Civilization: The West and the Rest

Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) was a Prussian general and one of the best-known military theorists of all time. Clausewitz saw his first combat at the age of 12 against France—a subject Ferguson covers in this book. The author includes Clausewitz in his study because, in his view, wars contributed to progress in various fields: from science and technology to medicine.

Educated at the Institute for Young Officers starting in 1801, it was there that Clausewitz arrived at many of his ideas about the theory of war. He went on to participate in the Napoleonic Wars when Prussia was defeated. Later, when Prussia fought alongside Napoleon and invaded Russia, Clausewitz joined the Russian side and witnessed the defeat of Napoleon’s army. After Prussia changed sides, Clausewitz saw victory over Napoleon in 1815.

In peacetime, he served as the head of the Military Academy at Berlin. His best-known work is On War.

Focused on political theory and economics, Marx (1818-1883) was one of the most important thinkers in the history of Western thought. Initially influenced by the ideas of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Marx modified them to his own philosophic system. Marx also inspired a series of successful revolutions around the world in Russia, China, and Cuba.

Marx was of Jewish-German descent and initially lived in Trier. To avoid antisemitism, his family converted to Protestantism. In his youth, Marx was interested in the fields of law and philosophy and attended universities in Jena, Berlin, and Bonn. His political activism had him expelled from different cities in Europe including Paris and Brussels.

The political theorist spent much of his life in London, England, and wrote with his colleague Friedrich Engels. Marx’s best-known texts are The Communist Manifesto (1848) along with The Capital (1867-1883). He was primarily interested in the socioeconomic inequalities under capitalism. By using Hegel-inspired dialectic materialism, Marx also made a number of predictions about the future development of the historical trajectory leading to the withering away of the state and the formation of a classless society.

Ferguson is critical of the Marxist theory of Communism and his ideological impact on the world. At the same time, he acknowledges that the grievances about the labor conditions during the Industrial Revolution were legitimate.

Weber (1864-1920) was a German sociologist. He is considered one of the fathers of that field of study in the Modern context. Weber is best known for his essay, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” (1905). In this text, he attempted to identify a correlation between Protestantism and success in business ventures. In this study, Weber’s hypothesis serves as the starting point for Chapter 6, the last “killer app.”

Weber had a difficult upbringing wrought with parental conflict which is believed to be influential on his life. Later, he worked at several universities, including those in Berlin, Heidelberg, Vienna, Freiburg, and Munich.

After World War I, Weber acted as an advisor to Germany during the Paris Peace Conference in negotiations about the Treaty of Versailles. He also participated in creating the new constitution of the Weimar Republic.

Zheng He (1371-1433) was a Chinese maritime explorer, diplomat, and admiral. He was a Muslim eunuch at the Ming Dynasty’s court initially captured as a child prisoner. He received an education and rose through the ranks to eventually become an admiral of China’s Navy.

Zheng He oversaw seven major journeys in Southeast Asia and Africa in very large ships to explore each region. Some of the present-day countries he visited include India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam—up to 30 countries in total. Zheng He also engaged in diplomacy to spread the influence of the Ming Dynasty abroad. On one of the journeys, he brought back a giraffe from Africa. The explorer died during his last trip.

His voyages predated the European Age of Discovery and Conquest. Ferguson discusses Zheng He as a personification of China’s advancements prior to the rise of the West.

Osman III was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1699-1757) between 1754 and 1757. He was essentially a prisoner of the Ottoman palace for much of his life. As a result, he disliked music. The author also describes the way Osman sought to stay away from the women of the harem by wearing heavy, iron-soled footwear to alert them of his arrival and scare them away. These details are meant to show an unhealthy atmosphere in the Ottoman state.

During his brief reign, Osman III attempted to make some changes to managing government officials. He also completed the construction of the Nuruosmaniye Mosque in present-day Istanbul. Ferguson selected Osman III as the contemporary of Frederick the Great of Prussia to compare what, in his view, was the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Prussia. He describes the Ottoman leadership at this time as a corrupt bureaucracy based “more on bribery and favoritism than on aptitude” (71).

Frederick (Friedrich) II, or Frederick the Great (1712-1786), was the king of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. Frederick held the title of King in Prussia until 1772 when he became the King of Prussia until his passing.

Growing up, Frederick was more interested in studying philosophy and focusing on music. After replacing his father, Frederick William I, the new king displayed unexpected military prowess. He was successful in the wars in Silesia and participated in the First Partition of Poland by acquiring the northern part of the Polish provinces from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and making Prussia a formidable European power. One of the reasons for Frederick’s success was military reform.

Frederick also reformed the state bureaucracy and introduced a certain level of religious tolerance. Like other European rulers of the time, he subscribed to enlightened absolutism. Ferguson uses the great-man-in-history approach to understand the way Frederick’s biography contributed to Western advancement through the example of Prussia.