A History of Civilizations

Title: A History of CivilizationsEditor: Fernand BraudelPublisher: Penguin Books 1995 (First published 1963)ISBN: 0-14-01-2489-6Pages: 573

Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) was a French historian who had spent much of the second world war in Germany as a prisoner where he wrote many of his works. Braudel belongs to the Annales group of historians and was still working on this book when he died in 1985. The book is not a pure history in its traditionalist sense of the word. There are no lists of wars, kings, emperors, struggles for succession and other nitty-gritty of history which we are long accustomed to. The author lives more in the present and after a brief examination of the distant past of a particular civilization, he quickly turns to the social, economic and political concerns affecting this particular country or people and addresses it from the point of view of a liberal western thinker. The arguments are left-leaning on many occasions and a tinge of colonial apology was also evident. Braudel was convinced that without a brief, though brutal, phase of colonial rule, the less developed third world countries couldn’t find their places in the world economy.

The book is set with the right perspective on how to approach the issue of civilizations, by addressing the issue of how the word originated. “The word ‘civilization – a neologism – emerged in the 18^th century France. It was formed from ‘civilized’ and ‘to civilize’. Its modern meaning, ‘the process of becoming civilized’ appeared later in 1752 from the pen of French statesman and economist Anne Robert Jacques Turgot. The official debut of the word in print occurred in 1756, in a work entitled ‘A Treatise on Population’ by Victor Riqueti”. The main categories of the book are, Civilizations outside Europe (in which he condenses Islamic, Indian and Chinese civilizations), Africa and European civilizations. Clearly, this Europe-centred view is characteristic of the fallacy of many European historians who see in their tiny quarrelsome continent the salvation of the entire world. Braudel declares Islamic civilization as essentially urban in nature. “Islam’s golden age lasted, broadly speaking, from the reign of Mamun, the creator of the House of Science in Baghdad, to the death of Averroes, the last of the great Muslim philosophers which took place at Marrakesh in 1198.” (p.73). The Islamic life centred on the town where the grand mosque was situated, with a conglomeration of public markets, baths, brothels and other urban peculiarities. Circling these urban oases, lay vast expanses of countryside destined with the sole task of supplying the needs of the townspeople.

A brilliantly thought out reason for the prevalent non-vegetarianism in the West is given. “The West, consuming wheat and other cereals, was obliged to adopt, very early in its history, first the practice of leaving fields fallow and then the rotation of crops. Otherwise, the soil was rapidly exhausted and wheat produced no yield. Part of the land, therefore, automatically became grassland or pasture – all the more so because wheat growing required considerable help from animals. Rice, by contrast, can be grown in the same area every year, indefinitely. Most of the work is manual, and buffaloes are used only for light work in the mud of the paddy fields. Everywhere, indeed, crops are tended meticulously by hand. In these circumstances, to feed on meat would be a fantastic waste. The animals would have to be fed on grain, which human beings themselves prefer to eat.” (p.159).

Babur’s condescending remarks about India, the country he conquered in 1526 is noted for the scorn it contains. “Although Hindustan is a country full of natural charm, its inhabitants are ungracious, and dealings with them yield no pleasure, no response and no lasting relationship. Without intelligence, ability and cordiality; they know nothing of generosity or manly feeling. In their ideas as in their work they lack method, staying-power, order and principle. They have neither good horses nor tasty meat: they have no grapes, no melons and no succulent fruit. There is no ice here, and no fresh water. In the markets one can obtain neither sophisticated food nor even good bread. Baths, candles, torches, chandeliers, schools – none of these is known” (p.165).

The author’s short-sighted remarks about India may be excused as revelation of his own ignorance about the culture and civilization in this part of the world. But, a person writing a book under the somewhat pompous title of ‘A History of Civilizations’ should have devoted more time to read the history of a country on which he intends to comment in a negative way. Perhaps swayed by the brutal bloodshed pursuant to the partition of India in 1947, he remarks that, “India is an amalgam of areas, and also of disparate experiences, which never quite succeed in forming a single whole. It is also too densely populated, being 438 million in 1963. It is furthermore very diverse. In the South is Deccan, a region of conservative peoples and civilizations, obstinately resisting change. In the North-West, the arid lands of the Indus are linked with Iran, and Central Asia. Finally (except under the British Raj) no single political power has ever succeeded in dominating the whole subcontinent, either in the past or in the present, following its violent and sanguinary partition between India and Pakistan in 1947” (p.217). The origin of the word ‘Dravidian’ is mentioned as, “The word Dravidian, awkwardly coined in 1856 by Bishop Robert Caldwell but now unavoidable, denotes the languages of the Deccan, not its races” (p.228). The nature of Muslim rule in India is correctly described as “The Muslims, who were few in number and based solely in the larger towns, could not rule the country except by systematic terror. Cruelty was the norm – burnings, summary executions, crucifixions or impalements, inventive tortures. Hindu temples were destroyed to make way for mosques. On occasion there were forced conversions. If ever there were an uprising, it was instantly and savagely repressed: houses were burned, the countryside was laid waste, men were slaughtered and women were taken as sex slaves” (p.232).

A sharp and clear description of the fabled Indian rural economy is given as “The ancient subsistence economy of the villages lasted a long time. Since it comprised both farmers and artisans, it had little need of the outside world, except for salt and iron, and so remained almost a closed system. Its social organization was based on the castes, keeping all the villagers in their place, from the brahmin to the elders, or to the wealthier peasants who belonged to the higher castes. At the bottom of the scale, the majority were untouchables, labouring on the land” (p.239). Indian economy depended on the aid by superpowers during its first five-year plans as “India was obliged to invoke foreign aid which was by no means free of charge. This brought into play once more the spectacular rivalry between the United States and the USSR. Each was to supply 5 per cent of the foreign aid envisaged in India’s third five-year plan. The Soviet Union concentrated its funds on large-scale projects such as the Bhilai steel works; the United States, which in the past had given twenty times as much as its rival, spread its aid over a number of areas” (p.250), which gave the former more visibility among the public and was wrongly thought to be India’s partner in its progressive march to Industrialization.

Whatever may be the drawbacks imposed by British colonialism in India, the introduction of English as a means of common language had galvanized Indian efforts to attain self-rule. This is in sharp contrast with Dutch Indonesia, where “Dutch has not survived in the same way in Indonesia, for a number of reasons but essentially because the Dutch (with the exception of a few belated and inadequate efforts) did not develop modern technical education or the teaching of their own language. They wanted, claims on economist, ‘to establish their superiority on the basis of the natives’ ignorance. The use of Dutch would have narrowed the gap between the rulers and the ruled – and that had to be avoided at all costs” (p.266).

The dictatorial tendency of the communist regime in USSR is brought out, as “Power was seized by the Communist party – i.e. by a tiny minority of the vast Russian population, perhaps some 100,000 people all told. This highly organized minority took advantage of the appalling stampede of 10 or 12 million peasants, escaping from the army and flooding back to their villages. Lenin is said to have asked: “If Tsarism could last for centuries thanks to 130,000 aristocratic feudal landowners with police powers in their regions, why should I not be able to hold out for a few decades with a party of 130,000 devoted militants?”. He is also said to have remarked, in Napoleonic fashion: ‘We’ll attack, and then we’ll see’” (p.555).

A very prescient analysis of traditional and modern societies are given as “Instead of the very small intellectual elite and the very large mass of illiterates that traditional civilizations maintained, modern civilizations present a more complex picture: a small elite, a very small number of illiterates and a mass of people for whom education is mainly vocational, not a form of higher intellectual training” (p.564).

To summarise, a good book with a lot of scope for innovation. Scant attention to detail, particularly to matters outside Europe and the tendency to view issues from the French side of the question plagues the work. Jawaharlal Nehru is indicated as the President of India which he never was. Also, written in 1963, in the heyday of communism, many of the international issues and analyses are no longer valid. Since Braudel follows every civilization to the present and dedicates most of the discussion on the present-day issues, the loss of focus and relevance for the 21^st century undermines the aim of the book. But, even with all these shortcomings, the effort to put together all of the world’s greatest cultures including Africa (which is not seen in many other works) is highly commendable.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star