised to encroach upon the newly non-tyrannical Greek world. Here we enter the climactic middle of the narrative and is drenched in the details of the gory encounter. Many heroes, legends and dramatic material is born here and we emerge on the other side with a clear sense that it was Athens, without the yoke of tyranny, that was able to bring down the fearsome war machine of the Persian empire. David has won out against Goliath. This is achieved due to much luck and much pluck, but in the final analysis H seems to imply that the fault was with the hubris of the Persians.
It needs to be pointed out that: H is quite clear that as human beings Persians are on the whole no better and no worse than Greeks. Structurally, however, Xerxes’ great expedition to Greece stands as a monument to the dangerous blindness of massive empires and grandiose thinking—but it is also the backdrop against which H has been able to present to us the Greeks’ love of their homeland, their valor against incredible odds, and their deep desire to preserve their freedom.
So, even as this main narrative concludes, we are shown what is the inevitable result of Hubris that over-extends its own reaches. And of how tyranny in any form is not going to triumph over people who have tasted what freedom means.
The Ending: A Reenactment of The Beginning
Herodotus could have ended there. But he doesn’t. Instead he takes us to the Ending to rub in the message and to instill that message with its true significance — what is its bearing on the future? For, an investigation of History is meaningless unless it can educate us about the future. And it is the future that H ironically points to as he takes us through the concluding sections of his Histories.
For now it is the turn of the Greeks to over-extend. In the thrill of victory and in the thrall of a thirst for revenge, in the spirit of competition with its own neighbors, Athens and Sparta launch out on its own imperialistic enterprise to mainland Asia. This is to culminate in H’s own day with the Ionians looking upon Athens as the equivalent of a Tyrant.
The beginning of this period saw the triumph of the Greek mainland states over the might of the Persian Empire, first in the initial invasion of 490 and the battle of Marathon, and then in the second invasion of 480/79, with the battles of Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, and finally Mycaleb in Asia Mnor.
This unexpected victory against what seemed like the mightiest empire on Earth resonated in Greek consciousness through the fifth century and indeed beyond. The Greeks in general, and the Athenians in particular, because they had played the major part in the triumph of “Freedom”, saw these victories as a triumph of right over might, courage over fear, freedom over servitude, moderation over arrogance. It helped crystallize and reinforce Greeks’ attitudes to their own newfound way of life and values, intensified their supreme distrust of monarchy and tyranny, and shaped their attitude to the Persians. And after what they visualized as the great struggle for freedom, the people of Athens entered upon a spectacular era of energy and prosperity, one of the great flowering periods of Western civilization.
In more practical terms, Athens’ naval success in the Persian Wars and its enterprise immediately after led to the creation of the Athenian Empire, which started as an anti-Persian league and lasted for almost three-quarters of a century (479-404).
H seems to imply that Athens should learn from these investigations of the past, see what Tyranny can do, see the dangers of over-extension, understand the need for balance, respect certain international boundaries, and stay its own overreaching hand.
And indeed within fifty years of the Persian defeat the dream had faded, and before the end of the century Athens, over-extended abroad and overconfident at home, lay defeated at the mercy of her enemies, a Spartan garrison posted on the Acropolis and democracy in ruins. Much in the intervening years had been magnificent, it is true, but so it might have remained if the Athenians had heeded Herodotus. He had portrayed the Greek victory as a triumph over the barbarian latent in themselves, the hubris that united the invader and the native tyrant as targets of the gods. The Persian downfall, or at least the defeat of their imperialistic ambition, called not only for exultation but for compassion and lasting self-control.
As should be quite obvious, there is much to learn in this for modern times too, but with an added twist. For Hubris did not end its romp through history there. It took on new wings once history started being recorded. Now every new emperor was also competing with history. Alexander had to outdo Xerxes. Caesar had to outdo Alexander. Britain had to outdo Rome. Germany had to outdo Britain. USA had to outdo Britain, etc. A never-ending arms-race with imperial history and the accompanying Hubris that powers it.
So Herodotus, even as he recorded History so as to blunt its devastating force on the lives of men, also unwittingly added new impetus to its influence, by adding the new flavor of recorded glory to the existing receptacle of legendary glory. Hubris drank it up....more
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