Conquests and Cultures: An International History by Thomas Sowell
Do you ever wonder why some societal groups rise and why others fail or fall behind? And what is the influence of conquests of one society over another? Conquests and Cultures is an ideology-free look at human history fabulously researched and well written. Sowell provides us with new insights into the complex process of social evolution and offers a comprehensive historical account of why some groups rise and why others fail or fall behind.
This book helped me gain a better understanding of the role of cultural differences within nations and between nations, today and over centuries of history, in shaping the economic and social fates of peoples and of whole civilizations.
Sowell focuses on the influence of conquests in four major cultural areas: the British, the Africans (including the African diaspora), the Slavs of Eastern Europe, and the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. Conquests and Cultures reveals patterns that encompass not only these peoples but others and helps explain the role of cultural evolution in economic, social, and political development.
For millennia, one society/tribe/country has conquered and enslaved another, and this pattern was broken only in the 19th century. He describes the impact of these conquests.
Sowell explains the way the conquest of one people by another has shaped our past and present from the Roman conquest of Britain to the late Soviet Empire. Sometimes the result has been to culturally enrich the conquered society; at other times the conqueror has destroyed much of the culture and human capital. The perspective derived from this approach not only makes sense out of a lot of history but serves as the basis for a thoughtful reexamination of many of our contemporary social issues.
As you know, the historical reach of mankind transcends cultures and races, and it is often brutal. Groups that adapted to and adopted superior traits or technology from other cultures sometimes rose to the top over many years while other groups that refused to change, due to pride, status, or financial reasons, fell behind. Instead of parroting the imbecility of “all whites are racists” he delves into why certain Japanese and European cultures rose from being subservient and inferior to becoming strong and dominating cultures.
He does not whitewash or hide one group’s barbaric actions against another; he does denounce the brutal massacres, enslavements, tortures, and exploitations any one group committed against others. On the other hand, he does not engage in excessive moral condemnations or virtue signaling against the conquerors because that is not the aim of his book. One of his cultural conclusions could be “adapt or die.”
This should be required reading in high school history, to help better understand the context of where we came from. Indeed, the context of most of the societies of the world.