WESTERN CIVILIZATION IN THE NEAR EAST BY HANS KOHN TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY E. W. DICKES NEW YOBK MORNINCSIDE HEICHTS COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1936 TO . DR. J. JL, . MAO3STES 12ST CmA-TJESFtri, MEMOR, V YKARS IW JBRTTSALIIIM 14 Tho ri ht rtuniitt of m ioititlit v I-IHJ tvtTiiir of lif ati I n tliHf tlm ttnly ii Hfifin twfum IIM IM fli iiit fli ri h whioh c rrprt f riif i unify. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ix INTRODtTCTION 1 THE ENVIRONMENT 9 MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT IN HISTORY 23 MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT AT THE PRESENT DAY 9 CHANGING MAN IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT 87 INTER-RELATION AND IMPLICATIONS OF WORLD COMMUNICATIONS 1 1 5 INTER-RELATION AND IMPLICATIONS OK WORLD ECONOMICS 147 INTER-RELATION AND IMPLICATIONS OF WORLD POLITICS 185 METHODS AND PROBLEMS OF EUROPEANIUTION 227 BIBLIOGRAPHY 307 INDEX 321 MAP 330 vll PREFACE MODERN civilization had its origin in Western Europe.

But from its beginnings it was universal in aim and scope. Its fundamental attitude was rationalist and individualist, secularist and scientific. It appealed to man and his reason, it destroyed the traditional attitude of mind and structure of society. During the nineteenth century it spread from Western Europe to the rest of Europe and to all other parts of the earth. The latest stage of modern civilization, the age of the motor car and the aeroplane, of the cinema and wireless, spread almost simultaneously through Europe and the two Americas, to Asia and Africa. Modern civilization has become world-wide. This process of the spread of modern civilization, which has become the outstanding and dominant factor of the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has been called the Europeanization of mankind. Onaccount of its modern civilization Europe was able in the nineteenth century to conquer and dominate the world politically and economically.

The spread of modern civilization enables the non-European peoples to-day to reject Europes political and economic control. The brief epoch of European world domination seems to be approaching its end. The world-wide triumph and ascendancy of the civilization of Europe impHes the weakening and waning of Europes political and economic superiority. Like other races before them, the Europeans were entirely ready to ascribe their political and economic successes to an inborn or God-ordained superiority. But before the rise of modern civilization Occidental and Oriental races had met as equals, in fact the cultural and the political superiority had rested frequently with the latter. x PREFACE Modern civilization transformed Europe. This highly complex process was not only a question of technical inno vation, of political and economic reorganization, of the advance of science. The coming of modern civilization involved a complete and profound re-moulding of theentire cultural and social heritage of Europe.

Man and his environment changed entirely a new outlook upon the world, a new feeling of life, a new valuation of man 8 place in history and society evolved. But in the midst of the new dynamic changes and adaptations ancient primitive and medieval belief emotions and ntateaof mind survived. This cultural lag and the quickening pace of changes made modern civilization conscious of the need for permanent readjustment. The new Europe arising out of this transformation came in its new feeling of exuberant strength into contact with the old civilizations ofthe East at a time of their decay or stagnation. Out of this meeting followed not a clash of races or religions, but a contact and conflict of civilizations or of stages of civilization. The medieval but flexible civilizations of the Eat adapted thcmBclvcm to modern civilization as the medieval civilization of Europe had done before them, Again, as in the countries of Europe, the change could not remain confined to matters of technique or organization, but comprehended the whole man and all manifestations of life.