(6) J.M. ROBERTS –

THE TRIUMPH OF THE WEST: THE ORIGIN, RISE & LEGACY OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION (1985)

 

Greatly expanded from the BBC TV series he presented of the same title, this book similarly looks at what is Western civilization and its titular ambigous triumph.

Roberts was a classic old school British historian – and by old school I mean Oxford, ultimately returning to his alma mater as Warden of Merton College, an academic title like many others that evoke those of a fantasy novel.

Apart from his academic distinctions, he had many published works for which he was hailed as “a master of the broad brush-stroke” – or in other words that thematic style of history which is my favorite.

That style is on display in what I regard to be the crowning achievement of any historian – a history of the world, particularly if it also spans all of history, as Roberts did with his History of the World published by Penguin (usually as the Penguin History of the World).

Given the scale, it’s obviously not light reading – but is demonstrative of Roberts’ style that pithy phrases from it still resonate in my mind many years after reading it. Roberts evoking most modern wars in the Middle East as the wars of Ottoman succession for example, or Romanticism as a secularized Protestantism.

Roberts’ style and mastery of broad brush strokes is even more on display in The Triumph of the West, perhaps not surprisingly given its origin in the television series he wrote and presented (for which prose style and mastery of broad brush strokes are effectively sine qua non for engaging an audience) as well as its shorter volume than his world history.

The chapters – corresponding to the episodes of the TV series – effectively showcase its presentation of “the origins and evolution of Western civilization, and the transformative challenges and influence it has exerted on the rest of the world”:

• 1 – One World (TV episode – Dangerous Gifts: the benefits and costs of Western influence)
• 2 – A Sense of Direction (TV episode – A New Direction: Influences from Ancient Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian Culture)
• 3 – Birth of the West (TV episode – The Heart of the West: The Middle Ages and Orbis Christiani)
• 4 – The World’s Debate (TV episode – The World’s Debate: Islam and Christianity)
• 5 – Defining a World (TV episode – East of Europe: Byzantium and Russia)
• 6 – An Exploring Civilization (TV episode – The Age of Exploration)
• 7 – New Worlds (TV episode – same)
• 8 – A New Age (TV episode – Age of Light)
• 9 – History Speeds Up (TV episode – Monuments to Progress: The Long Nineteenth Century)
• 10 – The Confident Aggressors (TV episode – India: The Ironies of Empire)
• 11 – Responses and Repercussions (TV episode – The East is Red: China in the Twentieth Century)
• 12 – A Sense of Decline (TV episode – The Decline of the West :Two World Wars and The Great Depression)
• 13 – A Post-Western World? (TV episode – Capitulations: Third World countries learn the price of dependency on the West)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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