Downstream: Everything We’re Told About the History of the West Is Wrong w/ Josephine Quinn

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News, Society & Culture, Politics, Philosophy

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🗓️ 3 March 2025

⏱️ 111 minutes

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Summary

In 1996 Samuel Huntington published ‘The Clash of Civilizations’. At the time its hypothesis was counter-intuitive. Despite the supremacy of the United States after the Cold War, the ascent of globalisation would not lead to the end of history, but a return to distinctive and competing civilisations. Rather than homogeneity we would see a growing emphasis on difference, rather than unhindered free markets we would see friction, and eventually rupture.

In 2025, with the continued rise of China to superpower status and a revanchist Russia, it’s tempting to think Huntington was right. Rather than a global civilisation – based on market competition and the rule of law – we are edging towards a world of multipolarity and civilisation-states. But what if civilisational thinking is itself mistaken? What if the idea of plural ‘civilisations’ is a product of the 19th century? Where does such civilisational thinking really come from? What even is a ‘civilisation’? And what, in particular, is ‘the West’?

Josephine Quinn is one of Britain’s most respected historians of antiquity. Chair of Ancient History at Cambridge, her most recent book, “How the World Made the West”, was a book of the year for The Economist, The Sunday Times and The Guardian. In this conversation Josephine and Aaron go from the very dawn of ancient European history, through the Bronze Age Collapse, to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. How similar were those people to us? And what lessons does the distant past hold for the challenges of the 21st century?

Transcript

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0:00.0	The word civilization is used a lot, particularly in political contexts. People talk about
0:14.0	inferior civilizations, superior civilizations, civilizational continuity between the past, the present and the future.
0:22.6	Generally speaking, in Britain and Europe, we view our civilization, Western civilization, as starting in ancient Greece.
0:32.6	It then passes the baton onto Rome, onto the Middle Ages, Christendom's there somewhere to, all the
0:39.3	way through to today. As a result, we view European and Western civilization as culturally
0:45.4	distinct, homogenous, its own thing, its own entity, and not really subject to influences
0:51.2	from elsewhere. Except that is not remotely true. In fact, it's something
0:57.8	of a myth. Today's guest is a sensational historian person and writer. Their latest book,
1:04.9	How the World Made the West, talks about precisely all of this through the span of 3,500 years, starting with
1:13.9	the earliest known civilizations, passing all the way through to the 16th century.
1:20.4	The author, Joe Quinn, is the first woman chair of ancient history at Cambridge, and I mean
1:27.0	it when I say, this book is sensational.
1:30.3	When it came out in Harbac, it was one of my favourite books of 2024. As a result, I'm very happy to have
1:38.0	on today's show, Joe Quinn. Joe, welcome to Downstream. Thank you. I am so excited about this conversation. I'm so
1:47.0	excited. You've written this extraordinary book, How the World Made the West. I read the
1:51.3	hardback. I've read the paper back. Well done. Oh my goodness. What a treat. What a treat.
1:57.1	This may be a strange first question, but how on earth did you get to read so much?
2:02.6	COVID.
2:03.6	COVID?
2:04.2	Yeah, it was really conveniently timed for me.
2:08.2	So when I started writing the book, I was based at the New York Public Library.
2:14.1	It was in the amazing Coleman Center for Scholars and Writers there.
	...

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