Content area
Full Text
Nicholas Hagger, The Rise and Fall of Civilizations. Winchester, UK; Washington, USA: O Books, 2008.
There are a few things which I should state at the outset of this review. First, Nicholas Hagger is obviously a brilliant student of civilizations, and one who has spent countless hours in research and rumination on the subject. Second, The Rise and Fall of Civilizations ("Rise and Fall") is an interesting book that clearly took a monumental effort to produce, and one that in general appears to be internally consistent within Hagger' s system. Third, I read Rise and Fall, but I do not in any way claim to be an expert on all of the areas discussed by Hagger. Most importantly, I do not claim to be an expert on all the 25 civilizations which Hagger claims have existed (11) or continue to exist (14). For example, I know very little about the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands or about the Australian aborigines, and therefore I am no expert on what Hagger claims is the Oceanian Civilization. Fourth, while Rise and Fall is interesting, it is a sequel to The Light of Civilization and the reader should be aware of that fact from the outset. At no point in Rise and Fall does Hagger identify what he means by a "civilization", which for the reasons stated below becomes important.
At this point I will state that I do not recommend Rise and Fall. My reasons are as follows:
1) Whatever Hagger' s definition of "civilization" is, he throws primitive cultures together with high Cultures or Civilizations in the sense used by Spengler, Toynbee, et al.
2) Hagger's scheme consists of Civilizations passing through 61 supposedly distinct stages which nevertheless sometimes overlap. In this regard, Hagger is either an absolute genius or the owner of an overactive mind. My money is on the latter.
Furthermore, Hagger has arranged...