The Empire of Civilization
The Evolution of an Imperial Idea
By Brett Bowden, University of Chicago Press, 304pp.
Reviewed: 6 June 2009.
How often our ears ring from the amplified calls of politicians and lobbyists rousing us to violent or oppressive action “to defend civilization”. The enemy is always barbarian.
By default, “civilization” seems to include whatever we hold dear about the society in which we live – property rights, religion, or football. Brett Bowden invites us to step back and review the slippery range of meanings attached to “civilization” over the centuries, and to follow how the term has been employed politically to justify or motivate the actions of states bent on influencing, dominating, or conquering other states and cultures.
The ancient Greeks originated “Western” self-conscious ownership of civilization (“Us”) versus barbarism (“Them”) in recording their wars with the Persians. The East-West paradigm persists today. Christian Popes later appropriated the theme as basis for launching the Crusades, decreeing that no “uncivilized” nation could possibly deserve, in God’s eyes, to occupy the Holy Land of Palestine.
The greater part of this book traces the development of justifications for Western colonialism during the centuries following the Spanish discoveries of the Americas. There were always dissidents who challenged the moral justification of empire and asserted what we would now call the “human rights” of individuals and communities to determine their own destinies, free of subjection. Mostly, these voices were overruled by louder ones claiming that it was actually a moral obligation, for the “civilized” colonial power to bring enlightenment (Christian or secular) to “savages” or “barbarians” who were capable neither of improving their own state nor of properly utilizing the resources of the land they occupied.
Bowden’s real purpose is critique of the contemporary imperialism espoused by the American neo-cons and their supporters around the world. He traces the history of overt US imperialism across three centuries, whether in the form of territorial conquest or in the guise of a “civilizing mission”.
As a Western-oriented critique, the book offers much that is challenging and hard to refute. But as a global analysis there are some large gaps. The assumption of a uni-polar, US-dominated global polity bears more testing, with regard to rising alternative powers such as China or other Asian or global communities that clearly do not accept a “Washington Consensus” for globalization.
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