Western Civilizations: Their History & Their Culture, Volume 2 (18th Edition)

Western Civilizations Volume 2 18th Edition Joshua Cole Carol Symes 2014

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So with a bad grace, it allowed change to force the gates. And the experience was not peculiar to the West. In his very ambitious last volume, Braudel deals with long cycles, the emergence of various world economies, historical problems in measuring GDP per person, the colonial economies and the industrial revolution. It is certainly successful in one of its aims, to treat the economic history of the period as a story of the world, not simply Western Europe. There are rich discussions of Africa, the Americas, and Asia balancing well the perspective of the colonizer and the colonized.

In his essay on Max Weber, Engerman p. The uniqueness of Western European experience has certainly been taken as the phenomenon to be explained by many economic historians. Writers like Weber not only looked at European evidence in the Protestant Reformation but also offered explanations of why the religions of other societies, such as India, were less conducive to growth.

Braudel is not at home with Weber, nor does he seem to give great importance to institutions like private property, contract, and the like. In fact, he does not seem to accept even the premise that there is something unique to be explained about the development of capitalism in Europe. Let me again quote Braudel;. III, p. Here Braudel strongly sees in his period and earlier the same business forms that exist today and to which others attribute the uniqueness of Western European experience. However, the following quotation perhaps illustrates where Braudel imparts his own special view of capitalism.

He says,. Capitalism also benefits from all the support that culture provides for the solidity of the social edifice, for culture—though unequally distributed and shot through with contradictory currents—does in the end contribute the best of itself to propping up the existing order. And lastly capitalism can count on the dominant classes who, when they defend it, are defending themselves. Of the various social hierarchies—the hierarchies of wealth, of state power or of culture, that oppose yet support each other—which is the most important?

Braudel has a number of elements of Schumpeter in his view of world economic history, in particular long cycles and creative destruction. One of his important insights shared by many others who stress uneven or unbalanced growth is that world economies have changing borders and that there are often areas not included in any world economy. Indian software programmers are writing for Oracle in Bangalore while other areas of India and many other world areas are as yet unaffected by the information technology revolution. Most large countries have special development programs for backward areas, of which many have had flourishing histories, such as natural resource-rich Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh in India, the seat of the Mauryan Empire and the birthplace of the Buddha.

However, Braudel departs sharply from Schumpeter in how he views the capitalist entrepreneur. For Braudel the monopolistic character of capitalism is the key element of privilege and the link between the state and society. Were such observers influenced by illusions, inherited assumptions, ancient errors of judgement? And industrial production which was however only one sector of capitalism was still quite frequently handled by small firms which did indeed compete on the market and continue to do so today. Hence the classic image of the entrepreneur serving the public interest, which persisted throughout the nineteenth century, while the virtues of laissez-faire and free trade were everywhere celebrated.

These closing quotations from Braudel restate his view that everyday material life and operation of markets proceed at one level while capitalism carries on at a higher level above the others. Further Braudel sees capitalism as closely related to the political elites of the world economy in which they are operating. One cannot write an economic history of the world of the last five hundred years and not at least list Fernand Braudel in your bibliography. But how well does Braudel stand up today? My answer would be very well indeed at several levels.

Landes , xvii introduces his recent book with an account of the inability of contemporary medicine in to save Nathan Rothschild, the richest person in the world at the time, from death by blood poisoning. Braudel put medical advances and public health practices up front in Capitalism and Material Life as critical to the improvements in economic well being of the world in the early modern period, clearly a theme shared with Landes and many others.

He likewise saw the importance of historical demography to our understanding of development of the global economy. He saw the great inequalities generated in world economies, and thought it important to describe them. He documents inequalities in both the distribution of private and public goods and services and sees systems of privilege as part of past and present economies. And while he would have liked a more equitable world, this is not a major theme in Capitalism and Civilization.

Civilization

A major theme that has contemporary resonance is the uneven development of different geographic regions of the world, and the lack of convergence of world economies, and more particularly the persistence of regions that have never been part of a world economy, or were part of a world economy in the past, but not at present.

The importance of being first when there are declining costs, learning by doing, or other scale factors that provide barriers to entry into markets are not foreign to the world that Braudel describes. Often, as in the case of the trading companies, monopoly was based upon government support as in the cable industry today, and much of the capitalism that Braudel describes is related to retaining government support or preventing government interference.

Braudel, Fernand. New York: Harper and Row. Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtin, Philip. Cross-Cultural Trade in World History. London: Cambridge University Press. Landes, David S. New York: W. Olson, Mancur. New York: Basic Books. Schumpeter, Joseph. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper and Brothers. Please read our Copyright Information page for important copyright information. Send email to admin eh.

Newsletters To join the newsletters or submit a posting go to click here. Capitalism Braudel emphasizes that capitalism is something different from the market economy, a distinction that should be kept in mind in understanding Civilization and Capitalism. Capitalism and Material Life Braudel and the Annales School represented a reaction to traditional narrative history with its emphasis on major actors, usually political or economic elites.

Why or why not?

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How did the geography and climate of Mesopotamia affect the Sumerian version of the story? Enlil went up inside the boat and, grasping my hand, made me go up. He had my wife go up and kneel by my side. He touched our forehead and, standing between us, he blessed us. Source: Maureen Gallery Kovacs, trans.

T The most striking expression of this development is the Epic of Gilgamesh, a series of stories recited over many generations and eventually written down on cuneiform tab- lets: the rst literary monument in world history. It recounts the exploits of a lugal named Gilgamesh, who probably lived in Uruk sometime around B.

Gilgamesh earns his legendary reputation through military conquest and personal heroism, particularly in campaigns against uncivilizedthat is, nonurban, non-Sumeriantribes. But he becomes so powerful that he ignores his own soci- etys code of conduct: we hear at the start of the epic that his people complain about him because he keeps their sons away at war and shows no respect for the nobles, carousing with their wives and compromising their daughters; he also disrespects the priesthood and commits acts of sacrilege.

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So the people of Uruk pray to the gods for retribution, and the gods fashion a wild man named Enkidu to challenge Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is a creature of the city; Enkidu is a creature of the past, a hunter-gatherer. But then Enkidu has a sexual encounter with a beguiling woman and is unable to return to the wil- derness: his urban initiation has civilized him, and this allows him to befriend the lord of Uruk. Together they have many adventures. But Enkidu is eventually killed by the goddess Inanna, who punishes the friends for mocking her powers.

Gilgamesh, distraught with grief, searches for a magical medicinal plant that will revive his friend. He nds it at the bottom of a deep pool, only to have it stolen from him by a water snake. In the end, he is forced to confront the futility of all human effort. The larger message seems to be that not even civilization can shield humans from the forces of nature and the inevitability of death.

Sumerian Religion In the Uruk Period, the Sumerians identied their gods with the capricious forces of the natural world.

In the Early Dynastic Period, however, they came to imagine their gods as resembling the lugals who now lorded over their city- states. Like these dynastic rulers, the gods were imagined as having the desire to live in the nest palaces and temples, to wear the costliest clothing and jewels, and to consume the tastiest foods. According to this new theology, which clearly reects changes in Sumerian society, humans exist merely to provide such luxuries for their gods.

This was, indeed, why the gods had created people in the rst place; for if humanity ever ceased to serve the gods, the gods them- selves would starve. There was thus a reciprocal relation- ship between humanity and divinity.

Description:

The gods depended on their servants to honor and sustain them; and in return, the gods occasionally bestowed gifts and favors on humans. As the gods representatives on earth, lugals who reigned as kings bore special responsibilities and also enjoyed special privileges.

They were believed to rule by divine sanction and were thus set apart from all other men, including priests.

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