Book review
The Hutchinson History of the World by J.M. Roberts
published by Hutchinson, London, 1977 (1000 pages, $26.95)
Reviewed by ROBERT GOODMAN
Historians, in the main, try to gain expert knowledge in a comparatively limited field and then present it to the reader from a novel angle. But there is also a case, especially in our modern world, for presenting the whole past of mankind as a single, continuous story and this is what Dr Roberts has done.
Such a project involves, of course, enormous difficulties: problems of selection, of scale, of emphasis have to be faced. Above all, since history is anything but an exact science, there is the ever-present danger of bias to guard against.
Appraising a work of this kind (or, for that matter, any other history) three questions seem to present themselves... How well-judged is the author's telescoping of movements and events? Is his apportionment of space to successive eras acceptable? And lastly, in his approach to the many controversial issues that history throws up, is our author fair?
This last point will, for most readers, seem the crucial one. They will equate it with 'telling the truth.' It is interesting to note how the problem of national bias was overcome in another recent world history.
Unesco commissioned a 'History of Mankind' some years ago and it is slowly appearing in multiple volumes. To ensure impartiality (essential in such an undertaking) scholars from many different countries were each entrusted with a topic in which they are regarded as specially competent.
But that was not enough. Each section, as it was written, was submitted for criticism to other scholars and their comments appear, in the printed text, as foot- notes.
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Augustus, accompanied by the goddess Roma, sitting in state whilst a figure places on his head a crown representing the civilized world (gem carved from onyx, c. 10AD) |
Resources of this kind are not available to Dr Roberts. He has to make judgements; he has to have the courage of his convictions. On the whole they seem to be both wise and moderate. This means that readers who hold hard-and-fast notions - the Whig interpretation of history, for instance, or the Marxist one - will disagree sharply with him.
Occasionally you may wonder what the author's criteria are. Take, for example, this verdict on the Vietnam War. 'It cost the United States,' he says, 'vast sums in money and 56,000 dead. But this was not the largest item in the account. The war had also done great damage to American prestige and diplomatic freedom, had ravaged the country's domestic politics and frustrated reform at home.'
On what sort of scales does one find 56,000 lives lost (not to mention those of the enemy or those wrecked as a result of the war) out-weighed by questions of national prestige and domestic politics?
Working on such a broad canvas Dr Roberts may perhaps be forgiven for losing sight of the value of human lives. He must consider the vast sweep of events at the cost of a closer look at detail. And, indeed, the Vietnam victims do not loom so large in comparison with some of the catastrophes that have overtaken mankind from time to time.
Unlike H.G. Wells, who pioneered this type of world survey, Roberts has the advantage of being not an amateur but a highly respected scholar. His is no tentative voyage of exploration but an assured journey under an able pilot. In a work of this scope one is certainly needed.
For his starting point he goes back beyond the dawn of history to the emergence from the trees of man's earliest ancestors. The ramble through pre-history, speculative though some of it must be, is ably conducted and knit into the more intricate account of the domestication of animals, the development of agriculture and finally of arts and crafts.
History itself commences with the earliest civilizations - in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China. Then comes the magnificent flowering of the Greeks, followed by their Roman imitators. Twin strains in the European dominance, the Classical and the Jewish/Christian, occupy the next section and lead to the spread of European influence overseas - to America, throughout Asia and finally in Africa.
At last we come to our own day when a semi-Europeanised world seeks to throw off the irksome connection and to follow an independent destiny. But already, in a sense, a world unity has been achieved.
It has been said that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from it. Dr Roberts' is not willing to accept this dictum. His book is all the better for that since he attempts, at the end, to discern some sequence in the tangled web of events he has described.
That mankind is running into a shoal of difficulties - over-population, pollution and the exhaustion of certain resources - he does not minimise. On the other hand he sees the remarkable resourcefulness human beings have shown in the past, their ability to resolve difficulties and to gain ever-increasing mastery over their environment as hopeful signs for their future.
Certainly, his story is all too often one of conflict between members of the human family. But then, he says in a thoughtful epilogue, today, in spite of outward appearances to the contrary, there is evidence of a growing world-wide uniformity, a cohesion that makes collaboration rather than hostile rivalry probable in the coming search for solution of the perils that undoubtedly lie ahead.
Hutchinson's history is abundantly illustrated. There are many reproductions of works of art that throw light on the text itself. The book, with its thousand and more pages may be somewhat cumbersome but one can only congratulate the author on its clarity and comprehensiveness.
No review, they say, should be without at least one cavil: so I'll make mine against the maps in this volume. The system of shading used for various purposes is so far from distinct as to be almost worthless. What is more, too many of the maps contain downright errors. Still, these are small complaints to make about an excellent book.
Originally published in Art New Zealand 4 February/March 1977