Society for History Education
What Is Western Civilization?
Author(s): Lawrence Birken
Source: The History Teacher, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Aug., 1992), pp. 451-461
Published by: Society for History Education
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What Is WesternCivilization?
Lawrence Birken
Ball StateUniversity
THE STANDARD WESTERNCIVILIZATIONCOURSEhas become
a political footballin recentyears in the strugglebetweenthe conservative
forces of cultural homogeneity and the break-away forces of cultural
pluralism. Lost in the struggle is any sense of what exactly constitutes
WesternCivilization.The majortextbooksareno help; few if any attempt
to define the temporalandspatialdimensionsof the civilizationthey claim
to study. R. R. Palmer, for example, in his History of the Modern World
seems to have conceived of a WesternWorldcenteredaroundthe Mediterraneanandbeginning with the Greeks.Eventually,afterexpandingunder
the RomanEmpire,it "brokeapartinto threesegments in the earlyMiddle
Ages." However, in effect, what Palmer calls the "Moder World" is
simply what otherhistorianscall the WesternWorldwhich developed out
of the Germanicsegment. In contrast,FrankRoy Willis defines the West
as "that civilization that developed in the continent of Europe and was
carriedto ... areasin otherpartsof the globe thatwere colonized by people
fromEurope,"a definitionthatmay or may not include the Greeksandthe
Romans. EdwardBurns,RobertLernerand StandishMeacham are even
more ambivalent.On the one hand,they write, "amongall peoples of the
ancientworld, the one whose culturemost clearlyexemplified the spiritof
Westernsociety was the Greekor Hellenic."On the otherhand,the same
writersnote that"byabout700 A.D., in place of a unitedRome, therewere
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Volume 25 Number4
August 1992
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LawrenceBirken
three successor civilizations that stood as rivals ... the Byzantine, the
Islamic andthe WesternChristian."Shrewdlyentitlingtheirtext Western
Civilizations,they clearly wish to distinguishbetween something called
Westernsociety andWesternChristianculture,the formerbeing made up
of severalcivilizationsincludingthe latter.But to live up to the title Burns
andhis collaboratorswould have hadto devote roughlyequaltime to each
of the successorsof GreeceandRome. This they do not do. Theirsis in fact
a historyof WesternChristiancivilization with only a brief excursioninto
the Byzantine and Islamic civilizations which they imply are equally
"Western."Inthis context,itis understandablethatatleast some historians,
such as Kevin Reilly, have opted to submerge the whole question of
Westernsociety in the largerstudy of Worldhistory.1
Texts, of course seek a general audience and are therefore rather
imprecise in their terminology and methodology. Aiming for a mass
following, the textbookwriterseeks to please as many people as possible
by using vague languageand speakingin generalities.But even those few
specialistsinterestedin theproblemof definingthe boundaries,originsand
terminationsof civilizations areby no meansin agreementon the question
of what constitutes the Western variety. In a series of symposia and
conferences, membersof the InternationalSociety for The Comparative
Study of Civilizationsarguedover the delineationof culturalboundaries.
At least one participantin the meetings, David Wilkinson, arguedfor the
existence of what he called a "centralcivilization," "resultingfrom the
coupling of at least two (Egyptian and Mesopotamian) civilizations
approximately3500 years ago." This civilization, Wilkinson believed,
Greco-Roman,MedievalandModernphases
passedthroughNear-Eastern,
even as it had"engulfedall othercivilizationsandgrownto global scope."2
In contrast,David Richardsonadvanceda scheme of classificationwhich
distinguishedbetween a "Faustian"civilizationbeginningc. 850 A.D. and
an earlier Greco-Romancivilization lasting from c. 1200 B.C. to c. 300
A.D. For Richardson,the "Faustian"civilization was merely one more
civilization among all the others,albeit one both gracedandcursedwith a
particularset of characteristics.3
"Central"and"Faustian"aremerely two very differentdescriptionsof
what is in fact Western civilization. But the radicaldistinction between
Wilkinson's and Richardson'snotion of the West is rooted in partin the
two authors'assumptionsof whatconstitutescivilizationin the firstplace.
Wilkinson's concept of civilization is actuallythatof a system of interaction between civilizations. For Wilkinson, even the thinnestfilaments of
long-distance tradelinking complex culturesmake them partof a single
civilizationalsystem. Any conceptionof interactionbetweencivilizations
is thus precluded since the interaction itself would make them one
What is Western Civilization?
453
civilization. Wilkinson'stheoryis in many ways eccentricandforced, and
appearsdesigned mainly to supporthis notion of a universal "Central"
civilization. In contrast, Richardson's idea of civilization as a distinct
geographically-basedWeltanschauungappearsto be closerto the views of
most other civilizationists.4
The real distinction between Wilkinson's idea of a "Central"and
Richardson's notion of a "Faustian"culture is thus one between an
expanded and a limited conception of Western civilization, the former
including Greece and Rome and the latter excluding them. While both
conceptionsco-exist in WesternCivilizationtextbooks,I would arguethat
they are of unequalvalue. Indeed,from both a theoreticaland a heuristic
point of view the limited notion of what constitutesthe West is greatly
superiorto the expandednotion.This logical superioritycan be illustrated
on several differentlevels.
To begin, a civilizationmaybe regardedas thelargestculturalunit about
which a linearhistorymay be written.Forexample,the widely held notion
that Western Civilization begins with the Greeks and Romans, coupled
with the admission that WesternChristendom,Byzantium and Islam are
equally heirs to the classical world, would imply that all three of these
complex culturesactuallyconstitutethe samecivilization.Thus,Wilkinson
openly statesthat"Medieval,Byzantine,Islamic andRussiancivilizations
were never isolated enough from one another ... to be treated as ...
independent."Yet, adherentsto the propositionthatthe West begins with
Greece rarely give more than a passing glance to either Byzantium or
Islam. Even Wilkinson betrays this bias by speaking of the "medieval"
phase of "Central"civilization, thus puttingWesternChristendomat the
center and marginalizing Byzantium and Islam. The fact that it is not
possible to write a linearhistorythatwould integrateall threecivilizations
is proof enough that they do constitute comparativelyisolated cultural
traditionswith their own internallogic.5
It is of coursepossible to explicitly endorsethe idea thatthe Westbegins
with Greece, and simultaneouslyto rejectthe notion that Byzantiumand
Islam areheirs to the classical world, thus preservingthe thesis of a linear
developmentof Wester civilization fromGreeceto Rome, fromRome to
the Middle Ages and the Modem World. But this would involve a
distortionof historyof such magnitudeas to be acceptableto no reputable
scholar.Indeed,in many ways, ByzantiumandIslampossess a muchmore
persuasiveclaim to the classical heritagethandoes Wester Christendom.
Not only did the Byzantine state representa direct continuationof the
Roman Empire, but Byzantium and Islam both preserved intellectual,
social and political forms that continued uninterruptedfrom the earliest
days of EasternMediterraneanhistory.Both the Byzantinesandthe Arabs
454
LawrenceBirken
possessed a clearunderstandingof the stateandthe city which they merely
took over (if in a modified form) from previous civilizations in the same
area. In contrast,Wester Christendomhad to nearly reinvent the very
notionsof the city andthe stateatthe same time thatit learnedaboutits own
classical heritagefrom the despised ByzantinesandMoslems. All this, of
course, is conceded by the standardtextbooks on a factual level without
necessarily clarifyingtheirtheoreticalunderstandingof the temporaland
spatialphenomenonthey call Western Civilization.6
Secondly, the idea that Westerncivilization begins with the classical
world presentscertaingeopolitical problems.In this context it is interesting that Wilkinson asserts that his so-called Centralcivilization is "less
geographicallydetermined"than other civilizations. But in the very first
volume of his monumentalStudy of History, Arnold Toynbee asks his
readersto imagine"aline stretchingfromRome acrossthe Alps to Aachen
and from Aachen across the Channel to the Roman Wall." During the
RomanEmpire,Toynbee argues"theline was the latest outerfrontierof a
society" whereas "in the WesternWorld it was the base-line from which
a society had expandedin all directions."We thereforehave two different
civilizations with two distinctterritorialor geopolitical centersof gravity.
If the Roman Empire and the Classical civilization it protected were
"substantiallyconfined to the periphery of the Mediterraneanbasin,"
Westerncivilization was centeredin northwesternEurope.The northwest
marchesof the Greco-Romanworldwerethustransformedinto the core of
the Westernworld, while the core of the Roman world was transformed
into the southeastmarchesof the Westernworld.7
Thirdly, the notion of continuous civilization from Greece to the
modern West is subvertedby an understandingof ecology. In his Mediterraneanand TheMediterraneanWorldin TheAge of Philip II, Ferand
Braudel argues that "at bottom, a civilization is attached to a distinct
geographicarea and this is itself one of the indispensableelements of its
composition."By "geographical,"however,Braudelis referringnotmerely
to territoryper se butto the ecology of a regionin the broadestsense. Here
ecology is nothing less than the interactionof biology with geology, an
interaction that determines the limits of the challenges confronting a
potential civilization. A central assertion of Braudel's book is that the
Mediterraneanworld constituteda unique civilization or set of civilizations, rootedin a particularecology of sea andsoil thatset it apartfromthe
civilization of northeasternEurope. Although his work deals with the
sixteenth century, Braudel remindsus that "therehad of course always
been a gulf betweenthe Northandthe Mediterranean... each with its own
horizons,its own heartand,religiouslyspeaking,its own soul."8Braudel's
insights not only reinforceToynbee's but shed a greatdeal of light on why
What is Westem Civilization?
455
neithertheRomanEmpirenortheclassical civilizationit representedcould
establish itself permanentlyin northwesternEuropenorthof the Alps and
the Loire. As GeraldHodgettnotes, the soil conditions of the Mediterranean basin andnorther Europewere very different.In the former,a light
soil predominated;in the latter,a heavy clay soil was common. Classical
agriculture,adaptingto the soil conditions of the Mediterraneanbasin,
utilizedthe so-called scratchplow which was inadequatein the heaviersoil
which prevailed in the Trans-Alpine North. Romanization was consequently superficialin that areaof northernFrance and western Germany
that would become the heartof the new Wester civilization.9This new
civilization could establishitself in the Northwestonly withthe emergence
and diffusion of a "technological transformation"which "included the
heavy wheeled plow and iron plowshare, an improved horse collar and
harnessthat would permitthe use of the horse as a draftanimal"andother
innovations.10Incontrast,ByzantineSouthernItalyandIslamicSpainlong
remainedcontested outposts of the new civilization, linked to an ecology
and to civilizations more closely relatedto the Classical world than the
West. Indeed,one mighthypothesizethatthe persistenceof Byzantineand
Islamic power in southernEuropehad ecological foundationssince these
civilizations were better adaptedto Mediterraneanconditions than was
Latin Christendom.
Fourthly,the assumptionof the classical origins of the West is put into
question by a consideration of technology. Traditionalmodels of the
emergenceof the West in GreeceandRome, its eclipse duringthe so-called
DarkAges, and its re-birthduringthe Renaissanceall imply the existence
of a single civilization in which all areas of technology rose and fell and
rose again together. In other words, we expect a single civilization to
possess a certain coherence of development. But after the fall of the
WesternRoman Empire,the cultureof northwestEuropedid not merely
restore and later surpass Greco-Roman civilization. Rather, northwest
Europe developed along totally different lines. If Western Christendom
surpassedRoman agricultureas early as the eleventh century,andRoman
communicationsby the fifteenth, and Roman theoretical science by the
seventeenth,it didnot surpassthe Romansin urbanplanninguntil,perhaps,
the nineteenth.But the very unevennessof this developmentsuggests that
the West representeda radicalbreakfrom the Classical world and thus a
new civilization."
There are thus several interrelatedreasons for rejecting an expanded
definitionof Westerncivilization which would includeGreece andRome,
and accepting a more limited definition which would exclude them.
Spatially, the new civilization arose in northwestEurope,perhaps"in an
area of 150,000-200,000 square kilometers stretching from the central
456
LawrenceBirken
Loire to the Scheldt (Escaut) basin" but then rapidly expanding "to the
broadRhine corridor,to northernItaly, andto England."Temporally,the
new civilization appearedafterthe disintegrationof the WesternRoman
Empireand the rise of Islam "cut off WesternEuropefrom other centres
of world civilization, and shut it in, turningit back upon itself."12But the
conception of this new civilization would be of academicinterestonly if
it were not for the fact thatit has profoundimplicationsfor the teachingof
history.The limited definitionof Westerncivilization is not only superior
from a theoreticalbut from a heuristicperspective.
To begin with, the expandeddefinition of the West is so broadthat it
makes that particularcivilization appearidentical with civilization as a
whole. This is of course already implicit in Wilkinson's notion of a
"Central"civilization, but it is also present in the works of the great
popularizerssuch as Will and Ariel Durantwhose Story of Civilization
relegates the history of China, India and Japanto the first volume of an
eleven volume series. Appropriately,that first volume is entitled Our
OrientalHeritage as if the entireexistence of othercivilizations is merely
a preludeto our own. This identificationof the West with the totality of
history itself is reflected by the tendency to regardthe "WesternCiv"
course as the "Introductionto History" course in many universities.
Needless to say, such a highly teleological approachhas importantpractical drawbacks.In particular,the over-identificationof the West with
civilization as a whole producesan inevitablereaction.Over-extensionis
leading to collapse so thatthe very idea of the WesternCiv courseis being
challenged for its boundless ethnocentrism and cultural hubris. The
increasinglycosmopolitannatureof boththeuniversityandthe worlditself
must outmode the overinflatedpretensionsof the expandeddefinition of
Western civilization. But a more narrowlydefined Western Civ course,
with a definite and even modest territorialfoundation,might continue to
attractstudentsin an increasinglypluralisticworld.The West would then
become one civilization among all the others,its study taking its rightful
place among the other area studies programs.13
Another practical benefit of abandoningthe expanded definition of
Western civilization would be to replace a narrativewith a problems
approachto the studyof thatcivilization.The very teleology implicitin the
expandeddefinitionprecludesthe rise of the West frombeing regardedas
a problemat all. Rather,what we have is the inevitabletriumphof reason
and science presentedas a chronicle.The expansion of the modem West
seems to be a mere resumptionof the triumphsof the Classicalworld after
the "DarkAge" lull. In contrast,the limited definitionof Westerncivilization forces studentsto ask a whole set of questionswhich presentthe rise
of that civilization as a problem:How could the impoverishedpeoples of
What is Western Civilization?
457
northwesternEurope constructa new civilization when they lacked the
How didthe cultureof
necessarypoliticalandeconomicinfrastructure?
of
the
northwestern
invent
a
new
city andthestateout
conception
Europe
of what was an essentially cityless and stateless society? How was it that
the politicallyfragmentedand culturallydeprivedWest came to put a
greaterstresson geographicexpansionandtechnologicalinnovationthan
the olderandmoreunifiedcivilizationsof the OttomanEmpire,Persia,
MogulIndiaorMingChina?Themorethefragilenatureof eighth,ninth
andtenthcenturyWesterncivilizationis recognized,themorecompelling
thesequestionsbecome.14
Still anotherbenefitof jettisoningthe expandeddefinitionandthus
excludingGreco-Roman,Islamicand Byzantinecivilizationfrom our
definitionof the West is that it restoresthe specificityof the latter
civilizations.In a realsense,theexpandeddefinitionof Westerncivilizationcreatedanunwarranted
feelingof familiaritywithByzantium,Islam
and,especially,the Classicalworld.To includeGreeceandRomein the
West was to claim to know them too well, without recognizing the full
extentof theirradical"otherness."
inWester civilization,
As aparticipant
a restricted
definitionof thatcivilizationtellsmethatclassicalGreeceand
Rome are not us, but part of our culturalancestry.This in turnmakes it
possible to begin to construct a genealogy of civilizations in which the
West is a half-sibling of Islam and Byzantium,the other descendantsof
Christian-Romanculture. But whereas the West also had a Germanic
ancestry, the Islamic World possessed an Arab descent. The ancestral
metaphorcan be taken further.The limited definition of the West rejects
the idea that Western notions of freedom arose in Greece and Rome,
insteadtracingsuchnotionsto the contractual
natureof feudalsociety.15
Advocatesof thislimiteddefinitionmightpointoutthatinconstructing
the
stateoutof theremnants
of feudalism,Westemthinkersransacked
modemn
theClassicalworldforjustificationsforallsortsof politicalschemes.The
Greco-Roman
worldcontributed
notonlyideasaboutrepublican
freedom
but also notionsof imperialdespotism.In this sense, Westernpolitical
theoristswentthroughtheideasof theClassicalcivilizationwiththekind
of half-unfamiliarity
of childrenrummagingthroughthe clothesof the
in an old attic.
grandparents
A final advantageof movingtowarda limiteddefinitionof Western
civilizationis thatit unifiesthatcivilizationby integratingits ClassicalChristianandGermanicheritages.Accordingto thisview, all thepeoples
of northwesterEuropepossessthese two culturalstrainswhich came
togetherto forma new civilizationafterthe fall of the WesternRoman
of the West with Classical
Empire.In contrast,the overidentification
civilization andthe RomanEmpirethatprotectedit suggests thatwhile the
458
LawrenceBirken
Romance-speakingFrench, Spanish and Italianswere thoroughlyWesternized, the German-speakingpeoples beyond the old imperialfrontiers
were only partiallyso. Northwestemn
Europeis thus bifurcatedinto two
cultures, one rational,enlightened and civilized and the other irrational,
Itis preciselythisexpandeddefinition
romanticandpotentiallybarbarous.
thatexcluded
of theWest,heldbymanyGermansaswellasnon-Germans,
andthemodemworldthataroseoutof
GermanyfromtheEnlightenment
it and markedthe Germanpeople as a unique people with a special path
(sonderweg).Inthiscontext,NationalSocialismhasbeenseenas partof
a GermanicrevoltagainstRome going backas far as the battleof the
Teutoburgforestin 9 A.D. Forexample,in his RiseandFall of theThird
Reich,WilliamShirertracedHitlerismto"aspiritualbreakwiththeWest,"
assertingthatin the "Germansoul couldbe felt the strugglebetweenthe
A more
spiritof [Westem?]civilizationandthespiritof theNibelungs."16
restrictedbuttightlyknitconceptionof theWestmighthelpus revisethis
outmodedviewof GermanhistoryingeneralandHitlerisminparticularby
betterintegratingGermanyintoWesterncivilization.Certainly,it would
allow us to face the fact that the German-speakingworld was an integral
part of the West and its Enlightenment,and consequentlythat National
Socialismmustbe understoodwithinthelargercontextof Westernculture.
In that context, both the Enlightenmentand the communist, fascist and
liberalmovementsinspiredbyitrevealaromanticaswellasa rationalside.
A readingof Hitler'swritingsand speechesthus showsthateven they
co-existswithreason.The
possessedthatdualityin whichromanticism
Hitlerianidealof anAryanKulturwas afterall supposedto be a synthesis
of GermanicandClassicalforms.17
In this essay, I have attemptedto contrastan expanded definition of
Westerncivilizationwith a morerestricteddefinition,the formerincluding
both Greece and Rome and the latterexcluding them. Ironically,it is the
expandeddefinitionthatis bothdefendedby culturalconservativesand
attackedby culturalradicals.Highlyvisible,this definitionpresentsan
idealizedvision of the West thattendsto polarizean alreadydivided
American polity. To understandthe dynamics of that polity, it is only
necessary to recognize that the United States is, like the Soviet Union, a
transnational"empire"composed of a numberof ethnicities and races.
Such polities can preserve their coherence only by recruiting selected
membersof minoritygroupsto the cause of the dominantethos. But under
the strainof superpowerstatus,the Soviet Union has apparentlylost the
dominant communist ethos and is consequently disintegratinginto its
ethniccomponents.Undersimilarpressure,the UnitedStatesis threatened
by a comparablefragmentationeven if this country'sgreaterwealthmakes
it a less immediate danger. In this context, a highly teleological Whig
What is WesternCivilization?
459
history of Western Civilization may play a role in the United States
analogous to that played by the highly teleological version of Marxism
which prevailedin the Soviet Union.Both serve as legitimizingideologies.
In the United States, the traditionalWesterncivilization course invents a
false genealogy linking the Greeks,Romans,Renaissance,Enlightenment
andthe UnitedStates.Butironically,the attemptto legitimizethehegemonic
White Protestantvalues of the United States by treating the West as a
"central"civilization relevantto all humanityhas backfired.Today, it is
precisely this notion of Westerncivilization which has led sexual, ethnic
and racialdissidents to rejectthe very idea of any WesternCiv course! It
is indeed ironic that these culturalradicals actually agree with cultural
conservatives aboutthe metaphysicaluniquenessof the West. But where
the lattersee the West as uniquelygood, the formersee it as a uniquelyevil
anti-civilizationwhich standsin the way of the self-understandingof the
peoples "withouthistory."'8
In contrast, a more limited definition of Wester civilization might
allow the study of that civilization to survive and even flourish. The
devolutionof the Wester Civ coursefromuniversalhistoryto areastudies
programwould first of all allow us to separatethe study of the West from
the study of history.Instead,it would be possible to constructan introductory history course with several sections; one on the Classical world,
anotheron Africa, a thirdon China and so on. Each section would at the
same time preserve an introductorycomponent for beginning students.
Freshmenmight be requiredto take one section of introductoryhistory in
the areaof theirchoice, thuswideningthe appealof historyto students.By
restoring the notion that the West was merely one civilization among
others,the restricteddefinitionof Westerncivilization rejectsthe extreme
claims of cultural conservatives and cultural radicals alike and finds a
constituencyin the middle. Ideological grandiosityis thus lost, but in its
place the study of the West survives on a more modest and thus more
scientific basis. WesternCiv could then take its place within a conception
of world civilization which might help to reunitean ever more pluralistic
America on a new and fairerbasis.
Notes
1.
R. R. Palmer,A History of the Modern World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1950), p. 14; FrankRoy Willis, WesternCivilization(New York:Macmillan, 1987), p. 1;
460
LawrenceBirken
EdwardBums,RobertLemerandStandishMeacham,WesternCivilizations:TheirHistory
and TheirCulture,Tenth edition (New York:W. W. Norton & Company,1984), pp. 109,
243; Kevin Reilly, The Westand the World:A History of Civilization,2 vols. (New York:
Harper& Row, 1989).
2.
Matthew Melko and Leighton Scott (eds.) The Boundaries of Civilizations in
Space and Time (Lanham,MD: UniversityPress of America, 1987), pp. 25-28.
3.
Ibid., p. 29.
4.
Ibid., p. 23; where Melko presents a classification of civilization based on the
consensus of his fellow civilizationists.
For the definition of civilization as an "objectiveintelligible field of historical
5.
study," see Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Volume One (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1962),pp. 17-22;Melko andScott,Civilizations,pp. 27, 48-58 forWilkinson's
views.
6.
See, for example, Bums, Lemer andMeacham,WesternCivilizations,pp. 271272.
7.
Toynbee, StudyofHistory, pp. 38-39.
8.
FernandBraudel,The Mediterraneanand the MediterraneanWorldDuring the
Reign of Philip II, trans.Sian Reynolds, Volume Two (New York:Harper& Row, 1976),
pp.764,770.
GeraldHodgett,A Social andEconomicHistoryofMedievalEurope(New York:
9.
Harper& Row, 1974), pp. 13-23.
10. TraianStoianovich,FrenchHistorical Method:TheAnnalesParadigm (Ithaca:
Corell University Press, 1976), p. 177.
11. For an excellent summaryon the uniquequalitiesof the West as opposed to the
Classical world, see Geoffrey Barraclough,TurningPoints in World History (London:
Thames& Hudson,1979), pp. 19-27. Barracloughdoes a goodjob in contrastingtheWest's
unique combinationof political immaturityandscientific maturity,andshowing how the
formermay have been a preconditionfor the latter.
12. Stoianovich,French Historical Method,pp. 177-178.
13. For an earliercritiqueof the teleology inherentin the WesternCiv course, see
Gilbert Allardyce, 'The Rise and Fall of the Wester Civilization Course,"American
Historical Review 87 (1982), 699.
14. In general,these kindsof questionsareaskedin a WorldHistorycourse.Yet such
a course,by embracingseveralcivilizations,sacrifices linearityandthusthe essence of the
historicaldiscipline, for a comparativestudy of structuresand functions. For an example
of this kind of approach,see Reilly, Westand the World.
15. The feudal origins of constitutionalismis, of course, widely recognized on an
empirical level. The first edition of Palmer thus notes that "it was out of this mutual or
contractualcharacterof feudalismthatideasof constitutionalgovernmentlaterdeveloped."
Palmer,ModernWorld,p. 25.
16. William Shirer,TheRise andFall ofThe ThirdReich:AHistoryofNazi Germany
(New York: Fawcett, 1989), pp. 143, 149. This view of the Germansas outside the West
was earlierdeveloped on a more scholarlylevel in PeterViereck,Meta-politics:TheRoots
ofthe NaziMind (New York:CapricornBooks, 1965), especially pp. 3-15. At right angles
to this theoryof Germanicuniquenessrunthe ideas of writerslike HannahArendtwho see
Nazism as rooted in a broaderWesterntradition.See in particularher Origins of Totalitarianism.
17. Adolph Hitler,Mein Kampf,trans.RalphManheim(Boston:HoughtonMifflin,
1971), p. 423, for example.
18. For the idea of Westerncivilization as a mythuseful to the Americanpolity, see
What is Westem Civilization?
461
PeterNovick, ThatNobleDream:The 'ObjectivityQuestion'andTheAmericanHistorical
Profession (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1988), pp. 312-314; andsee Carolyn
Lougee, "Comment on Gilbert Allardyce's 'Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization
Course'," American Historical Review 87 (1982), 726-729; Dinesh D'Souza, Illiberal
Education;ThePolitics ofRace andSex on Campus(New York:The FreePress, 1991), pp.
59-93.