A modern and thought-provoking history of the Western world. We have a vague belief in the Western tradition of freedom that has produced a full life for its citizens and a culture of enormous complexity and creative power. But the history of our civilization is also filled with unspeakable brutality. For every Da Vinci, there is a Torquemada; for every Beethoven symphony, a concentration camp. How, then, can we come to the defense of a civilization whose benefits seem so questionable? In this ambitious and important book, Roger Osborne shows that we can only understand and feel comfortable with our civilization by reexamining and confronting our past. He tells the story of the West from its origins to the present: from the siege of Troy to Gettysburg; from Charlemagne to the European Union; and from Aristotle to John Rawls. Drawing on the voices of the past—including Herodotus, Cicero, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Cervantes, Locke, Voltaire, Gibbon, Darwin, Marx, Weber, Roosevelt, and Arendt, to name just a few—Civilization assesses the current state of Western civilization in light of its past and with an indication of how it might survive the urgent task of constantly renewing itself.
