Worlds at War

The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West

By: Anthony Pagden

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

In the tradition of Jared Diamond and Jacques Barzun, prize-winning historian Anthony Pagden presents a sweeping history of the long struggle between East and West, from the Greeks to the present day.

The relationship between East and West has always been one of turmoil. In this historical tour de force, a renowned historian leads us from the world of classical antiquity, through the Dark Ages, to the Crusades, Europe's resurgence, and the dominance of the Ottoman Empire, which almost shattered Europe entirely. Pagden travels from Napoleon in Egypt to Europe's carving up of the finally moribund Ottomans - creating the modern Middle East along the way - and on to the present struggles in Iraq.

Throughout, we learn a tremendous amount about what "East" and "West" were and are, and how it has always been competing worldviews and psychologies, more than religion or power grabs, that have fed the mistrust and violence between East and West. In Pagden's dark but provocative view, this struggle cannot help but go on.

©2008 Anthony Pagden (P)2008 Tantor

Critic reviews

"An accessible and lucid exploration of the history of the East-West split....Fans of Jacques Barzun and Jared Diamond will be most impressed by Pagden's big picture perspective." ( Publishers Weekly)

Unapologetic pitch for secularism

The author states his preference for secularism in a very straightforward fashion. He gives an interesting and occasionally fresh overview of the conflicts between Europe and Asia over the last 2,500 years. The focus is intensely on the philosophic or religious features of those conflicts. The last third is devoted to struggles between the cultures of what he calls the three major monotheisms. Worth the time.

Sweeping historical saga

This is a fantastic review of what makes the West western and the East oriental and why there has been constant war between the East and the West since early history. Its not a book for school children and some times it takes a bit of concentration on the part of the adult listener but overall it is learned, interesting and very illuminating. Highly recommended.

Good to listen to.

Very interesting and well done. I went on to read Lawrence in Arabia and thought this had been an excellent prelude to that amazing book.

One of the best audio books that I own!

What did you love best about Worlds at War?

A scholarly and riveting book for history fans.

Any additional comments?

This book has become one of the 5 audio books that I carry at all times. An interesting subject, well written by the author, and beautifully read by the narator. For those who are interested in the ageless battle between east and west, and how we've come to be where and what we are today, this book is facinating and instructive.

Great survey of the seeds of discontent

This is a great survey of the thousands of years of mistrust, misunderstandings and the planting of the seeds of discontent that still are very much with us today. John Lee was the perfect narrator for this book. Loved it.

The beat goes on.

This book was fascinating to listen to at a time,rather later than some earlier reviews, when a new wave of unrest sweeps through middle eastern muslim countries.Just what is behind it all is something of a mystery, but the persisting differences in world views that Pagden discusses continue with undiminished potency today. The book illuminates so many salient points in the long and everlasting socio- religious history of the human race.One muslim belief I share: history does repeats itself, on and on and on.

Very illuminating

I wish I had read this a long time ago. A must read if you have any desire to understand the way the conflict of East and West arose. I am going to listen to it again.

Great start but petered out

Pagden did an excellent job up to the French Revolution. From the French Revolution on, he lost his way and went down esoteric side roads totally ignoring the 1500 lb gorilla in the room.

western bias

Wery good ancient and intellectual history. But it's handling of recent history is a self serving western perspective. Pagden is a top tier scholar of ancient Greek history and of the Spanish Empire, especially on Colonial Spanish American intellectual history. So the strengths of this book naturally are in his dealings with ancient and medieval texts. But his views on recent history lack the same depth and one can sense he is a little bit out of his depth and tends to take on the unquestioned intuitions and beliefs of a basic classical liberal perspective. For example, in his partial discussion of 20th C anti-colonial nationalism in the Middle East, he relies less on evidence than on the negative associations with "nationalism" that liberals already have. Knowing that such movements were part of a larger Third World Movement for national sovereignty that largely failed due to western intervention/neocolonialism, none of which Pagden mentions, one can only surmise that this antipathy comes precisely from the fact that these movements were anti-western influence. Thus, by the end of the book the author is conflating the ideals of democracy with its practice and this idealized version of the political culture of liberalism with the social culture of the West. Indeed, it concludes as a kind of subtle apology for the recent history of American imperialism as well as the occupation of Palestine (whitewashes the origins of Zionism). Although it is wary of religious extremism in the West, it also ultimately badly underestimates the anti-democraric ethos of American citizens. The resurgence (not " rise," as it is nothing new) of Christian ethnonationalism among white Americans shows flies in the face of the entire last chapter of the book. I think it's still worth reading, but there is a noticable decline in the quality of scholarship in roughly the last fourth of the book.

Absorbing, well-researched, not unbiased history

I found this book a fascinating exploration of the long history of conflict between East and West, and the way the powers in charge of each sphere (whether Greek, Trojan, Roman, Persian, Christian, Muslim, French, Ottoman, British, or Arabic) have often seen themselves as inheritors of all the earlier struggles. Of course, it should be noted right away that by ???The East???, Pagden generally means the near and middle east, the lands from Asia Minor to the region that's modern Iran -- China, India, and Japan don???t figure into the book at all. In fact, his focus is really more on the development of the West and its experience with the East than the reverse.

It should also be noted that Pagden has a strong bias towards liberal, secular, democratic values, which he feels are the essence of Western culture (he states as much in the forward). Religion, both Christianity and Islam, are portrayed in a dim light, as institutional obstacles to reason, human rights, and progress. Not that I don???t largely agree with this assessment, but some readers might take offense. Still, he seems to be fair-minded about it, giving Muslim societies credit for brief periods of learning and relative tolerance, and indicting the modern West for its more counterproductive forays into the Middle East, which understandably stoked the fires of Muslim distrust and resentment. Indeed, the final chapter warns, convincingly, of continued bloody conflict between an uncompromising pan-Islamic worldview, whose adherents have enjoyed few of the fruits of the West and see little of their value, and countries like the US, whose leaders naively assume that their own democratic attitudes are universally held, and fail to account for a divide with deep historic roots.

However, I don???t want to place too much emphasis on modern politics, which take a back seat to the fact that this is a comprehensive, well-researched history, outlining many episodes over 2,500 years that I was only dimly aware of (e.g. Napoleon???s adventures in Egypt), and pulling them into a readable, continuous narrative. Especially interesting was reading of the ways in which the West???s often-skewed perception of the East as an "other" to strive against has nonetheless shaped its own attitudes towards freedom, tolerance, and science.