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102-586: He went to Paris to research this work, where he met Haitian military historian Alfred Auguste Nemours . James's text places the revolution in the context of the French Revolution , and focuses on the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture , who was born a slave but rose to prominence espousing the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality . These ideals, which many French revolutionaries did not maintain consistently with regard to

204-461: A book in which Africans or people of African descent instead of constantly being the object of other peoples' exploitation and ferocity would themselves be taking action on a grand scale and shaping other people to their own needs". James writes sceptically of British efforts to suppress the slave trade by using William Wilberforce as a figurehead. James asserts that the actual concern of the British

306-602: A departure from solely religious texts. Publications include Encyclopédie (1751–72) that was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert . The Dictionnaire philosophique (Philosophical Dictionary, 1764) and Letters on the English (1733) written by Voltaire spread the ideals of the Enlightenment. Coinciding with the Age of Enlightenment was the scientific revolution , spearheaded by Newton. This included

408-514: A different but not necessarily a better book." He met Alfred Auguste Nemours in Paris while researching the book. Nemours, a Haitian diplomat, had written Histoire militaire de la guerre d'independance de Saint-Domingue in 1925 while Haiti was under US occupation . The writing of history becomes ever more difficult. The power of God or the weakness of man, Christianity or the divine right of kings to govern wrong, can easily be made responsible for

510-783: A foundation embraced and built upon by the Roman Empire as it swept up Europe and the Mediterranean world , including the Hellenistic world in its conquests in the 1st century BCE. Following the Roman conquest of the Hellenistic world, the concept of a "West" arose, as there was a cultural divide between the Greek East and Latin West . The Latin-speaking Western Roman Empire consisted of Western Europe and Northwest Africa, while

612-605: A fugue." "The blacks were taking their part in the destruction of European feudalism ", according to James, and, as the workers and peasants of France stiffened in their resistance to local tyranny, they also became passionate abolitionists despite their geographical remove from the French slave enterprise in the Western hemisphere. The Black Jacobins has been characterized as demonstrating that "the French Revolution

714-429: A global culture that could ignore national frontiers. Literacy became almost universal, encouraging the growth of books, magazines and newspapers. The influence of cinema and radio remained, while televisions became near essentials in every home. By the mid-20th century, Western culture was exported worldwide, and the development and growth of international transport and telecommunication (such as transatlantic cable and

816-407: A graphic novel by Verso , having been adapted by artists Nic Watts and Sakina Karimjee. In 1967, James revised the play with the help of Dexter Lyndersay and his new play, The Black Jacobins , has been performed internationally subsequently, including a radio adaptation broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 13 December 1971, with Earl Cameron as Toussaint L'Ouverture. In 1986, The Black Jacobins play

918-509: A leader, organizing the Haitian people into a force capable of breaking the French hold on the colony of San Domingo. He emerged both as a powerful, unifying symbol of the march of enslaved Africans toward liberty, and as an extraordinary politician: "superbly gifted, he incarnated the determination of his people never, never to be slaves again." James emphasizes the writing and thought of Toussaint, and quotes him at length, in order to demonstrate

1020-624: A leading light for the West's democracy and rapid economic development. Joseph Schumpeter , an economist of the twentieth century, referring to the Scholastics , wrote, "it is they who come nearer than does any other group to having been the 'founders' of scientific economics." The rediscovery of the Justinian Code in Western Europe early in the 10th century rekindled a passion for the discipline of law, which crossed many of

1122-551: A place changes and what is meant by the terminology changes. It is difficult to determine which individuals or places or trends fit into which category, and the East–West contrast is sometimes criticized as relativistic and arbitrary. Globalization has spread Western ideas so widely that almost all modern cultures are, to some extent, influenced by aspects of Western culture. Stereotypical views of "the West" have been labeled " Occidentalism ", paralleling " Orientalism "—the term for

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1224-516: A region with fixed members or geographical confines. It generally refers to the classical era cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome that expanded across the Mediterranean basin and Europe , and later circulated around the world predominantly through colonization and globalization . Historically, scholars have closely associated the idea of Western culture with the classical era of Greco-Roman antiquity . However, scholars also acknowledge that other ancient cultures, like Ancient Egypt ,

1326-527: A result of the Christian revival of Greek philosophy, and the long Christian medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities. This period is commonly referred to as the Renaissance . In the following century, this process was further enhanced by an exodus of Greek Christian priests and scholars to Italian cities such as Florence and Venice after

1428-741: A view of the events that notes European and white perspectives without leaving them unquestioned. For James, the dismissiveness and marginalization that the slaves' revolutionary efforts faced was not only a problem of latter-day historiography , but a problem at every historical moment back to and throughout the revolution. While Toussaint L'Ouverture set out to defend and maintain the dignity of man as he garnered it from French revolutionary literature, and particularly Raynal , according to James, " Feuillants and Jacobins in France, Whites and Mulattoes in San Domingo (Saint-Domingue), were still looking upon

1530-518: Is especially valued. Photography and the motion picture as both a technology and basis for entirely new art forms were also developed in the West. The ballet is a distinctively Western form of performance dance. The ballroom dance is an important Western variety of dance for the elite. The polka , the square dance , the flamenco , and the Irish step dance are very well known Western forms of folk dance . Greek and Roman theatre are considered

1632-511: Is radical, conceived with a Marxist framework, and favors the search for determinative factors within social dialects". Thomas O. Ott also fixes on James's association with a Marxist framework, suggesting that James's "stumbling attempt to connect the Haitian and French revolutions through some sort of common mass movement is a good example of 'fact trimming' to fit a particular thesis or ideology." Both recent and contemporary reviewers agree that James's view (and critique) of extant historiography make

1734-817: The Assembly of the League of Nations , held in Geneva , Switzerland. Speaking at the League, Nemours made a widely-reproduced statement in response to the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini's fascist troops: Craignez d'être un jour l'Ethiopie de quelqu'un. Fear to ever become someone's Ethiopia. He continued to play a prominent role in Haitian politics, as Senator of the Republic in 1938 and Secretary of State of Interior in 1940. C. L. R. James met Nemours in Paris when he

1836-474: The Byzantine Empire) , or those countries heavily influenced by its legacy, should be counted as "Western" is an example of the possible ambiguity of the term. These questions can be traced back to the affiliation between the culture of ancient Rome and that of Classical Greece , a persistent Greek East and Latin West language-split within the Roman Empire , and an eventual permanent splitting of

1938-699: The Catholic Church , remained a dominant force in Western culture for many centuries to follow. Western culture continued to develop during the Middle Ages as reforms triggered by the medieval renaissances , the influence of the Islamic world via Al-Andalus and Sicily (including the transfer of technology from the East, and Latin translations of Arabic texts on science and philosophy by Greek and Hellenic-influenced Islamic philosophers), and

2040-585: The Greek East and Latin West divide, separated Europe into religious and cultural regions present to this day. Until the Age of Enlightenment, Christian culture took over as the predominant force in Western civilization, guiding the course of philosophy, art, and science for many years. Movements in art and philosophy, such as the Humanist movement of the Renaissance and the Scholastic movement of

2142-697: The High Middle Ages , were motivated by a drive to connect Catholicism with Greek and Arab thought imported by Christian pilgrims. However, due to the division in Western Christianity caused by the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment, religious influence—especially the temporal power of the Pope—began to wane. From the late 15th century to the 17th century, Western culture began to spread to other parts of

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2244-585: The Italian Renaissance as Greek scholars fleeing the fall of Constantinople brought ancient Greek and Roman texts back to central and western Europe. Medieval Christianity is credited with creating the modern university, the modern hospital system, scientific economics, and natural law (which would later influence the creation of international law ). European culture developed a complex range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism , mysticism and Christian and secular humanism , setting

2346-804: The Ottoman Empire . The process was accompanied and reinforced by the Age of Discovery and continued into the modern period. Scholars have proposed a wide variety of theories to explain why the Great Divergence happened, including lack of government intervention, geography, colonialism, and customary traditions. The Age of Discovery faded into the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, during which cultural and intellectual forces in European society emphasized reason, analysis, and individualism rather than traditional lines of authority. It challenged

2448-691: The Phoenician city-states , and several Near-Eastern cultures stimulated and fostered Western civilization. The Hellenistic period also promoted syncretism , blending Greek, Roman, and Jewish cultures. Major advances in literature, engineering, and science shaped the Hellenistic Jewish culture from which the earliest Christians and the Greek New Testament emerged. The eventual Christianization of Europe in late-antiquity would ensure that Christianity , particularly

2550-487: The Renaissance of the 12th century and 13th century. Medieval Christianity is credited with creating the first modern universities. The Catholic Church established a hospital system in Medieval Europe that vastly improved upon the Roman valetudinaria and Greek healing temples. These hospitals were established to cater to "particular social groups marginalized by poverty, sickness, and age," according to

2652-489: The Second Industrial Revolution in the transition years between 1840 and 1870, when technological and economic progress continued with the increasing adoption of steam transport (steam-powered railways, boats, and ships), the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the increasing use of machinery in steam-powered factories. Tendencies that have come to define modern Western societies include

2754-472: The decline of religious authority marked significant cultural shifts. Tendencies that have come to define modern Western societies include the concept of political pluralism , individualism , prominent subcultures or countercultures , and increasing cultural syncretism resulting from globalization and immigration . The West as a geographical area is unclear and undefined. There is some disagreement about which nations should or should not be included in

2856-530: The decline of the Ottoman Empire occurred simultaneously in the Near East. The term "Middle East" in the mid-19th century included the territory east of the Ottoman Empire but west of China— Greater Persia and Greater India —but is now used synonymously with "Near East" in most languages. The earliest civilizations which influenced the development of Western culture were those of Mesopotamia ;

2958-506: The radiotelephone ) played a decisive role in modern globalization. The West has contributed a great many technological, political, philosophical, artistic and religious aspects to modern international culture: having been a crucible of Catholicism , Protestantism , democracy, industrialisation; the first major civilisation to seek to abolish slavery during the 19th century, the first to enfranchise women (beginning in Australasia at

3060-467: The 19th-century stereotyped views of "the East". Some philosophers have questioned whether Western culture can be considered a historically sound, unified body of thought. For example, Kwame Anthony Appiah pointed out in 2016 that many of the fundamental influences on Western culture - such as those of Greek philosophy - are also shared by the Islamic world to a certain extent. Appiah argues that

3162-692: The Americas and the development of modern democratic institutions. Enlightenment thinkers advanced ideals of political pluralism and empirical inquiry , which, together with the Industrial Revolution , transformed Western society. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the influence of Enlightenment rationalism continued with the rise of secularism and liberal democracy , while the Industrial Revolution fueled economic and technological growth. The expansion of rights movements and

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3264-717: The Catholic west and were rediscovered by Italians from scholars fleeing the 1453 fall of the Eastern Roman Empire . The subsequent Renaissance , a conscious effort by Europeans to revive and surpass the ideas and achievements of the Greco-Roman world, eventually encouraged the Age of Discovery , the Scientific Revolution , Age of Enlightenment , and the subsequent Industrial Revolution . Similarly, complicated relationships between virtually all

3366-537: The European Union where some member states have experienced falling church attendance and membership in recent years, and also elsewhere. Secularism (separating religion from politics and science) increased. Christianity remains the dominant religion in the Western world, where 70% are Christians. The West went through a series of great cultural and social changes between 1945 and 1980. The emergent mass media (film, radio, television and recorded music) created

3468-701: The Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire consisted of the Balkans , Asia Minor , Egypt and Levant . The "Greek" East was generally wealthier and more advanced than the "Latin" West. With the exception of Italia , the wealthiest provinces of the Roman Empire were in the East, particularly Roman Egypt which was the wealthiest Roman province outside of Italia. Nevertheless, the Celts in the West created some significant literature in

3570-713: The Mediterranean such as Ancient Carthage , Ancient Greece , Etruria , and Ancient Rome . The Greeks contrasted themselves with both their Eastern neighbours (such as the Trojans in Iliad ) as well as their Northern neighbours (who they considered barbarians ). Concepts of what is the West arose out of legacies of the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. Later, ideas of the West were formed by

3672-567: The Reformation and Enlightenment, the ideas of civil rights , equality before the law, procedural justice , and democracy as the ideal form of society began to be institutionalized as principles forming the basis of modern Western culture, particularly in Protestant regions. In the 14th century, starting from Italy and then spreading throughout Europe, there was a massive artistic, architectural, scientific and philosophical revival, as

3774-512: The Roman Empire and eclipsing its antecedents and influences. The Greek and Roman paganism was gradually replaced by Christianity, first with its legalisation with the Edict of Milan and then the Edict of Thessalonica which made it the State church of the Roman Empire . Catholic Christianity, served as a unifying force in Christian parts of Europe, and in some respects replaced or competed with

3876-705: The Roman Empire in 395 into Western and Eastern halves. And perhaps, at its worst, culminating in Pope Leo III's transfer of the Roman Empire from the Eastern Roman Empire to the Frankish King Charlemagne in the form of the Holy Roman Empire in 800, the Great Schism of 1054, and the devastating Fourth Crusade of 1204. Conversely, traditions of scholarship around Plato , Aristotle , and Euclid had been forgotten in

3978-563: The United States first on radio in the 1930s, then a couple of decades later on television. The music video was also developed in the West in the middle of the 20th century. Musical theatre was developed in the West in the 19th and 20th Centuries, from music hall , comic opera , and Vaudeville ; with significant contributions from the Jewish diaspora , African-Americans , and other marginalized peoples. Western literature encompasses

4080-443: The West have come to see widespread use all over the world; among them are the guitar, violin, piano, pipe organ , saxophone, trombone, clarinet, accordion , and the theremin . In turn, it has been claimed that some European instruments have roots in earlier Eastern instruments that were adopted from the medieval Islamic world . The solo piano, symphony orchestra , and the string quartet are also significant musical innovations of

4182-474: The West in certain characteristic ways. In Western dance, music, plays and other arts, the performers are only very infrequently masked. There are essentially no taboos against depicting a god, or other religious figures, in a representational fashion. In music, Catholic monks developed the first forms of modern Western musical notation to standardize liturgy throughout the worldwide Church, and an enormous body of religious music has been composed for it through

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4284-535: The West. Jan van Eyck , among other renaissance painters, made great advances in oil painting , and perspective drawings and paintings had their earliest practitioners in Florence . In art, the Celtic knot is a very distinctive Western repeated motif. Depictions of the nude human male and female in photography, painting, and sculpture are frequently considered to have special artistic merit. Realistic portraiture

4386-560: The ages. This led directly to the emergence and development of European classical music and its many derivatives. The Baroque style, which encompassed music, art, and architecture, was particularly encouraged by the post-Reformation Catholic Church as such forms offered a means of religious expression that was stirring and emotional, intended to stimulate religious fervor. The symphony , concerto, sonata , opera, and oratorio have their origins in Italy. Many musical instruments developed in

4488-442: The ancient world whenever they were given the opportunity (an example being the poet Caecilius Statius ), and they developed a large amount of scientific knowledge themselves (as seen in their Coligny Calendar ). For about five hundred years, the Roman Empire maintained the Greek East and consolidated a Latin West, but an east–west division remained, reflected in many cultural norms of the two areas, including language. Eventually,

4590-423: The antecedents of modern theatre, and forms such as medieval theatre , Passion Plays , morality plays , and commedia dell'arte are considered highly influential. Elizabethan theatre , with playwrights including William Shakespeare , Christopher Marlowe , and Ben Jonson , is considered one of the most formative and important eras for modern drama. The soap opera, a popular culture dramatic form, originated in

4692-615: The area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system , largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq , northeastern Syria , southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran : the cradle of civilization . Ancient Egypt similarly had a strong influence on Western culture. Phoenician mercantilism and the introduction of the Alphabetic script boosted state formation in the Aegean and current-day Italy and current-day Spain, spawning civilizations in

4794-471: The attention due a scholar who blazes the way in an all but neglected field". Seabrook proceeds to predict the importance of the work to Caribbean history, and the probable extensive circulation of the book. Decades after the first publication of the work, The Black Jacobins remained a prominent artifact of Caribbean cultural history. James looks more broadly at the West Indies in his 1963 appendix to

4896-820: The authority of institutions that were deeply rooted in society, such as the Catholic Church; there was much talk of ways to reform society with toleration, science and skepticism . Philosophers of the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon , René Descartes , John Locke , Baruch Spinoza , Voltaire (1694–1778), Jean-Jacques Rousseau , David Hume , and Immanuel Kant , who influenced society by publishing widely read works. Upon learning about enlightened views, some rulers met with intellectuals and tried to apply their reforms, such as allowing for toleration, or accepting multiple religions, in what became known as enlightened absolutism . New ideas and beliefs spread around Europe and were fostered by an increase in literacy due to

4998-484: The black humanity of their colonial possessions, were embraced, according to James, with a greater purity by the persecuted blacks of Haiti ; such ideals "meant far more to them than to any Frenchman." James examines the brutal conditions of slavery as well as the social and political status of the slave-owners, poor or "small" whites , and "free" blacks and mulattoes leading up to the Revolution. The book explores

5100-528: The bourgeoisie brown, and the masses of France black, the French Revolution would have gone down in history as a race war." Toussaint L'Ouverture is a central figure in James's telling of the Haitian Revolution. Although born a slave, James writes of Toussaint, "both in body and mind he was far beyond the average slave". Toussaint joined the revolution after its onset and was immediately regarded as

5202-526: The category, when, and why. Certainly related conceptual terminology has changed over time in scope, meaning, and use. The term "western" draws on an affiliation with, or a perception of, a shared philosophy , worldview , political, and religious heritage grounded in the Greco-Roman world , the legacy of the Roman Empire , and medieval concepts of Christendom . For example, whether the Eastern Roman Empire (anachronistically/controversially referred to as

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5304-522: The challenge of coming to terms with events which disrupted their understanding and connectedness to the wider world by revealing the relations of force." Historians still continue to comment on the significance of the work and how it has paved the way for more detailed study of social and political movements in the Caribbean region. In a look at the role slaves themselves have played in Caribbean and American rebellions Adélékè Adéèkó points specifically to

5406-579: The concept of political pluralism , individualism , prominent subcultures or countercultures (such as New Age movements) and increasing cultural syncretism resulting from globalization and immigration. Western culture has been heavily influenced by the Renaissance, the Ages of Discovery and Enlightenment and the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions . In the 20th century, Christianity declined in influence in many Western countries, mostly in

5508-417: The concepts of Latin Christendom and the Holy Roman Empire . What is thought of as Western thought today originates primarily from Greco-Roman and Christian traditions, with varying degrees of influence from the Germanic , Celtic and Slavic peoples, and includes the ideals of the Middle Ages , the Renaissance , Reformation and the Enlightenment . While the concept of a "West" did not exist until

5610-530: The context of his writings echo his concerns on the context of the events, as traditionally narrated. The book represents, according to some commentators, a challenge to the conventional "geography" of history, which usually identifies the national histories of states as discrete phenomena, and with " Western civilization " in particular being bounded away from its actual constituent elements. In The Black Jacobins , according to Edward Said , "events in France and in Haiti criss-cross and answer each other like voices in

5712-419: The countries and regions within a broadly defined "West" can be discussed in the light of a persistently fragmented political landscape resulting in a lack of uniformity and significant diversity between the various cultures affiliating with this shared socio-cultural heritage. Thus, those cultures identifying with the West and with what it means to be "western" change over time as the geopolitical circumstances of

5814-487: The crimes which they meditate or the oath that we renew, to bury ourselves under the ruins of a country revived by liberty rather than suffer the return of slavery. In the 1980 foreword to the British edition published by Allison & Busby , James explains that he was "specially prepared to write The Black Jacobins ", having grown up in Trinidad and having researched the Russian revolution in depth while studying Marxism in England. In this foreword, written 42 years after

5916-399: The defence of its rights and those of humanity, for the triumph of liberty and equality." The French bourgeoisie could not understand this motivation, according to James, and mistook it for rhetoric or bombast. "Rivers of blood were to flow before they understood," James writes. James wrote in The Black Jacobins that the "cruelties of property and privilege are always more ferocious than

6018-445: The downfall of states and the birth of new societies. Such elementary conceptions lend themselves willingly to narrative treatment and from Tacitus to Macaulay , from Thuycidides to Green , the traditionally famous historians have been more artist than scientist: they wrote so well because they saw so little. To-day by a natural reaction we tend to a personification of the social forces, great men being merely or nearly instruments in

6120-427: The dynamics of the Caribbean economy and the European feudal system during the era before the Haitian Revolution, and places each revolution in comparative historical and economic perspective. Toussaint L'Ouverture becomes a central and symbolic character in James's narrative of the Haitian Revolution. His complete embodiment of the revolutionary ideals of the period was, according to James, incomprehensible even to

6222-415: The emergence of modern science , during which developments in mathematics , physics , astronomy , biology (including human anatomy ) and chemistry transformed views of society and nature. While its dates are disputed, the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus 's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium ( On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres ) is often cited as marking the beginning of

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6324-537: The emergence of a Hellenistic civilization , representing a synthesis of Greek and Near-Eastern cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The Near-Eastern civilizations of Ancient Egypt and the Levant , which came under Greek rule, became part of the Hellenistic world. The most important Hellenistic centre of learning was Ptolemaic Egypt , which attracted Greek, Egyptian , Jewish, Persian , Phoenician and even Indian scholars. Hellenistic science, philosophy, architecture , literature and art later provided

6426-437: The emergence of the Roman Republic , the roots of the concept can be traced back to Ancient Greece . Since Homeric literature (the Trojan Wars ), through the accounts of the Persian Wars of Greeks against Persians by Herodotus , and right up until the time of Alexander the Great , there was a paradigm of a contrast between Greeks and other civilizations. Greeks felt they were the most civilized and saw themselves (in

6528-430: The empire became increasingly split into a Western and Eastern part, reviving old ideas of a contrast between an advanced East, and a rugged West. From the time of Alexander the Great (the Hellenistic period ), Greek civilization came in contact with Jewish civilization. Christianity would eventually emerge from the syncretism of Hellenic culture , Roman culture , and Second Temple Judaism , gradually spreading across

6630-534: The end of the 19th century) and the first to put to use such technologies as steam , electric and nuclear power . The West invented cinema, television, the personal computer, the Internet and video games; developed sports such as soccer, cricket , golf , tennis , rugby , basketball , and volleyball ; and transported humans to an astronomical object for the first time with the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon Landing . While dance, music, visual art, story-telling, and architecture are human universals, they are expressed in

6732-426: The end of the Byzantine Empire with the fall of Constantinople. From Late Antiquity , through the Middle Ages, and onwards, while Eastern Europe was shaped by the Eastern Orthodox Church , Southern and Central Europe were increasingly stabilized by the Catholic Church which, as Roman imperial governance faded from view, was the only consistent force in Western Europe. In 1054 came the Great Schism that, following

6834-422: The formulation of Aristotle ) as something between the advanced civilizations of the Near East (who they viewed as soft and slavish) and the wild barbarians of most of Europe to the north. During this period writers like Herodotus and Xenophon would highlight the importance of freedom in the Ancient Greek world, as opposed to the perceived slavery of the so-called barbaric world. Alexander's conquests led to

6936-415: The hands of economic destiny. As so often the truth does not lie in between. Great men make history, but only such history as it is possible for them to make. Their freedom of achievement is limited by the necessities of their environment. To portray the limits of those necessities and the realisation, complete or partial, of all possibilities, that is the true business of the historian. James's reflections on

7038-458: The historian of hospitals, Guenter Risse. Christianity played a role in ending practices common among pagan societies, such as human sacrifice, slavery, infanticide and polygamy. Francisco de Vitoria , a disciple of Thomas Aquinas and a Catholic thinker who studied the issue regarding the human rights of colonized natives, is recognized by the United Nations as a father of international law, and now also by historians of economics and democracy as

7140-437: The increasing use of steam power , and the development of machine tools . These transitions began in Great Britain and spread to Western Europe and North America within a few decades. The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists say that

7242-669: The influence of The Black Jacobins on the perception of slaves in The Slaves Rebellion . In this work, published in 2005, Adéèkó suggests: " The Black Jacobins stirs this high level of inspiration for its symbolic reconfiguration of the slaves’ will to freedom." Some critics have accused the book of being partisan, in its glorification of the struggle against slavery and colonialism, or in its ideological bent. According to Montague, "The author's sympathies and frame of reference are evident, but he tells his story with more restraint than can generally be found in works on this subject by others less plainly labeled". Adéèkó suggests that "James' work

7344-501: The integration and reshaping of Roman ideas through Christian thought. The Eastern Orthodox Church founded many cathedrals , monasteries and seminaries , some of which continue to exist today. After the fall of the Roman Empire , many of the classical Greek texts were translated into Arabic and preserved in the medieval Islamic world . The Greek classics along with Arabic science , philosophy and technology were transmitted to Western Europe and translated into Latin , sparking

7446-565: The literary traditions of Europe, as well as North America, Oceania and Latin America. While epic literary works in verse such as the Mahabharata and Homer's Iliad are ancient and occurred worldwide, the prose novel as a distinct form of storytelling, with developed, consistent human characters and, typically, some connected overall plot (although both of these characteristics have sometimes been modified and played with in later times),

7548-439: The major impact of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of living for the general population began to increase consistently for the first time in history, although others have said that it did not begin to meaningfully improve until the late 19th and 20th centuries. The precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and social changes. GDP per capita

7650-419: The man as he existed politically, often in contrast, according to James, to what has been written about him. James believes that Toussaint's own words best convey his personality and genius, which was all the more remarkable given its unlikely origins: Pericles , Tom Paine , Jefferson , Marx and Engels , were men of a liberal education, formed in the traditions of ethics, philosophy and history. Toussaint

7752-597: The origin of the Western and European identity can be traced back to the 8th-century Muslim invasion of Europe via Iberia , when Christians would start to form a common Christian or European identity. Contemporary Latin chronicles from Spain referred to the victors in the Frankish victory over the Umayyads at the 732 Battle of Tours as "Europeans" according to Appiah, denoting a shared sense of identity. A former, now less-acceptable synonym for "Western civilisation"

7854-505: The re-forming boundaries between East and West. In the Catholic or Frankish west, Roman law became the foundation on which all legal concepts and systems were based. Its influence is found in all Western legal systems, although in different manners and to different extents. The study of canon law , the legal system of the Catholic Church, fused with that of Roman law to form the basis of the refounding of Western legal scholarship. During

7956-571: The revenges of poverty and oppression. For the one aims at perpetuating resented injustice, the other is merely a momentary passion soon appeased." The book was first published in London in 1938 by Secker & Warburg , who had recently published James's Minty Alley in 1936 and World Revolution in 1937. The impending world war was recognized and alluded to in the text by James, who had been living in England since 1932; in his Preface, he places

8058-462: The revolutionary French, who did not seem to grasp the urgency of these ideals in the minds and spirits of a people rising from slavery. L'Ouverture had defiantly asserted that he intended "to cease to live before gratitude dies in my heart, before I cease to be faithful to France and to my duty, before the god of liberty is profaned and sullied by the liberticides, before they can snatch from my hands that sword, those arms, which France confided to me for

8160-419: The scientific revolution, and its completion is attributed to the "grand synthesis" of Newton's 1687 Principia . The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power ,

8262-546: The secular authorities. The Jewish Christian tradition out of which it had emerged was all but extinguished, and antisemitism became increasingly entrenched or even integral to Christendom. Much of art and literature, law, education, and politics were preserved in the teachings of the Church. In a broader sense, the Middle Ages , with its fertile encounter between Greek philosophical reasoning and Levantine monotheism

8364-415: The slave revolt as a huge riot which would be put down in time, once the division between the slave-owners was closed." The narrative of the Haitian Revolution had been, according to James, largely dominated by distant, foreign, or opportunist narrators, who opted for their own preferred emphases. On this plasticity of historical narrative, James opines of the French Revolution, "Had the monarchists been white,

8466-426: The slave system, Toussaint wrote that liberty was being assailed by the colonists under "the veil of patriotism": Already perfidious emissaries have stepped in among us to ferment the destructive leaven prepared by the hands of liberticides. But they will not succeed. I swear it by all that liberty holds most sacred. My attachment to France, my knowledge of the blacks, make it my duty not to leave you ignorant either of

8568-585: The stage for the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, which fundamentally altered religious and political life. Led by figures like Martin Luther , Protestantism challenged the authority of the Catholic Church and promoted ideas of individual freedom and religious reform , paving the way for modern notions of personal responsibility and governance. The Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries shifted focus to reason , science , and individual rights , influencing revolutions across Europe and

8670-599: The text, "From Toussaint L’Ouverture to Fidel Castro". In the appendix James considers patterns between later developments in the Caribbean and the Haitian revolution. Literary critic Santiago Valles summarizes what James attempts to do in the appendix: "In an appendix to the second edition, James noted intellectual and social movements in Cuba, Haiti and Trinidad during the 1920s and 1930s. First in Cuba, Haiti (1927), then in Brazil, Surinam and Trinidad (1931), other small groups faced

8772-534: The western part of the old empire. However, this would become the center of a new West. Europe fell into political anarchy, with many warring kingdoms and principalities. Under the Frankish kings, it eventually, and partially, reunified, and the anarchy evolved into feudalism . Much of the basis of the post-Roman cultural world had been set before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, mainly through

8874-577: The work extremely valuable in the study of Caribbean history. In 1934, James wrote a play about the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History , which was performed in 1936 at London's Westminster Theatre , with Paul Robeson in the title role. The play was significant in bringing the Haitian Revolution to the attention of the British public. The play has been published as

8976-546: The work's first publication, James discusses his own background, his reasons for chronicling the history, and major people who influenced the work. He stated that he hoped others would elaborate on his research. Aware of some of the attacks on his book, James felt that no one could dispute the accuracy of his history; he "was never worried about what they would find, confident that [his] foundation would remain imperishable". Of his text on "the only successful slave revolt in history", James writes: "I made up my mind that I would write

9078-503: The world through explorers and missionaries during the Age of Discovery , and by imperialists from the 17th century to the early 20th century. During the Great Divergence , a term coined by Samuel Huntington the Western world overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization of the time, eclipsing Qing China , Mughal India , Tokugawa Japan , and

9180-561: The writing of the history in the context of "the booming of Franco 's heavy artillery, the rattle of Joseph Stalin 's firing squads and the fierce shrill revolutionary movement striving for clarity and influence." In a later passage, James writes of the slaves in the early days of French revolutionary violence, the "slaves only watched their masters destroy one another, as Africans watched them in 1914–1918 , and will watch them again before long." Of his text, James suggests that "had it been written under different circumstances it would have been

9282-591: Was "the white race ". As Europeans discovered the extra-European world, old concepts adapted. The area that had formerly been considered the Orient ("the East") became the Near East as the interests of the European powers interfered with Meiji Japan and Qing China for the first time in the 19th century. Thus the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 occurred in the " Far East " while troubles surrounding

9384-628: Was a Haitian military general, diplomat and military historian. He was born into a wealthy family in Cap-Haïtien , northern Haiti . His father was Nemours Auguste and his mother Amétise Albaret. He adopted Nemours as his principal name later in life. Alfred was sent to the Lycée in Paris , followed by the military academy Saint-Cyr . During the United States occupation of Haiti , Auguste Nemours wrote his Histoire Militaire . He also

9486-475: Was a slave, not six years out of slavery, bearing alone the unaccustomed burden of war and government, dictating his thoughts in the crude words of a broken dialect, written and rewritten by his secretaries until their devotion and his will had hammered them into adequate shape. In one letter that James quotes at length, sent by Toussaint to the Directory at a time when French colonists were conspiring to restore

9588-444: Was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy, while the Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic growth in capitalist economies. Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals, plants and fire. The First Industrial Revolution evolved into

9690-422: Was created in the East in his capital of Constantinople, and that city maintained trade and intermittent political control over outposts such as Venice in the West for centuries. Classical Greek learning was also subsumed, preserved, and elaborated in the rising Eastern world, which gradually supplanted Roman-Byzantine control as a dominant cultural-political force. Thus, much of the learning of classical antiquity

9792-434: Was not an insurrectionary experience limited to Europe". Given his origins as a slave in a colonized land, and the unmistakable current of French Revolutionary ideology that he imbibed and upheld, Toussaint L'Ouverture becomes, according to one reading of James, not merely the extraordinary leader of an island revolt, but "the apogee of the revolutionary doctrines that underpinned the French Revolution." James sets out to offer

9894-570: Was not confined to the West but also stretched into the old East. The philosophy and science of Classical Greece were largely forgotten in Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, other than in isolated monastic enclaves (notably in Ireland, which had become Christian but was never conquered by Rome). The learning of Classical Antiquity was better preserved in the Eastern Roman Empire. Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis Roman civil law code

9996-454: Was part of the unpopular occupation government of Louis Borno , serving as Conseiller d'Etat from 1918 to 1922, Secretary and President du Conseil d'Etat from 1922 to 1925, and Minister Plenipotentiary to Paris from 1926 to 1930. From 1928 to 1929 he was concurrently accredited to the Holy See . He was the Haitian delegate to the 7th (1926), 9th (1928) and 16th (1935) Ordinary Session of

10098-547: Was performed in London at the Riverside Studios , in the first production from Talawa Theatre Company , with an all-black cast including Norman Beaton as Toussaint L'Ouverture, directed by Yvonne Brewster . In 2018, it was announced that the book was going to be made into a television programme thanks to Bryncoed Productions, with the assistance of Kwame Kwei-Armah . Alfred Auguste Nemours Alfred Auguste Nemours (13 July 1883 – 17 October 1955)

10200-579: Was slowly reintroduced to European civilization in the centuries following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The Medieval West referred specifically to the Catholic "Latin" West, also called "Frankish" during Charlemagne 's reign, in contrast to the Orthodox East, where Greek remained the language of the Byzantine Empire. After the fall of Rome , much of Greco-Roman art, literature, science and even technology were all but lost in

10302-667: Was strategic, and that their humanitarian interest in abolishing slavery was in actuality a pragmatic interest, in that it undermined the French by crippling access to slave labour for France's most lucrative colonies. Literary critics have esteemed The Black Jacobins since its first publication in 1938. In a 1940 review, Ludwell Lee Montague asserts that James "finds his way with skill through kaleidoscopic sequences of events in both Haiti and France, achieving clarity where complexities of class, color, and section have reduced others to vague confusion". Another reviewer, W. G. Seabrook, heralds James's work as "a public service for which he merits

10404-649: Was writing The Black Jacobins (1938). Western culture Western culture , also known as Western civilization , European civilization , Occidental culture , or Western society , refers to the diverse culture of the Western World . The term "Western" encompasses the social norms , ethical values , traditional customs , belief systems , political systems , artifacts and technologies primarily rooted in European and Mediterranean histories. A broad concept, "Western culture" does not relate to

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