Customer Reviews
A Very Political History - By: PenFold, 21 Mar 2008 
The two worlds in question are West & East, where East means more or less Islamic civilization & its forbearers. Apparently, they inevitably collide, & they have been for centuries. This much is just a familiar retelling of the `clash of civilizations' tale that has become since Samuel Huntingdon first reinvigorated it several years ago. Prof. Pagden fleshes out the history of the conflict & adds a few twists of his own. His account has a fashionable anti-religious tang to it, & he traces the divide of east & west to the invasion of Greece by the Persian Xerxes (?!?).
Admittedly, I approached this book with some apprehension. I am not fond of the clash of civilizations account which I consider to be misleading if not down right false. The primary fault, though, seems to be more straightforward. Pagden writes his narrative over several millennia & continents, naturallly covering areas of history in which he is not an expert. The results are disastrous: wherever Pagden strays outside his own area of expertise the book is replete with serious factual errors which lay a perilously weak foundation on which to build his ideological claims.
One example, chosen almost at random: Pagden introduces the historian "Megasthenes whom Alexander appointed satrap of Anachosia & Gedosia, [who] warned his readers, never believe anything you hear about the Indians, because they are people who have never been conquered - & in Greek eyes, an unconquered people were an unknown people" (p.97) However, Megasthenes was not reallly a historian, was never appointed satrap of anywhere, & most probably never met Alexander (he would have been very young or not yet born when Alexander died). Oh, & he never said what Pagden claims he said. By the way Megasthenes is most important (almost only) western source on ancient India.
Such errors are sadly common. Particularly offensive is the outdated & archaic portrayal of al-Ghazali as the man who ended rational free thought in the Islamic world. This was unacceptable a hundred years ago, & is even less acceptable now that his `Incoherence' is readily available in English.
Prof. Pagden's work is flawed, then, at the foundations. One is tempted to conclude that the ideology came first, borrowed from Huntingdon or Fox News or who knows where. And that the history was stretched to fit later. Perhaps I have been to harsh. Pagden's book is not alll bad, & his factual claims are not always flawed. But I will be looking elsewhere.
