From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its OpponentsSimon and Schuster, 11. mai 2010 - 624 sider An in-depth intellectual history of the Western idea and a passionate defense of its importance to America's future, From Plato to NATO is the first book to make sense of the legacy of the West at a time when it is facing its greatest challenges. Readers of Francis Fukuyama, John Gray, Samuel Huntington, and other analysts of the dilemmas of Western nations in the twenty-first century will find in David Gress's original account a fuller description of what the West really is and how, with the best of intentions, it has been misrepresented. Most important, they will encounter a new vision of Western identity and how it can be recovered. Early in the twentieth century, American educators put together a story of Western civilization, its origins, history, and promise that for the subsequent fifty years remained at the heart of American college education. The story they told was of a Western civilization that began with the Greeks and continued through 2,500 years of great books and great ideas, culminating in twentieth-century progressive liberal democracy, science, and capitalist prosperity. In the 1960s, this Grand Narrative of the West came under attack. Over the next thirty years, the critics turned this old story into its opposite: a series of anti-narratives about the evils, the failures, and the betrayals of justice that, so they said, constituted Western history. The victory of Western values at the end of the cold war, the spread of democracy and capitalism, and the worldwide impact of American popular culture have not revived the Grand Narrative in the European and American heartlands of the West. David Gress explains this paradox, arguing that the Grand Narrative of the West was flawed from the beginning: that the West did not begin in Greece and that, in morality and religion, the Greeks were an alien civilization whose contribution was mediated through Rome and Christianity. Furthermore, in assuming a continuity from the Greeks to modern liberalism, we have mistakenly downplayed or rejected everything in between, focusing on the great ideas and the great books rather than on real history with all its ambiguities, conflicts, and contradictions. The heart of Gress's case for the future of the West is that the New must remember its roots in the Old and seek a synthesis. For as the attacks have demonstrated, the New West cannot stand alone. Its very virtues -- liberty, reason, progress -- grew out of the Old West and cannot flourish when removed from that rich soil. |
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... wanted market capitalism, liberal democracy, and human rights. The most dramatic illustration of this was the fall of communism in central and Eastern Europe, including the former Soviet Union. But the Western optimists could easily ...
... wanted market capitalism, liberal democracy, and human rights. The most dramatic illustration of this was the fall of communism in central and Eastern Europe, including the former Soviet Union. But the Western optimists could easily ...
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... wanted to reduce overall poverty—to expand the zones of democracy and capitalism. The optimists held that democracy, capitalism, and Westernization were three aspects of the same trend, which was irresistible. On the other side of the ...
... wanted to reduce overall poverty—to expand the zones of democracy and capitalism. The optimists held that democracy, capitalism, and Westernization were three aspects of the same trend, which was irresistible. On the other side of the ...
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... wanted to do 50. Second, most people remained happily ignorant of these supposed discoveries. Third, even if they were familiar with them or intuited their truth, people did not always do what they knew to be right or in their interests ...
... wanted to do 50. Second, most people remained happily ignorant of these supposed discoveries. Third, even if they were familiar with them or intuited their truth, people did not always do what they knew to be right or in their interests ...
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... critics argued, was whatever the person using the phrase wanted it to be at any given moment. The historian Norman Davies went further. He listed twelve variants of Western civilization, of which the most important were the Roman.
... critics argued, was whatever the person using the phrase wanted it to be at any given moment. The historian Norman Davies went further. He listed twelve variants of Western civilization, of which the most important were the Roman.
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... wanted to warn against distortions of history, there were in any case other, arguably more urgent perils facing Americans and Europeans of the late 19905 than the danger of an overvalued West. Citizens of that era were not likely to ...
... wanted to warn against distortions of history, there were in any case other, arguably more urgent perils facing Americans and Europeans of the late 19905 than the danger of an overvalued West. Citizens of that era were not likely to ...
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From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Opponents David Gress Ingen forhåndsvisning tilgjengelig - 2010 |
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American American liberalism ancient argued argument Athenian democracy became began believed bourgeois capitalism capitalist Catholic Charlemagne Christendom Christian church claimed classical classical liberal Cold War Commodus communism communist cult culture decline defeat defined democratic divine doctrine dominated early economic elites emperor enemies Enlightenment Europe European faith force France freedom French French Revolution geopolitical German global Grand Narrative Greece Greek historian Hitler human Ibid idea ideology imperial individual intellectual Islam king late antiquity later liberal democracy liberty Marxist meant medieval modern West Montesquieu moral myth National Socialist nature Nietzsche nihilism Old West original Oswald Spengler passion peace philosopher political pope postmodernism progress prosperity Quoted radical reason regime religion religious revolution Roman Empire Rome Schmitt scholars secular sense social society Soviet Union Spengler spirit story synthesis tradition twentieth century universal Virgil virtue wanted Western civilization Western identity wrote