Page 118 - Encyclopedia Of World History

468 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Individual commitment to a group effort—that is what
makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a
civilization work. • Vince Lombardi (1913–1970)

ambiguous, and disorderly, and which resist easy cate- made distinctions between civilization and culture, indi-
gorization. cating that the former represented the latter in its last
stages prior to its plunging into decline. For others, the
Culture and the Study role of culture was subordinated to the influence of the
of World History economy and class struggle (in the case of Karl Marx and
The concept of culture occupies a prominent place in the Friedrich Engels) or to abstract notions of a progressively
writings of world historians. So pervasive is the presence advancing universal human spirit (in the case of G.W. F.
of this concept in the study of world history that even if Hegel). Given the scale of interpretation and the sweep-
not explicitly used or defined, it usually forms the basis ing generalizations being made, it is hardly surprising
for the understanding of many associated concepts such that there was little explicit theorization of culture. The
as society, nation, civilization, regime, and world system. minute details of cultural production and transformation
World historians frequently use culture to highlight the were invariably ignored in favor of making broad state-
unique features, achievements, and activities that charac- ments about the characteristic features of civilizations.
terize these human groups. The term has also been Europe and the elite classes received a greater share of
extended to distinguish broad patterns of sustained inter- attention than did other parts of the world or more
actions between societies. Obviously, much depends on oppressed populations. Although treatments of culture
the particular focus, method, objectives, and audiences of remain to be fully developed in such accounts, ambitious
the writers in question. However, despite the widespread world histories of this genre continue to be written, and
use of the term, world historians have yet to subject it to with impressive (though sometimes controversial) results.
sustained theoretical reflection. In general, depictions of Notable instances of such work can be found in Max
culture in world history tend to take shape within three Weber’s work on the connections between the Protestant
broad types of writings, namely, universal histories, ethic and the rise of a capitalist ethic in western Europe.
themed world histories, and microlevel world histories. More recently the works of David Landes and Samuel
Huntington continue in this idealist vain with ‘culture’
Universal Histories driving economic development and political conflict on
Universal histories have found expression in a number of a world historical scale.
works since the nineteenth century. Such works have typ-
ically been interested in developing grand-scale interpre- Themed Histories
tations about the rise and fall of civilizations in human Following World War II world historians began increas-
history. Borrowing extensively from such fields as archae- ingly to concentrate on specific themes of world histori-
ology, cosmology, economics, geology, politics, and soci- cal significance.They examined specific human activities
ology, writers such as Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) and patterns of interactions (political conquests, long-
and Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975) produced synoptic distance trading, nomadic migrations, the spread of reli-
histories of the world that transcended national histories. gions) that could be discerned over long periods of time
These writers were primarily concerned with uncovering and vast regions of the earth. The focus was on themes
laws that governed the rise and fall of civilizations.Their of global significance rather than on constructing grand
accounts of the history of the world became the study of accounts of the world that tried to explain the whole of
birth and demise of organic and bounded units called civ- human history within a single intellectual framework.
ilizations. One set of writings tried to gauge the production,
In these universal histories, culture often became transmission, and experiences of social and economic
equated with the political, intellectual, and artistic inequality between nations. In the 1960s and early
achievements that defined civilizations. Oswald Spengler 1970s, a number of scholars took up projects that tried