William H. McNeillRecensioni

Dit boekje bevat twee korte lezingen die William H. McNeill bracht in 1979, op een moment dat hij zijn belangrijkste boeken had gepubliceerd: The Rise of the West (1963, de eerste echte aanzet tot een Global History), en Plagues and Peoples (1976, de eerste systematische studie van de invloed van ziekten in de wereldgeschiedenis). In 1982 zou ook The Pursuit of Power volgen, waarin hij de rol van technologie en militaire slagkracht zou uitdiepen. McNeill is altijd al de man van de grote lijn geweest, en in deze lezingen komt dat meer dan ooit tot uiting. Hij focust erin op twee grote processen die zoals twee maalstenen op elkaar liggen, elkaar ook in evenwicht houden: het microparasitaire (de rol van virussen en bacteriën) en het macroparasitaire (de rol van overheersing en uitbuiting op menselijk niveau). Dit is zeker niet het meest geslaagde werk van McNeill: zijn uitgangspunt doet wat geforceerd aan, en het beste bewijs daarvoor is dat hij zijn these niet helemaal kan volhouden. Meer daarover in mijn History-account op Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5802421001½

How wonderful it read what I consider to be the most impressive historian of the second half of the twentieth century, even though these are only short essays and they are already 40 years old. Because William McNeill (1917-2016) can rightly be called the real father of world history. Agreed, some passages may be a bit dated, but many of McNeill's findings remain valid. I especially recommend essay 3, in which he clarifies his approach: “my approach, influenced by the anthropologists, assumed that borrowing was the normal human reaction to an encounter with strangers possessing superior skills (…) Such encounters thus appeared to me to be the principal motor of social change within civilized and simpler societies alike. A world history should, accordingly, focus special attention on modes of transport and the evidences of contact between different and divergent forms of society that such transport allowed.” Interaction, confrontation and entanglement have become basic elements in the global approach to history, mainly thanks to McNeill. More on that in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4632208381

2/7/23

1/31/23

1/24/23

Very broad history of the world, emphasizing human connectedness across cultures. Well done although in a book like this there almost always seems like too much detail - even though you know every tidbit of detail could be (and probably is) a book of its own.

12/2/22

Both the best and worst book I could’ve picked in the early days of a global pandemic. It’s impressively concise and thorough, running from the first true humans in Africa up to more modern epidemics such as the Spanish flu and polio, and has an intriguing double-pronged thesis: that diseases are one of the last checks on human population growth, and that social hierarchies have a tendency to evolve social parasites (feudal lords, corporate overlords, etc.). It’s very well laid-out and thought-provoking, and most of what I disagreed with were “product of the time” problems rather than logical ones.

(For instance, McNeill seems to believe that all cultures strive towards a Western model and if they don’t achieve that, they “fail”; that the only civilizations in Africa and the New World were the Ancient Egyptians, Inca, Aztecs, and Maya; and that some diseases like syphilis and AIDS have different origins than is now believed. Given how progressive and thorough he seems to be in other ways, and that fact this book came out in the 1970s before genetic analysis was a thing, I don’t think any of that is his fault, really.)

The thesis itself, though, and how McNeill presents it? Pretty impeccable. He’s big on ecological balance, working off the idea that humans ideally have stable relationships with their local disease organisms, and it’s only when things get thrown off-balance that epidemics happen. He talks about disease barriers, like climate or mountain ranges, about the population minimums required for epidemics to start, about the waves of disease that create resistant humans—and about people dying en masse being just a fact of life, and about how having things like measles be childhood diseases is the best-case scenario. So yeah, it gets kind of grim.

Some of his logical chains were really eye-opening, though. His explanation for why indigenous peoples converted so quickly to Christianity has stuck with me, and I’m going to be looking at historical diseases differently from now on in general, but especially the ones in wartime. I also appreciated that he took the time to go into case studies, like with the Black Death, and to pull in facts about politics, religions, trade routes, revolutions, social customs, and all sorts of things to both bolster his argument and recontextualize events. For example, he talks about local beliefs as having arisen as protection against disease. If you live somewhere wild rodents transmit y. pestis and you believe that touching the ones that act sick is unlucky, well, you’re not wrong. And for all that McNeill is Eurocentric in outlook, he spends a lot of time discussing non-Western, mostly Asian, societies and outbreaks, which was also nice to see.

In general, I found this a very interesting book, challenging for its outlook more than its prose, though it has a pretty dense, dry writing style and I did have to reread pages to follow McNeill’s train of thought. It’s not a complete global history—that would be impossible—but it’s definitely valuable for its perspective. It was recommended to me, and I’m passing that on.
9/10

Contains: reasonably in-depth and clinical discussions of civilizations and societies weathering epidemic diseases; a rather mid-century outlook on what constitutes a civilization and the proper organization of society; racial terminology of a similar vintage; some explanations of disease science that were likely accurate 40 years ago but aren’t so now; a frequently cynical and morbid outlook

This is an interesting and somewhat scholarly look at how people and diseases have interacted and evolved together over time, from "man the hunter" to "the ecological impact of medical science and organization since 1700". McNeil examines macroparisitic and microparisitic effects on the growth of civilizations, focusing primarily on diseases and how epidemics have effected world history, the course of civilization and human evolution.

I found the sections where the author discusses the "living conditions" of diseases particularly interesting: how a specific disease inhabited a certain enviornment, how it arrived and survived in that environment, and how those environments may have been altered by human impacts such as agricultural activities, population growth (or lack thereof), how the disease spread to other areas etc. McNeill's comparison between human micro-parasites (bacteria, worms, viruses) and our macro-parasites (governments, armies ,raiders, plunderers) was a particularly thought-provoking and novel (to me) aspect of the book.

The book was originally published in 1976, so some details are a bit dated, but this doesn't detract from the overall thesis. The writing style is also a bit "old-fashioned" if that sort of thing bothers you. The author does, however, make use of historical sources that include as much of the globe as possible, so the spread between and effects of epidemics on Europe as well as of China, India, the Middle-East, the America's and Africa are discussed where possible (allowing for existing source material on these regions).

This had a lot that I'd read in Guns, Germs and Steel, but it was written first.

Plagues and Peoples is a very good read. It can be a bit academic in its word choice and aims, but if it was one of the first books to claim that disease had a major impact in politics and demography throughout history as McNeil claims, it is truly a seminal work. I had a bit of a feeling like I would have been more blown away by it if I had read it in the seventies, and it perhaps has lost a bit of it’s “wow” factor, but it is a good read despite that. A couple of reviews have compared it to Guns, Germs and Steel, and I couldn’t help to as well. I read Jared Diamond’s work first, and I can’t help that think that Plagues and Peoples was a springboard for his ideas. Diamond’s work is more accessible to a wider audience, but Plagues and Peoples drills down into a specific subject. There are a lot of references to flip to in the back. The book reads fine without flipping back to them, but I enjoyed reading the extra notes.

McNeill in this seminal volume offers a very interesting and informative overview of the past interactions and continuing interactions between so-called "macroparasitism"--that is, predation of man upon man--and "microparasitism"--the relation between tribes or nations of men and the organisms in their microenvironment. This may be one of the first books to systematically examine the equilibrium that develops over time as diseases adapt to hosts, and how that microparasitic equilibrium can be disturbed by macroparasitic movements of people, whether through war or trade or expansion. A book that anybody who is interested in medical history should read.

Covering approximately 7000 years of civilization over the entire world in less than 900 pages for a general audience is a tall order. The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community by W.H. McNeill was written over 50 years ago that changed historical analysis by challenging the leading theories of the day and influenced the study of global history ever since.

McNeill divides his narrative in three parts: the beginnings of civilization in Mesopotamia to 500 B.C., the cultural balance of Eurasia from 500 B.C. to 1500 A.D., and the era of Western dominance since 1500 A.D. Every corner of the world is discusses, but the dominance is in the Eurasia “ecumene” that feature the interaction between for the four great civilizations of the Middle East (including Egypt), India, China, and finally Europe (starting in Greece before slowly moving West). Throughout McNeill highlights the interplay between cultural, political, and economical factors of each civilization as well as how they interacted and influenced each other.

The interaction and influences between different civilizations to McNeill’s narrative as he challenged the theory of the rise and fall of independent civilizations that did not influence one another. Because of the length of both of the book and time frame covered, McNeill did not go into a detail history instead focusing on trends and important historical moments that may or may not involve historical actors like Alexander or Genghis Khan. Yet information is outdated as new sources or archaeological evidence has changed our understanding of several civilizations over the last 50 years.

The Rise of the West takes a long time to read, however the information—though outdated in places—gives the reader a great overview of world history on every point of the globe. W.H. McNeill’s well-researched book is not a dry read and in giving a good background on numerous civilizations giving the reader a solid foundation if they ever decide to go more in-depth on any civilization.½

This book only is interesting for the die-hard fans of World/Global/Big...History, because McNeill was one of the fathers of this recent current in the study of history. As an autobiography it's very disappointing (with a really presumptuous title). But - as always with McNeill – it contains lots of interesting views.½

Er is zoveel te zeggen over dit heel gecomprimeerde werk dat zo’n lange tijdsperiode overschouwt. In de eerste plaats dat het weer een echt pionierswerk is: McNeill waagt zich aan niks minder dan een studie van de verhouding tussen politieke, militaire en sociale ontwikkelingen, vooral in het 2de millennium van onze tijdrekening, een aanpak die nog niemand hem voordeed.
Ik leerde andermaal tal van nieuwe dingen, en dan niet alleen over de evolutie van de bewapeningstechnologie. Zo corrigeert McNeill heel duidelijk zijn stelling uit zijn belangrijkste werk “the Rise of the West” (1963) en zet hij de verdienste van het enorme Chinese rijk in het begin van het 2de millennium in de verf. En in een adembenemend gedetailleerd hoofdstuk toont hij gedetailleerd aan hoe de wereldlijke suprematie van het Westen over de rest van de wereld in de 19de eeuw zijn oorsprong vond in het koortsachtig fanatisme van de opkomende natiestaten in Europe, in de periode XV-XVIII. Een heel eigen, en telkens terugkerende mantra van hem is hoe de markt, het privé-initiatief, telkens weer die dynamiek in handen nam en op gang hield en overheden dwong tot het voortdurend overnemen en bij tellen van militaire tactieken en bewapening, met de slachting van de Eerste Wereldoorlog als absolute dieptepunt.
Maar net als in zijn vorig werk ‘Peoples and Plagues” (1972) zijn er ook weer erge zwaktes aan te duiden. Tunnelvisie is er één van: McNeill focust zeker de 16de eeuw bijna uitsluitend op de militaire evoluties in de West-Europese landen, in het bijzonder Groot-Brittannië, waardoor hij niet alleen zondigt tegen het door hem zo gehuldigde globalisme, maar bovendien alle maatschappelijke evoluties lijkt te herleiden tot hun militaire achtergrond. En ook nu weer is het heel belangrijk de verschijningsdatum van dit werk in de gaten te houden: 1982; dat wil zeggen dat het vooral geschreven is op basis van materiaal dat het licht zag in de jaren ’70, en uiteraard nog sterk gekleurd werd door de Koude Oorlog-situatie van die tijd. Dat verklaart meteen waarom ook het laatste hoofdstuk erg speculatief overkomt en McNeill, meer dan 30 jaar later de bal op enkele punten serieus misgeslagen heeft. Een historicus die de toekomst voorspelt, het blijft een gevaarlijk spel. Maar desalniettemin: hoed af voor de prestatie van deze vader van de Global History.

"Plagues and Peoples" is a classic and a pioneering study at the same time. A classic, because McNeill draws from his rich knowledge of world history and looks at the problem of diseases and epidemics from a global point of view, with which he was several decades ahead of the recent World/Global History-movement. A pioneering study because this book is full of the hypotheses and guesses, and McNeill firmly acknowledges this, simply because before him (this book was published in 1976) hardly any research was done on this issue. The author constantly indicates deficits in source material and studies, and formulates a number of concrete research questions. I am not a specialist, but I hope that subsequent historians (and medical scientists) have done something with them. Finally, he also illustrates the particular complexity of the role of diseases in human history, with sometimes very paradoxical evolutions (as for instance the fact that initially very densely populated cities and regions were hard hit by diseases, but consequently were the first to develop immunity and thus gained an advantage on less densely populated regions). Definitely an interesting book, but I suspect (and hope) that in the meantime a number of hypotheses of McNeill were verified and confirmed or rejected, and would thus recommend to read a much more recent work on this matter.

Excellent argument that human history is driven as much by disease (microparasites) as by armies (macroparasities). As the author says, "In most places epidemic diseases have become unimportant, and many kinds of infection have become rare where they were formerly common and serious. The net increment to human health and cheerfulness is hard to exaggerate; indeed, it now requires an act of imagination to understand what infectious disease formerly meant to humankind, or even to our own grandfathers." This book can help you understand what role disease had for much of human history.

Another entry into my Read Your Library series, continuing in the World History section of the library, this particular book takes a look at the spread of humanity throughout the course of history, picturing it like a series of webs that form and grow, eventually connecting or being overtaken by other, stronger webs.

Starting with the earliest forms of gathered humanity, the McNeills trace the growth and expansion of the human race from the early hunter-gatherer societies, to the shift to agrarian tribes, to the formation of the first major civilization in Mesopotamia. From there they explain the rise and fall of the first empires, the spread of technology, food, and illness across the globe, and the eventual combination of various webs to form a vast, interconnected web that covers most of the globe.

One thing I enjoyed about this book, as it is designed as a textbook, is that the information is presented in the barest factual form. The authors try to avoid their own bias and simply present the history as it happened, giving a full account of why things happened the way they did, never taking sides on a single issue.

I will say this fully factual presentation did make the reading a bit dry on occasion, but again, being a textbook that aspect was expected. I did not account for how much time that meant it would take me to get through it, however.

A very important book explaining the influence of disease on world history. What I particularly liked was the comparison of earlier "robber knight" types with plagues. The book stays with you for a long time.

Did not read very far into this. It contains much the same information I have read in other books. Seems well presented, but no need to repeat.

This is a book that many more people should read! Arnold Toynbee set out to write a book that could be used as a structure for continuing studies of how large human societies with consistent characteristics (civilizations) could be studied. He said at the beginning that this was a large task, and many examples would be needed to explain the assertions made. So, in the end it took 37 years to finish it. While writing the book, he changed some of the conclusions he had drawn in the earlier part of the book. that says something about his commitment to scholarship at the expense of ego.
Many specialists in smaller areas of study had their feathers ruffled by his classifications and his conclusions. the most obvious ruffling occurring when he classified Judaism as a "Fossil" civilization, surviving a very long time, and still maintaining exploration of concerns that had been with it for at least two thousand years. This obscured a great deal of the rest of the book in the minds of many reviewers.
However there is a great deal of the rest of the book, and William McNeill has made a good attempt at writing the life of a necessarily controversial figure in the sub-genre of world history. He is worthy of his subject.
In fact, McNeill's own eminence in the field of World history, leads one to think that the pendulum may be swinging back towards a Toynbeean view of the history of the planet. I hope so, as it always made sense to me.

Civilized diseases. This is the book that first alerted me to the way some germs and viruses have altered human history, much as pigeons have become a part of our daily environment. As we have developed the previously virgin landscape of the world, we have unwittingly unleashed the microbes intent on destroying us. Tit-for-tat. Throw in the 'peoples' element, such as Roman legionnaires turning on their own communities or Mongols burning villages and their occupants into ashes, and one wonders why we are still here.

McNeill also looks at how different sectors of humanity handled the constant scourges. While Western Europe became more superstitious, the Moslems were somewhat more enlightened:

When you learn that epidemic disease exists in a county, do not go there; but if it breaks out in the county where you are, do not leave.

Book Season = Winter (when you're shivering with the flu)

An academic (lots of endnotes, mostly consisting of cites of other writings), rather dry, somewhat outdated book - that remains fascinating. It's outdated in that it was written in the mid-70s, and many of the theories the author puts forth as wild possibilities...are now simply accepted fact. Everyone knows that the diseases the Spanish brought with them were a major factor in the ease with which Cortez and Pizarro conquered the Aztecs and Incans - but this author, and this book, were the sources of that notion in the first place. And so on. There are other theories he puts forth, which are equally reasonable although supported by less data, which are not (yet) accepted as standard - but given the way one theory solidified, I'm inclined to believe the others. Concepts such as - the reason the history of civilization has been city-states expanding their power into fringe areas is (partly, he explicitly states it's not the only factor) because cities breed diseases that isolated villages can't handle - so everyone from Ur, to Rome, to the 16th- and 17th-century colonists, were moving into areas devastated by an epidemic spread by the presence of city folk. Or...the current (as of the 70s, though it's still going) surge of population growth throughout the world, unprecedented in history, is largely because between vaccines and sanitation we've eliminated many of the epidemic diseases that used to keep population down. For that matter, it was only in the 1800s, according to McNeill, that cities stopped being population sinks - they used to need a constant inflow of immigrants from the surrounding lands just to keep their populations at the same level, because between infections and lack of sanitation a lot more people died in cities. So shantytowns are a new phenomenon - at least, long-term ones - because previously there were always gaps that could be filled by immigrants; now city folk are more than replacing themselves, and the immigrants from the surrounding farmland have no places to fill. And...lots more. I read with two bookmarks, one where I was reading and one at the corresponding endnote; many of the endnotes are literally just a mention of what page in what book was drawn on for this comment, but some of them add considerable enlightenment.

It is relatively dry and academic - McNeill makes no effort to dramatize events (they're dramatic enough, thank you), or talk down to non-scientists/historians/biologists. He merely states the facts, and the conclusions he draws from them; if the facts are insufficient for solid support of a theory, he says so and why and if it's likely there will ever be such data or not (mostly not. Detailed information on epidemics before and during the Dark Ages in Europe, for instance, is lacking and probably always will be). I learned a lot, he made me think, and unlike several recent books I've read this is one I think I'd enjoy rereading in a year or two.

Well it's been nearly a month since I finished this so it's probably time. This book, written in the 70's, is a pretty academic look at the historical relationship between humans and disease, specifically how great an impact each has in shaping the other's history. This ought to be at least superficially familiar as it's become widely accepted that the European conquest of the Americas was pretty much ensured by the catestrophic death toll of European diseases on native populations. Such loss of life often left survivors too few too maintain their civilizations and appeared to be a sign of the divine abandoning them to side with the Europeans.

McNeill's focus is the so called civilized diseases. Things like smallpox, cholera, mumps and such. These diseases, he explains, cannot exist without civilization as all those infected either die or gain immunity. Without a large enough pool of unexposed people regularly coming in contact with infected persons the diseases burn themselves out for lack of hosts. So you see, none of these diseases could exist without humans first supplying a nice nest. Further, humans and civilized diseases evolve together. A human community's first exposure to a civilized disease is invariably extreme. The community his no immunity whether it be imposed by former survivors or social controls and the book references many such catastrophic events on all continents. But from there the disease and it's hosts start to find an equalibrium. The most virulent strains of the disease are burned out by their self-defeating deathtoll allowing the human population to adapt socially and biologically to milder strains. Of course it still sucks, but that's basically how it went until vaccines came around.

Honestly the book is a bit macro for my tastes. My eyes sort of glaze over at troop movement-type history and as you're reading about the trade routes and armies that transported diseases around the world it feels pretty troop movement-y. There is very little discussion of the character of diseases discussed, but McNeill does do an excellent job of illustrating just how much more disease there was in everyday life prior to modern medicine and what that meant to a scientifically naive populous. Basically everyone lived their lives having seen plenty of sudden and unpredictable death from disease. You could literally be totally fine one day and dead the next (seriously, cholera will fuck you) and you get the impression it left people pretty fatalistic. All in all it's solidly in the category of "read this to get a better picture of the shit people had to deal with before you were alive and thank your fucking stars you don't have to."½