Is it common in other cultures to claim that they're superior to others? Or is it just Western ones? I would particularly go in on one of the most interesting little detours in your book, which is the Congress of the get together of countries that think they are rooted in ancient civilizations. So there's a sense of that ancient civilization perhaps belongs to a particular modern nation state and not to others. It's just two very different models of how to relate back to the ancient past. We have this narrative of civilization moving from, from Greece to Rome to Western Europe to North America. But civilization moves, it's not limited by place, it’s not limited by people, it
We tend to imagine Western Civilisation as a golden thread connecting ancient Greece to modern Europe, from Plato to NATO. But what if the idea itself is deeply flawed? Historian and archaeologist Naoíse Mac Sweeney's recent book, The West: A New History of an Old Idea, argues that our understanding of the West is deeply misleading and obscures the rich diversity of our past. Drawing on the lives of characters throughout history – including a formidable Roman matriarch and an unconventional Islamic scholar – Mac Sweeney says that the dominant narrative of Western history is an invention which has been used to justify imperialism and racism, and is no longer ideologically fit for purpose today. Discussing the book with Mac Sweeney is fellow author and columnist at The Times, Edward Lucas.
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