[lit-ideas] Re: Ian Morris
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2013 23:23:05 -0700
Thanks. I'll watch the video tomorrow. For me Morris is a perfect example of
how a reader "brings something to the text." My past reading doesn't support
the conclusions Morris implies that he will draw. I took early offense at him
for entering into the Political Science realm without acknowledging the two
Political Scientists who have been the most innovative and provocative. On the
other hand, I've read Niall Ferguson and not taken offense at him for what
sounds a bit like part of Morris' argument. Ferguson may be closer to Morris
than to the political scientists, and perhaps Morris's beginning with a
counterfactual is homage to Ferguson.
Ferguson is an Imperialist who thinks there needs to be a world ruler on the
order of what the British were during the 19th century. Morris may be
attempting to mine his archeological background with the intention of relating
it to the British-sort of imperialism. I recall being unhappy with Ferguson
for assuming that the U.S. ought to seek to be imperialistic in the
19th-century-British sense. That he thought the U.S. might be persuaded by his
arguments indicated to me that he never entered into the American way(s) of
life as much as he claimed to. One of those ways is Isolationism and I
referenced Krauthammer referring to its resurgence. I'm not a Ron Paul
Isolationist, but I don't agree with Krauthammer that the world will descend
into chaos if we have four or eight years of an Isolationist-president's
administration. After all, both Wilson and F.D. Roosevelt won their elections
by accommodating Isolationist positions.
Perhaps, if I am getting closer to Morris's position in my speculation I need
to add Victor Davis Hanson to the mix. He might embrace many of the arguments
of Morris and Ferguson but argue that there is no non-Western military force
that is ever going to defeat the military forces of the West. He qualifies
that position with a lot of caveats. He doesn't mean the defeat at Little Big
Horn or Pearl Harbor except in the sense that they were milestones causing the
U.S. to take these enemies more seriously. Once that happened Western victory
was assured -- if not immediate. I haven't read Hanson recently but I doubt
that he sees any Eastern force being able to "rule" over the West in the sense
he has argued the West has ruled over the world.
I was once in a debate of long duration with an expert on the Red Army who
described it as unconquerable and the best army in the world. I think this guy
was correct in a sense, the same sense that the Chinese army is unconquerable.
No foreign nation is going to be able to invade and conquer either of these
nations in the foreseeable future. However, this isn't what Morris, Ferguson
or Hanson had in mind by "rule." Britain and now the U.S. have been able to
project their military might long distances in order to conquer or intimidate
nations in order to accomplish political goals. Neither Russia nor China
presently have that capability. They can exert influence against or in support
of bordering nations but they can't move a huge military force half way around
the world. And we apparently have political forces rising up in the U.S.
saying we don't want to do that anymore; which might result in a benign
interpretation of Morris's title "Why the West Rules -- for now."
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, August 04, 2013 7:56 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Ian Morris
In a message dated 8/4/2013 11:38:40 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"Ian Morris is a Professor in Classics and History at Stanford University.
Samuel P. Huntington (died in 2008) was, and Francis Fukuyama is a Political
Scientist. I am probably treating Morris unfairly at this point and should
have read further before saying anything about his book."
Thanks for the input.
More about Morris from wiki, for the record.
Below.
Cheers,
Speranza
---
We read in Wikipedia of Ian Matthew Morris that he "grew up in the United
Kingdom." "Morris is currently a Willard Professor of Classics and Professor of
History at Stanford University."
"Since joining Stanford, Morris has served as Associate Dean of Humanities and
Sciences, Chair of the Classics Department, and Director of the Social Science
History Institute. He was one of the founders of the Stanford Archaeology
Center and has served two terms as its director."
"Morris attended Alleyne's comprehensive school in Stone, Staffordshire, and
studied ancient history and archaeology at Birmingham University. He gained
his PhD at Cambridge University .[1] From 1987 through 1995 he taught at the
University of Chicago."
"Between 2000 and 2007 he directed Stanford University’s excavation at Monte
Polizzo, Sicily."
"Ian Morris has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation,[3]
National Endowment for the Humanities.,[2] Center for Hellenic Studies in
Washington, D.C.[4] and Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of
Wisconsin-Madison.[4]""
"Professor Morris has published extensively on the history and archaeology of
the ancient Mediterranean and on world history and in 2011 was awarded an
honorary degree by De Pauw University."
"His 2010 book, Why the West Rules--For Now, compares East and West across the
last 15,000 years, arguing that physical geography rather than culture,
religion, politics, genetics, or great men explains Western domination of the
globe. The Economist has called it "an important book—one that challenges,
stimulates and entertains. Anyone who does not believe there are lessons to be
learned from history should start here.""
"The book has been criticized by the Canadian historical sociologist Ricardo
Duchesne for offering a diffuse definition of the West which Morris envisions
encompassing not only Europe but all civilizations descending from the Fertile
Crescent, including Islam, and a propensity to level out fundamental
differences between the development of the West, which ushered in modernity,
and the rest: "To Morris ... the West is simply a geographical category; the
ultimate origins of the West’s primacy are to be found in geographical
factors".[6] Morris replied, saying that "despite his review’s length, rather
little of it takes on my book’s central thesis", and defending his focus on
China."
"Why the West Rules--For Now won the 2011 PEN Center USA Literary Award for
Creative Nonfiction."
Publications
Burial and Ancient Society, Cambridge, 1987 ISBN 978-0-521-38738-5
Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge 1992;
Greek translation, 1997 ISBN 978-0-521-37611-2 Editor, Classical Greece:
Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies, Cambridge, 1994 ISBN
978-0-521-45678-4 Co-editor, with Barry Powell, A New Companion to Homer, E.
J. Brill, 1997 ISBN 978-90-04-09989-0 Co-editor, with Kurt Raaflaub, Democracy
2500? Questions and Challenges, Kendall-Hunt, 1997 ISBN 978-0-7872-4466-8
Archaeology as Cultural History, Blackwell, 2000 ISBN 978-0-631-19602-0 The
Greeks: History, Culture, and Society, with Barry Powell; Prentice-Hall, 1st
ed. 2005, 2nd ed. 2009 ISBN 978-0-13-921156-0 Co-editor, with Joe Manning, The
Ancient Economy: Evidence and Models, Stanford, 2005 ISBN 978-0-8047-5755-3
Co-editor, with Walter Scheidel and Richard Saller, The Cambridge Economic
History of the Greco-Roman World, Cambridge, 2007 ISBN 978-0-521-78053-7
Co-editor, with Walter Scheidel, of The Dynamics of Ancient Empires, Oxford,
2009 ISBN 978-0-19-537158-1 Why the West Rules - For Now: The Patterns of
History, and What they Reveal About the Future, Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2010; Profile, 2010 ISBN
978-0-374-29002-3
The Measure of Civilisation: How Social Development Decides the Fate of
Nations, Princeton University Press, 2013 ISBN 978-0-691-15568-5
References
1.^ a b Ian Morris, Stanford History Department.
2.^ a b c Classics and History Expert - Ian Morris, Stanford University.
3.^ Ian Morris, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
4.^ a b Faculty win Guggenheims for 'exceptional' scholarship: 4/02,
Stanford University.
5.^ Global power: On top of the world. The Economist.
6.^ Ricardo Duchesne: Review in Reviews in History from Institute of
Historical Research
7.^ http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1091/response
8.^ http://penusa.org/2011-literary-awards-festival-winners
Portal icon History portal
Classics and History Expert - Ian Morris, Stanford University Humanities
Department.
Why the West Rules for Now, Interview with Ian Morris in
_www.theglobaldispatches.com_ (http://www.theglobaldispatches.com) .
Ian Morris interview on "Conversations With History," a UC Berkeley
podcast and video series.
' Foreign Policy magazine review of Why the West Rules.
Categories: Living people
American archaeologists
American non-fiction writers
Futurology
Stanford University Department of Classics faculty
American historians
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