Civilization

On 21 September 2001 George W. Bush told Congress 'This is civilization's fight.' A month later he said 'I'm not moving on because we're in a fight for civilization itself.' European leaders described the 11 September attacks as 'a declaration of war against the entire civilized world' by a force 'dedicated to the destruction of civilization'. But what do we mean by civilization? We have a vague belief in a Western tradition of openness and freedom that has produced a good life for its citizens and a culture of enormous depth and creative power. But the history of our civilization is also filled with unspeakable brutality. For every Leonardo there is a Torquemada, for every Beethoven symphony a concentration camp, for every Chrysler Building a My Lai massacre. How can we come to the defence of a civilization whose benefits seem so questionable? In this ambitious and important book Roger Osborne shows that we canonly understand and take comfort in our civilization by re-examining andconfronting our past. The barbarity in Western history can no longer beexplained away as base human brutality breaking through the restrainingbonds of civilization. Instead we need to see that civilizat