In her new book, classical archaeologist Naoíse Mac Sweeney sets out to challenge and reinterpret the notion of “western civilisation” over the past 2,500 years, through the lives and writings of 14 women and men – ranging from Herodotus, the great Greek historian of the fifth century BC, to Carrie Lam, the 21st-century chief executive of Hong Kong, who presided over its recent slide into authoritarian rule.
Does that sound interesting to you? Frankly, I was dubious. We all know that publishers love this kind of big-picture proposition, but it’s easy to imagine how this one could turn into an ungainly mashup of second-hand knowledge and lukewarm platitudes.
What’s more, as Mac Sweeney acknowledges straight away, her premise is hardly original. In popular understanding, the history of western civilisation, from Plato to Nato, is one of superior ideas and practices (Liberty! Democracy! Free Speech!) whose origins lie in ancient Greece, and have since been refined, extended, and transmitted down the ages (through the Renaissance, the scientific revolution and other supposedly uniquely western developments), so that we in the west today are the lucky inheritors of a superior cultural DNA.
