Піднесення Заходу. Історія людської спільноти

by William H. McNeill

У книзі всесвітня історія розглядається як єдине ціле й робиться спроба її інтерпретації на ґрунті концепції взаємопроникнення культур. Мак-Ніл дослідив розвиток індивідуальних суспільних і культурних традицій, але особливу увагу зосередив на процесах, за допомоги яких навички та технології поширювалися від однієї культури чи одного народу до іншої (іншого), що в такий спосіб вело до змін у структурі влади й у соціальній організації. При цьому контакти між різними культурними традиціями не завжди були однозначно позитивними для всіх учасників процесу, оскільки часто відбувалися в контексті воєнних зіткнень чи загарбань. Розрахована на всіх, кого цікавлять проблеми всесвітньої історії. Перше видання книги українською мовою побачило світ 2002 року в серії «Зміна парадигми».

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World History, Philosophy, Politics, Sociology, European History

960 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

William Hardy McNeill was a historian and author, noted for his argument that contact and exchange among civilizations is what drives human history forward, first postulated in The Rise of the West (1963). He was the Robert A. Milikan Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1947 until his retirement in 1987.
In addition to winning the U.S. National Book Award in History and Biography in 1964 for The Rise of the West, McNeill received several other awards and honors. In 1985 he served as president of the American Historical Association.
In 1996, McNeill won the prestigious Erasmus Prize, which the Crown Prince of the Netherlands Willem-Alexander presented to him at Amsterdam's Royal Palace.
In 1999, Modern Library named The Rise of the West of the 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the 20th century.
In 2009, he won the National Humanities Medal. In February 2010, President Barack Obama, a former University of Chicago professor himself, awarded McNeill the National Humanities Medal to recognize "his exceptional talent as a teacher and scholar at the University of Chicago and as an author of more than 20 books, including The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (1963), which traces civilizations through 5,000 years of recorded history".

Reviews

[Sense of History]

Outdated, but still awesome!
This book was published in 1963. I thought: "Never mind the 820 pages, I'll read through it in about a month, it will be too outdated". Well..., of course it is outdated (both in facts as in views), but nevertheless it took about half a year for me to absorb all of it.

William H. McNeill (1917-2016) was the first one ever to have written a really global world history (Spengler and Toynbee before him were mostly speculative theories, brilliant but speculative). Above all, I appreciated his extensive elaboration on the Middle East, China and India, and especially the crucial role of the waves of nomadic people in Eurasia. My narrow-minded eurocentrist history view has been changed forever!

Of course, 50 years later, much of the details are not up-to-date any more, but the basic assumption of the book remains true, namely that human civilization has grown (with ups and downs) through the never-ending interaction between humans, institutions, and civilizations. Of course, McNeill himself, in an accompanying essay for the 1990-edition enumerates some fundamental flaws in his story (surprisingly, he thinks he has given too little attention to Chinese history; unsurprisingly he admits the title of his book was a real misfit).

Some of these flaws he has adjusted in his book The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History, written with his son John. Nevertheless 'The Rise of the West' remains to me one of the grandest historical works of the 20th century. With some delay it co-inspired the Global Turn in history studies, in the 1990s.

[Emiliya Bozhilova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ревю на база втори том от заглавието, издадено от “Изток-Запад”, и обхващащо периода 600 г. сл.н.е. - 1950 г.

В разгара на Студената война през 1963 г. Уилям Макнийл публикува резултатите на титанична задача - да осмисли цялата човешка история с нейните основни властови центрове, и да даде обяснение защо днешната масова култура, масово утвърждаваният светоглед, водещите идеи, са под знака на Запада (което за някои е равнозначно на Дявола…). Тъй като е амбициозна задача и за читателя, реших да си оставя интерпретацията му на античността за по-добри читателски времена. Втората част, обхващаща периода от 600 г. сл. н. е до 1950 г. е достатъчно стимулираща.

——
Харесва ми амбицията на Макнийл - той не третира историята като колекция прашасали факти, а като жива материя, често илюзорна поради ограничеността и пристрастността на източниците си, обединяваща идеите и развитието на човечеството във всевъзможни аспекти. Макнийл интерпретира, извлича идеи и есенция, анализира, дебатира. Така че стандартното учебникарско изреждане на основни факти липсва, а читателят трябва да има основни познания за ключови моменти от епохите.

——
Макнийл подхваща доста структурирано въпроса защо, в края на краищата, Западът доминира, и имало ли е изобщо някакви ясни предпоставки, предопределеност, ако щете, да се случи точно така? Отговорът му е “не”, и за да се обоснове, той във всяка епоха прави съпоставка и обзор на ключовите (според него) тенденции в няколко ясно обособени властови и цивилизационни центъра, запазващи се относително постоянни през хилядолетията. Това са Китай, Индия, Близкият Изток и Европа (разделена на Източна и Западна).

Съпоставките са изключително интересни.

Китай, например, се отличава със забележителна стабилност и приемственост на идеи, социално и държавно устройство и управленски практики, въпреки многобройните конфликти. Поднебесната империя окончателно намира себе си с Конфуцианството. Неговият хладен рационализъм и прегледна йерархия на житейските роли и отговорности всъщност са ясно видими, и даже “вградени” в “модерния” им комунизъм от последните 50 години. Лошото на конфуцианството е, че от един момент нататък то става изразител на закостенялост и липса на какъвто и да е интерес, насочен “навън”. Етичните норми са установени веднъж завинаги, и за да функционира животът и обществото, те трябва само да се спазват.

Близкият изток, особено след изгрева на исляма, също се отличава с идейна консистентност, устояваща на различните конфликти. След като строго религиозното течение около 10-ти век задушава и изтласква последните остатъци от еретичните антични гръцки идеи, свързани с логичен и рационалистичен подход, картината се избистря. Истината остава само една, установена веднъж завинаги в Корана, и никакви модерни интерпретации (каквито са неизбежни и многобройни) не могат и не трябва да я променят или оспорват.

Любопитно е, че в такава среда и след такава победа до известен период вирее поезията, но точните науки нямат шанс за развитие заради присъщия им, отхвърлен от религията (ислям) или етичните догми (Конфуцианство), начин на мислене. А след известен период замира и поезията, спирайки да предлага свежи идеи и задоволявайки се с безобидни, приятни имитации на миналото.

За Индия картинката е по-комплексна, с противоречието между ислям и хиндуизъм. Хиндуизмът по Макнийл е един вид “гъба”, която успешно поглъща всякакви опити за влияние, и ги претопява в ежедневието.

Източна Европа с Византийската Империя пък са цивилизационният, хилядолетен фар на света до падането и под османска власт. Макнийл не пропуска и Русия.

А Западът… Е, Западът е далеч, примитивен е, крайно нестабилен, не се очертава доминираща единна система, и затова - когато изобщо му е до това - хвърля по едно око към богатата култура на останалите си “комшии”. Но не особено настойчиво.

——
Нещата коренно се променят с падането на Византия. Хаосът в Западна Европа се структура религиозно в католицизма. Там също се търси едната-едничка истина. Но за разлика от исляма и Китай - неуспешно. Твърде много конкуренти за истината са се хванали за гърлата на идеен, етнически и философски принцип, и никой не надделява окончателно. Формите на управление варират, единен победител няма. А с Ренесанса и Реформацията се нарояват нови клонове на християнството и още по-нови и забравени стари светски възгледи за света.

Системният хаос и нестабилност продължават да са основна характеристика, допълнени с любопитство, авантюризъм и вечна агресия. Малко по малко изгряват колониалната мощ, епохата на рационализма и разума, науката като помощник и резултат от вечните промени. Май няма как да не се състоят и двете основни западни революции, които формират битието ни и днес:

☑️ политическата френска революция (оттам и любовта ни към република, разделение на властите, гражданска ангажираност и прочие); и

☑️ индустриално-икономическата английска революция (парната машина, телеграфът, атомът, периодичната таблица, електричеството, “свободният” пазар).

И ето ти на̀ - вечно нестабилната, агресивна, обновяваща се, по-непредвидима система печели или най-малкото - влияе - в сблъсък със стабилната, по-мирна, себецентрирана и затворена система.

——
Може ли да е чак толкова просто? Не мисля, макар основната идея да е страшно логична, и поради което - до голяма степен вярна. Но само до голяма степен.

——
Макнийл е избирателен ерудит. Няма как да е другояче, предвид факта, че изследва определена постановка и формулира теория. Но той демонстрира доста избирателен оптимизъм, замитайки неудобни аспекти под килима на историята. А когато няма избор, раздразнено поучава, че агресията, войните, робството са аспекти на цивилизацията, и толкоз. С което леко не съм съгласна - да, те са инструменти на безогледния успех, спор няма, носят доста преимущества. Но да дефинират термина “цивилизация”? Надали. Затова чак такива поводи за оптимизъм липсват, и някои розови краски са наистина твърде розови в тази приказка за добрия, артистичен, гъвкав Запад. Не е добре, когато ерудирани историци се плашат от някои неудобни истини, и не бива да ги представят като цивилизационни предимства.

——
Също така погледът от втората половина на 19-ти век и още повече от 1914 г. нататък е бегъл, спорадичен и пропуска твърде много. Двете световни войни даже не са зачекнати като ефекти. Датите сякаш са включени само за пълнеж.

——
Рядко все пак се среща такъв обем ерудиция на едно място. Така че прочитът определено си заслужава.

3,5⭐️
Изводите си ги бива, въпреки пропуските, така че все пак ще закръгля нагоре.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book may be outdated, and the title is a little bit of a misfit, but it still is a very impressive read. William McNeill was the first one to focus in a systematic way on the interactions between cultures and regions. He truly deserves to be named "the real father of Global History". See my more elaborate review in my Sense-of-History-account: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

In The Outline of History, H. G. Wells observed, "The natural political map of the world insists upon itself. It heaves and frets beneath the artificial political map like some misfitted giant."

McNeill's panoramic view of history is cut from the same cloth: cultural in continuous clash with political and societal priorities often at odds with pressure building up like a tectonic fault. McNeill sees the interactions and tensions of intermixed peoples pouring out of the steppes for centuries and jostling anxiously against each in the inhabitable regions of Europe.

I love McNeill's uses of the word "ecumene" to describe the civilized mass fretting beneath the political map. There are ample plates of pictures and ampler footnotes as McNeill consulted libraries of information and summarizes it all with an obvious love for history and the drama of the human story and he isn't afraid to say when there are things he doesn't understand and seem missing from the published expertise.

Somehow, the thought of Greek culture persisting in India long after Alexander's brush with the subcontinent is particularly intriguing and I'd like to know more about this. McNeill discusses the lingered Hellenization in Bactria, the Parthian Empire and how the Indo-Greek kingdom may have eventually rubbed up against the nascent rising Buddhism resulting in Buddhists being Hellenized in wearing Greecian togas. What looks to be a good departure point on this is The Greeks In Bactria & India.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Covering approximately 7000 years of civilization over the entire world in less than 900 pages for a general audience is a tall order. The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community by W.H. McNeill was written over 50 years ago that changed historical analysis by challenging the leading theories of the day and influenced the study of global history ever since.

McNeill divides his narrative in three parts: the beginnings of civilization in Mesopotamia to 500 B.C., the cultural balance of Eurasia from 500 B.C. to 1500 A.D., and the era of Western dominance since 1500 A.D. Every corner of the world is discusses, but the dominance is in the Eurasia “ecumene” that feature the interaction between for the four great civilizations of the Middle East (including Egypt), India, China, and finally Europe (starting in Greece before slowly moving West). Throughout McNeill highlights the interplay between cultural, political, and economical factors of each civilization as well as how they interacted and influenced each other.

The interaction and influences between different civilizations to McNeill’s narrative as he challenged the theory of the rise and fall of independent civilizations that did not influence one another. Because of the length of both of the book and time frame covered, McNeill did not go into a detail history instead focusing on trends and important historical moments that may or may not involve historical actors like Alexander or Genghis Khan. Yet information is outdated as new sources or archaeological evidence has changed our understanding of several civilizations over the last 50 years.

The Rise of the West takes a long time to read, however the information—though outdated in places—gives the reader a great overview of world history on every point of the globe. W.H. McNeill’s well-researched book is not a dry read and in giving a good background on numerous civilizations giving the reader a solid foundation if they ever decide to go more in-depth on any civilization.

[Karen Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot rate this book highly enough. It is the best basic history book in existence, going from Sumer to the middle of the 20th Century. McNeill's writing is clear and easy to comprehend, yet he never oversimplifies the material he covers. Anyone who wants a thorough overview of history from Sumeria to the 1950s, this is the book.

It should be noted that while he calls the book "Rise of the West," he covers India, China, and the Americas as well. In fact, this is one of the best books I've ever read on India prior to the Moghuls. He includes a long section on the relation between China and the subcontinent. Well worth the time.

[Alex Zakharov · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely read anything over four hundred pages, but “The Rise of the West” has been on my radar for a decade, and after you see enough references to it you have to take a plunge. And so I did. Clocking in at 850 pages, this beast of a text required commitment, stamina and quarantine, but it was still a slog. That said, I learned a fair amount, brushed up on a few areas, and took away a much more integrative view of 3,000 years of civilizational development.

A few things are worth pointing out. Firstly, the title is misleading - McNeill's emphasis on the West only becomes palpable in the last fifth of the book, the vast majority of the text deals with all parts of Eurasian ecumene equally (Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, China). In fact, Western Europe is the last region to appear in the narrative.

Secondly, and quite fittingly for 2020, there is a dimension that is largely absent from the book, without which any world history is criminally incomplete – disease. After all, throughout most of history, disease has killed far more people than warfare. McNeill seems to have recognized that, and a decade after publishing “The Rise of the West” he released “Plagues and Peoples” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). As such “Plagues and Peoples” is a great and necessary companion to McNeill’s magnum opus.

Thirdly, you may be tempted by a 2013 “The Human Web” where William McNeill and his son Robert McNeill join forces in an attempt to combine and compress the two books mentioned above, and throw in a dash of ecology while they are at it. I succumbed to that temptation myself a couple of years ago and was pretty disappointed. The sheer attempted scope of “The Human Web” necessitated a shallow coverage, so the book either vaguely reifies what you already know or alludes to less-familiar subjects which the authors have no time to get into.

“The Rise of the West” is worth getting into, but this classic will take work to digest.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author writes one of my all-time favorite sentences when he talked about the forced labor of indigenous South Americans by the Spanish: “Ironically, the effort to relieve the labor shortage by importing Negro slaves from Africa simply compounded the problem by introducing African diseases also.” The value of history books is not the history they are telling, but how they tell the history. Dissect that sentence the author wrote and you will get a sick 1963 way of not only blaming the chattel slaves imported from Africa but also demonstrating how the indigenous people would have been better as slaves than allowing imported slaves to replace them.

H. G. Welles wrote a better world history book with his “Outline of History” from 1919. McNeill frames his story within the first few pages by justifying permanent patriarchy through evolutionary certainties and defining civilization through expertise and specialization within cities making for progress through civilizations. Welles warned against ignorance, superstitions and the privileged classes perpetuating their privileges for themselves, while McNeill frames the world as barbarians verse the civilized with their superior values and character.

McNeill assures the reader that Moses really existed and he thinks ordered civilized people need ideological superstitions to prevent the chaos of barbaric peoples. I loved it when he said ‘the war-like barbarians from the south’ started invading China, as if human groups have ever not been ‘war-like.’ Later, in the history he will say ‘the war-like peoples’ because by that time they are no longer barbarians. The Brits, for example, have always been ‘war-like’ but McNeill never calls them that.

McNeill falsely thinks there is a meta-narrative to be had in his history. That is, he thinks there is a universal story about the story within a world history. There is not. “The Dawn of Everything” written in 2021 understands that there is not a meta-narrative to be had while telling history, and it is a better world history book than this book.

McNeill loses his perspective during his modern history part of the book. He knows the end point and forces the conclusion onto his story as he’s telling the story as if the superiority of the West over the rest of the world was a given. From a 1963 perspective it would have seem so, but as history is unfolding the survivors aren’t known until after the fact.

This is a good history survey book, but it is even a better history book about the history of 1963 and illustrates how myopic a historian could have been. Blaming chattel slaves for exterminating indigenous peoples as the author did could only be written in 1963.

[Ahmad Abdul Rahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buku 'Rise Of The West' ini terbitkan pada tahun 1963, kurang dua tahun sebelum Martin Luther King berarak dari Selma ke Montgomery, menuntut hak politikal kaum Kulit Hitam Amerika.

Ini membuatkan aku terkejut dengan isi yang terdapat di dalam buku ini. Penulis adalah cukup kosmopolitan di dalam mencakupkan sejarah dan pengaruh tamadun China, Indo-Parsi dan juga Asia Tenggara (walau aku syak yang beliau lebih memaksudkan Indonesia berbanding Nusantara secara umumnya) di dalam panorama sejarah dunianya. Tesis 'Kebangkitan Barat' beliau pula, walaupun sudah tentu adalah Eurosentrik, adalah 'Eurosentrik' untuk sebab yang betul.

Apa yang lebih menarik adalah tindakan penulis menyantuni impak kaum gasar yang hidup terutamanya di sepanjang dataran lapang Eurasia (steppe peoples) terhadap tamadun-tamadun yang pernah berinteraksi dengannya. Aku tidak pernah membaca suatu rekonstruksi semula akan kesan dan impak kaum-kaum gasar, yang nyata sekali bukanlah monolitik di dalam tatahidup mereka, terhadap tamadun-tamadun terbesar dunia yang lebih unggul daripada apa yang dipersembahkan McNeill di sini.

Perlu dititipkan di sini bahawa konsep tamadun yang disebutkan penulis, pada pendapat aku, adalah datang daripada paradigma Toynbee-ian. Malah aku melihat buku ini sebagai suatu usaha untuk melanjutkan paradigma tersebut dengan McNeill menegaskan tiada tamadun berdiri dengan sendiri - "No civilization is an island".

*Terdapat suatu kisah diceritakan bahawa buku ini asalnya diniatkan oleh penulis untuk ditulis di bawah penyeliaan Toynbee. Tetapi penulis tawar hati selepas menyaksikan betapa Toynbee yang ketika itu sudah menginjak usia senja, terlalu berkeras dengan konsepsi tamadun beliau sebagai suatu entiti mapan yang naik dan turun di dalam satu kitaran alam yang deterministik.

Dari sisi ini, William H McNeill adalah suatu sejarahwan materialis apabila beliau menitikberatkan pengaruh artifak kesenian halus (patung, lukisan, hasil tangan) di dalam memfasilitasi gerak-daya pembentukan dan pertukaran budaya. Alasan McNeill adalah kerana artifak-artifak sebegini diterima dengan mudah serta tidak memerlukan dialektika secara langsung dengan agama atau budaya tempatan. Contohnya adalah pengenalan teknologi Barat oleh paderi Jesuit serta ilmu kaji bintang oleh cendekia Arab ke China yang berlaku secara satu-hala; yakni tanpa China terpesona dengan tamadun Barat mahupun Arab.

Ramalan-ramalan beliau di bahagian konklusi buku, ada yang sedikit salah dan tidak kurang juga yang salah sesalahnya apabila dinilai kembali separuh abad kemudian. McNeill menjangkakan negara baru (ketika itu) Pakistan bakal menghembuskan nafas segar kepada legasi ketamadunan Islam setelah merkea menyerapkan konsep negara bangsa yang demokratik ke dalam perlembagaannya. Juga beliau menjangkakan dunia yang semakin aman dengan kewujudan suatu badan berkanun trans-nasional (PBB?) yang ditunjangi sistem birokrasi moden akan membantutkan inovasi baru di dalam sains teknologi atau pengurusan sosial - unjuran beliau ini mungkin banyak dipengaruhi oleh apa yang telah berlaku kepada sistem birokasi China yang berusia 2 ribu tahun itu. Juga ramalan beliau tentang keakraban historikal, ideologikal antara Rusia dengan Barat (Eropah Barat, Amerika) akan menyatukan mereka di dalam menghadapi seteru sama yang datang dari latar historikal, ideologikal yang lain seperti China. Agakan-agakan ini memanglah terbukti salah tetapi sebagai pembaca aku mendapati penilaian McNeill yang dibuat sewaktu 60-an itu sebagai menarik dan tidak kurang nilai sejarahnya. Ramalan-ramalan beliau yang lain, seperti manipulasi pendapat massa lewat instrumen-instrumen propaganda oleh pemerintahan totalitarian tentu sekali telah terbukti benar.

Buku ini adalah pembacaan yang sama sekali bukanlah ringan, hatta bagi standard buku-buku sejarah yang definitif (buku The Penguin History of The World antara yang hadir dalam ingatan). Ayat-ayatnya begitu sarat dengan maklumat-maklumat implikatif. Pembaca pasti akan takjub bagaimana di dalam 879 ms, penulis berjaya memuatkan pembentukan komuniti-komuniti manusia yang berbilang, dan di lokasi geografikal berlainan sepanjang sejarah dengan ketelitian yang begitu seni, tanpa gagal untuk merangkumkannya kembali ke dalam panorama sejarahraya beliau. Namun andai direnungkan dengan mendalam, di sinilah kelemahan buku ini bakal tertayang:

- Sempadan setiap komuniti, bangsa atau negara adalah disebut secara arbitrari dan pembaca diharap untuk mempunyai pengetahuan sejarah atau geografi yang mencukupi. Bandar kuno Carthage dan Ertruria umpamanya tidak pernah disebutkan penulis sebagai terletak di Tunisia moden atau Itali Tengah.
- Untuk setiap dakwaan atau kenyataan yang memerlukan pendalilan yang mapan, penulis sekadar meringkaskannya di dalam satu ayat dan menyediakan nota kaki yang panjang di bawah sebagai rujukan. Aku boleh sahaja katakan bahawa catatan-catatan pinggir tersebut boleh dijamakkan menjadi sebuah buku baru yang nipis. Hal ini menyebabkan pengalaman pembacaan buku ini tidak mengalir dengan cukup lancar.
- Untuk perkembangan sosial sesebuah komuniti yang mirip dengan komuniti lain di dalam tempoh sejarah yang sebelumnya, (walau di mana pun lokasinya) penulis akan sekadar mengingatkan pembaca tentang 'historical parallels' tersebut sebelum kemudiannya bergerak menyentuh poin-poin penting lain yang bersangkutan dengan komuniti tersebut yang unik andai dibandingkan dengan pengalaman historikal komuniti-komuniti terdahulu yang lain. Mungkin itu sebabnya titik perkembangan era moden (pasca abad ke-15) hanya disentuh penulis pada 200 ms terakhir sahaja memandangkan transisi antara suatu status quo kepada status quo yang baru sering kali berlaku dibawah dinamika yang serupa.
- Generalisasi dilakukan secara meluas oleh penulis. Hal ini berlaku tanpa mampu terelakkan untuk sebuah buku yang berambisi tinggi seperti ini. Ini menyebabkan beberapa konklusi beliau tentang satu-satu tamadun ber'perisa' esensialis (konklusi beliau tentang Tamadun Barat umpamanya adalah begitu mirip dengan definisi Tamadun Barat yang diusulkan Prof Syed Naquib Al Attas) dan bakal menyinggung pembaca yang menginginkan suatu tafsiran yang lebih saintifik atau positivis.

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

William H. McNeill’s The Rise of the West, first published in 1963, remains one of the most ambitious and influential works in twentieth-century world historiography. Written at a moment when Cold War ideological narratives and Eurocentric historical models dominated Western scholarship, McNeill sought to provide a comprehensive, synthesising account of global history that both acknowledged the centrality of Europe’s ascent and placed that ascent within a broader, interconnected human story. The result is a vast, highly readable, and intellectually audacious narrative that helped establish world history as a serious academic field.


McNeill’s central purpose is to explain how the modern world came into being and why Western civilisation emerged as the dominant global force after the fifteenth century. Unlike earlier grand narratives that attributed Western ascendancy to inherent cultural superiority, racial determinism, or unique civilisational virtues, McNeill grounds his explanation in cross-cultural interaction, technological diffusion, and the dynamics of human communities adapting to changing circumstances.


A defining feature of the book is its insistence that civilisations are not isolated units advancing according to internal logics, but rather constantly shaped by encounters—commercial, military, intellectual, and epidemiological—with other cultures. McNeill’s “diffusionist” framework remains a cornerstone of global historical analysis.


Interconnectedness as the Engine of Change
McNeill argues that the most significant driver of historical development is the movement of ideas, technologies, and institutions across cultural boundaries. Civilisations, in his view, rise when they successfully absorb and adapt elements from the wider world. This interpretation challenges older historiographical traditions that stressed civilisational purity, isolation, or exceptionalism.


The Eurasian Ecumene
A major contribution of the book is its portrayal of Eurasia as a unified cultural-ecological zone in which innovations, pathogens, religions, and political models circulated extensively. McNeill’s analysis demonstrates that long-distance interactions—through Silk Road networks, nomadic incursions, maritime trade, and religious dissemination—generated continual instability and renewal.


This framework undercuts simplistic narratives of Western uniqueness and instead situates Europe within a larger Eurasian dynamic that included China, India, the Middle East, and Central Asian steppe powers.


The West’s Ascent as Contingent, Not Inevitable
McNeill attributes Europe’s eventual global dominance to a series of contingent factors: competition between fragmented states, the rise of maritime commercial networks, access to the Americas, technological adaptation, and the capacity to absorb knowledge from the Islamic world and East Asia. By tracing these developments, McNeill offers one of the earliest major critiques of teleological “Western civilisation” narratives.


The work’s strength lies in its remarkable synthesis. McNeill draws from archaeology, anthropology, economic history, and classical historiography to craft a narrative spanning thousands of years and multiple civilisations. His prose is accessible yet intellectually ambitious, and his structural organisation—moving from the ancient Near East to classical civilisations, medieval developments, the early modern world, and industrialisation—provides both coherence and breadth.


Crucially, McNeill insists that global history must be written at a level that bridges specialist scholarship and general interpretation. In doing so, he helped legitimize world history as a field that could aspire to grand explanatory frameworks without resorting to simplistic generalisations.


Despite its groundbreaking nature, The Rise of the West has attracted significant critique, especially from late-twentieth-century world historians.

Residual Eurocentrism:
Although McNeill challenges older racial or cultural theories of Western superiority, his narrative still culminates in the West as the leading edge of global development. Critics argue that this perspective risks reintroducing Eurocentrism through structural rather than cultural means.


Underemphasis on Indigenous Agency Outside Eurasia:
McNeill’s focus on Eurasian interconnectedness leads to a relative marginalisation of African, American, and Oceanic histories, except insofar as they enter the Eurasian orbit through conquest or exchange.


Limited Treatment of Social and Subaltern Histories:
Reflecting the historiographical standards of his era, McNeill prioritises elite political, economic, and intellectual developments over gender, everyday life, or the experiences of subaltern groups—dimensions now central to global historical scholarship.


Nonetheless, these critiques reflect the evolution of historiographical expectations rather than fundamental flaws in McNeill’s conceptual framework.


The Rise of the West occupies a pivotal place in the genealogy of world history. It helped shift scholarly focus away from civilisational exceptionalism and toward interconnectedness, diffusion, and global systems of interaction. Its influence can be seen in later works by scholars such as Janet Abu-Lughod, Andre Gunder Frank, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Kenneth Pomeranz—many of whom debate or refine McNeill’s theses.


While some aspects of the book have been superseded by newer research, its vision and methodological boldness continue to inspire global historians.


William H. McNeill’s The Rise of the West endures as a foundational text in world historiography. Its sweeping comparative scope, its challenge to Eurocentric cultural determinism, and its emphasis on cross-cultural exchange mark it as a transformative work that reshaped how historians conceptualise global development. Though not without limitations, the book remains a landmark in the study of human history—an ambitious synthesis that continues to provoke debate and reflection more than half a century after its publication.


In its breadth, analytical clarity, and historiographical significance, The Rise of the West stands as one of the twentieth century’s most important works of global history.

GPT

[Michael Holm · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Rise Of The West by William McNeill is reputed to argue that civilizations influenced each other, versus Toynbee's and Spengler's view that world civilizations developed independently. McNeill makes a good case and credits trade and commerce primarily as the agents of influence. It won the 1964 National Book Award in history and is on Modern Library's list of the best 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century. It is well-written and has lots of footnotes giving his sources.

A brief survey of human pre-history and about 5000 years of world history (up to 1950) is compressed into 800 pages. It is divided into three time periods: Prehistory to 500 BC, 500 BC to 1500 AD, 1500 AD to 1950 AD. The primary civilizations which he describes are the Middle Eastern, Egyptian, Chinese (and Japanese), Indian and Western Europe. He is rather brief and dismissive of American and African civilizations prior to contact with Western Europeans. Instead he describes the development of the Eurasian steppe peoples which so frequently impinged upon civilizations. His brief description of early Homo sapiens evolution varies from current anthropological websites, probably because of recent discoveries in the last sixty-five years since publication of this book.

A lot of the history reports changes of political control in the civilizations. There is some discussion of cultural life. McNeill inventories the discoveries and inventions (especially military) that influenced historical events, such as the war chariots, the phalanx, armored cavalry, the plow, the steam engine, gunpowder, the compass, the printing press, etc. For instance, the printing press, along with the political tensions in Germany, made the Reformation possible. The compass, invented in China, made sea explorations and the discovery of the Americas possible. Technology was key. But he notes that China did not use the compass for exploration and gunpowder for military advantage because of their introverted culture. Armored cavalry (knights) evolved in Persia in opposition to the steppe barbarian invaders. Feudalism developed to support knights. Kings usually had trouble controlling their nobles, knights. Barbaric conquerors were usually weakened by the luxury of the civilization they found only to be attacked by other barbarians . It seems that the price of progress is the cost of warfare. Western Europe began to dominate the world after 1850 due to the industrial revolution, advanced technology and its restless, curious culture.

I haven't read many world history books and am not a historian, so I can't vouch for its authority. But I enjoy this book and recommend it.

[Edward Champion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I finally finished this monster -- part of my Modern Library project. And I have decidedly mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, McNeill can be quite on the nose in showing how religion, trade, and secular authority created fascinating relationships between nations and empires . On the other hand, he often seems lost in tackling the entire scope of human history. He is quite generous to India, China, Hinduism, and Islam in a book purporting to be about the "rise of the West." But he is needlessly dismissive of Africa. The book is strongest and smartest when it wrestles with ancient civilization and McNeil's concept of the ecumene -- that is, the bloc of nations whose accomplishments and shifts away from barbarism intermeshed and combined with each other to form the basis of Western civilization as we know it. But I think McNeil loses his way when he tries to cleave to his ecumene concept (while pretty much abandoning his early "great nation" idea established early on) while ridiculously attempting to synthesize the last five hundred years of history into 150 pages -- quite an impossible task! I'll have more to say when I eventually write my essay. I admire McNeill's ambition, but I don't know if there was any way he (or anyone) could have packed this into a 900 page volume.

[Sinan Öner]

The Great American Historian William McNeill's "The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community" is one of the best history books about the world history in the 20. Century. William McNeill writes the detailed story of developments of civilizations in the different regions of world, in the five continents, how did the ways of social life - by the term of William McNeill, the ways, the tools of different human communities' life progress in the world? Why did the West rise after a stage? What is the western world for the science of history? What were the differences of Europeans, Asians, Americans, in their production of life, in their communal life, in their social structures? William McNeill uses the different techniques of social sciences to understand "the Rise of the West". Now, when we see the global crisis, how can William McNeill's book help to learn the causes of the global crisis? William McNeill writes a synthesis in his history, he suggests to use all the conceptual, intellectual powers to understand the history of world.

[Billy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In some ways very prescient, in some ways this broad survey of civilization feels very dated. I like that McNeill says the Marxists, liberals and conservatives all have it wrong. But his fear of the bureaucratic state seems overdone and his criticism of modern totalitarianism is too tepid. McNeill would probably not have been surprised by the fall of the Soviet Union and he even hints at the possibility of a coming environmental crisis (although climate change is not on his radar) and the modern rise of China (now a part of the West as he sees it). Worth reading these 800+ pages to put where we've come from, where we're at and where we're going in context.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this over the course of 4 or 5 months, 50 years ago. Even the author recognizes that It’s theme is dated and I have to agree with him. On the other hand Gibbon’s Decline and Fall is also dated. Both are still worth reading for pleasure and for a greater understanding of their times.

It’s been so long that I read it that I can hardly give a useful review, but I have kept a copy in my library and still pull it out at odd times. Not to read the text, but to browse among the very extensive footnotes, each of which is a miniature history lesson in itself. For that reason: 5 stars.

[Andy]

DNF. Not good for audio. As author points out, meant to be be looked at with maps and pictures.

[Charlene Mathe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful telling of the human story from cave man days to the modern era, condensed to 800 pages. The theme of the writer, William H. McNeill, is how societies advance through cross-cultural challenge and exchange. This theme unifies the discussion of various empires and epochs, because each history is explored in relationship to the larger world. Despite the broad brush strokes, McNeill still provides fascinating detail as he touches down on particular times and places. This detail engages the reader and invites further reading in areas of special interest, as well as reflection and discussion respecting contemporary issues.
Here is an example:
"Within surprisingly few decades, the most active center of innovative activity shifted from China to the Atlantic face of Europe. Before 1500, capitalists achieved remarkable autonomy within the walls of a few Italian and north European city-states; and even after that political framework decayed, urban sovereignties in Europe continued to give merchants and bankers almost unhampered scope or expansion of market activity, whereas in China, and also in most of the Moslim world, regimes unsympathetic to private capitalist accumulation prevailed. In the name of good government, Asian rulers effectively checked the rise of large-scale entrepreneurship by confiscatory taxation on the one hand, and by regulation of prices in the interest of consumers on the other. This left large-scale commercial enterprise, and presently also mining and plantation agriculture, more and more to the Europeans. Consequently, the rise of the West to its world hegemony of recent centuries got underway." (p.xxviii)
McNeill emphasizes the ingenuity and social progress that follows the release of peasant classes from serfdom:
"Thus, for example, pikemen recruited from the towns of northern Italy and later from the villages of Switzerland challenged the military supremacy of aristocratic knights from the twelfth century onward, while in the fourteenth century, the cream of French chivalry could not prevail against English bowmen, recruited originally from the poverty-stricken Welsh marchlands. As for politics, such representative institutions as the English Parliament, the French Estates-General, and the Ecumenical Councils of the Church, all brought varied social groups into the highest arenas of the political process.
"The result was to mobilize greater human resources within European society than was possible within the more rigidly hierarchical societies of the other civilized lands. The Greek democratic polis of the classical age had shown for a brief period the potentialities of a small community of free men and citizens. Western Europe was neither so free nor so intensely creative; yet there, too, we can perhaps detect the stimulating effect of circumstances that called forth conflicting energies of a larger proportion of the total population than could ever find expression in a society dominated by just a few individuals of comparatively homogeneous, though much more refined, outlook." (p.558-559)
McNeill's walk through human history provides a solid framework for the study of history, and a clearer view of our own times. I definitely recommend it, especially for young adults. They are the heirs of this world; and they will write the history of the next century.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really want to read this book. The problem is, I work on a university campus so about a week ago my life got busy. In other words, this book has "summer reading" written all over it and its not summer.

I did get far enough to make some observations. This book, though dated, is good for anyone who wants a general history of world civilization. And when I say "world" I mean it. It is called the Rise of the West, I am assuming because the West has become the most powerful culture in the world. But McNeill talks about India and China and other cultures that are not "the west." I am not sure if he discusses the Americas prior to Columbus, since I didn't get that far. It seems the general movement of the book is how all these cultures interacted and over time the West became the most powerful. So we don't just get a story of Mesopotamia - Egypt - Persia - Greece but we hear how both India and Greece arose at the same time on different sides of the Middle East.

I wonder if the title would change if it was written today? Maybe in 100 years, as the story continues, it could be "The Rise of the East"? I mean, just because the West dominated the world in the 1900s does not mean the West always will. This story is not, nor will ever be complete.

If you're looking for a history of the world focusing on interactions of cultures, check this one out. I may crack it open next summer.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic overview of world history, despite some glaring outdated elements and blindspots. For a book titled "The Rise of the West", the majority of the book that details the relatively balanced interactions between Europe, the Middle East, India, and China up to the modern era is by far where it shines brightest. I was particularly fascinated by the descriptions of Eurasian horse-nomads being the glue as well as the solvent between these zones of civilisation. Oddly enough I found the sections on the titular rise of the west in the modern era the weakest, largely because it attempts to cram so much information into just a couple of chapters; and granted that these are deliberately Eurocentric chapters, the sections on the aforementioned Eurasian zones are too cursory and are followed by a laughable paragraph on an entire subcontinent's culture, which is a shame since the cultural analysis up to then was mostly spot on. As far as dated elements go, most of these are forgivable, although the terminology and tone sometimes went a little too far even for the 1960s, namely the insistence on referring to Africans and indigenous Americans as "barbarians" and some very flippant comments on their histories and cultures. Despite these flaws, this is still absolutely worth reading for its meticulous, sharp, unique, and thought-provoking insights into the history of the world and the human condition, certainly a worthy contrasting equal to the Penguin History of the World.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spectacular. Don't be fooled by the first half of the title. Starting from ancient Sumer, McNeil travels back and forth across continents and oceans to outline A History of the Human Community defined by the cycle of growth->collision->merger->repeat until we reach the era when McNeil was writing, when minimal area of the globe remained untouched by globalizing influences. An excellent survey of world history, rich with detail, very evenhanded, and a great introduction to so many fascinating topics.

[Mark Dorroh · Rating 5 out of 5]

McNeill gets it right

Against the fashionable pessimism of the early '60s through the early 2000s, he sees with unblinking clarity what has happened and why. His research is flawless and unquestioned, his constructions reasonable and apparently right. This book and its author will be remembered, studied and honored centuries from now, while lesser, more cynical historians will be rightfully consigned to the proverbial dustbin of history.

[Bob Shair · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read this in college more than 50 years ago. In rereading it, I realized how much it shaped my understanding of the world. Of course I understood it better now than at age 18.

A well-written, enjoyable history of the world.

[Vivek Maurya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good

[timnc15 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just like Freedman's "Strategy: A History," this book has the similarly gargantuan task of summarizing all of human history into one volume (though it ends in the 60s, which is when this book was written - much has happened since then). Era by era, this book slogs through a comprehensive understanding of the culture, politics, economics, and countless other factors that defined the civilizations that occupied this world before us, highlighting their innovation and impact on generations that followed. As a student who recently took a class on civilizational development, performance, and divergence, I thought that this synthesized well with my prior theories of history: the differential diffusion of technology and the political institutions needed to foster a culture of growth and innovation are ultimately what set civilizations apart in the long run. I also appreciated this book's emphasis on the interconnectedness of seemingly time- and space-disparate civilizations, even if the book's conclusion did feel a bit "end-of-history"-like.

Ultimately, this is a good book if you're an alien dropped on this world and need to learn all of human history in a week. Otherwise, this is certainly not a beach read (unless you want to fall asleep on said beach).

[Theo Boldescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Istoria civilizata poate fi inteleasa ca o serie de deschideri spre o putere tot mai mare - incluzand aici si puterea atat de delicata, dar reala a frumosului in arta si gandire, precum si puterea brutala, cruda. Toate marile inventii, pe de-o parte, i-au eliberat pe oameni de vechile lor slabiciuni, totodata facandu-i sclavii unui nou regim. Vanatorul primitiv i-a dispretuit desigur pe primii agricultori, ce munceau campurile din greu si, de-a lungul secolelor, barbarii liberi au dispretuit si ei obiceiurile servile ale agricultorilor. Insa toate aceste sentimente de repulsie n-au putut sta in calea raspandirii agriculturii si civilizatiei.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Power, wealth, and possibly security. That is what humanity and human history is all about. I wonder what the author would say about how the human species has evolved over the last 57 years since this book came out. His final pages appear to reflect a somewhat pessimistic outlook. Even in the 1960’s, he recognized the increasing pace of affairs leading to some kind of “climax”. If true then, even truer now. Kind of reminds one of “Brave New World” with its forecasts of human genetic engineering. And he hadn’t even thought of Artificial Intelligence! Nor of space colonization….Where are we going. Are we there yet? When will we get there? Sounds like a little kid going on a car trip……

[Bader Alazmi · Rating 4 out of 5]

a classic work in “world history” (1963) that views history as a web of interactions between civilizations, with a focus on the role of the West over the last 500 years.

Its central thesis is that contact between civilizations is the primary driver of historical change, rather than the genius of any single isolated civilization.

It is very important as a counterpoint to a closed Eurocentric view that treats history as an exclusively European product.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

In addition to how well written this book is, it is nice to read history that goes beyond the last hundred years. In this case only about 200 or 800+ pages are given to 1500 to present, which is remarkable considering how history is periodized in the academy. Despite many outdated arguments, the core idea of the centrality of cross cultural interactions creating change is still relevant today.

[Dwayne Hicks · Rating 3 out of 5]

A meticulous, scholarly defense of a thesis that situates inter-civilizational conflict as the driving force of human advancement. Drawbacks: the reduction of civilizational dynamics to a Hegelian dialectic and the introductory pages that would make Chesterton choke with their story-telling about 'caveman' societies.

[Seamus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dated and probably tries to do too much at once . Slightly dry at times but that varies on the material covered . A good underlying subtext which shines especially up to 400 ad . A bit clunky in its application to anything post 1789.