Paths of Civilization: Understanding the Currents of History, The

Journal of Third World Studies, Spring 2008 by Isaac, Tseggai

Krejci, Jaroslav. The Paths of Civilization: Understanding the Currents of History. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan Press, 2004. 281 pp.

Scholars continue to grapple with the meaning of civilization. In many cases, the difficulties encountered in articulating the meaning of civilization are made even more challenging when the methodology is a cross-hybrid of different disciplines. Multidisciplinary approaches may add richness to analytical tasks, but they can also compromise the mission by creating forests of half-developed methodological approaches obscuring operationalization of the topical concept at hand. The Paths of Civilization shares similar problem of failing to balance conceptual clarification with methodological utilization. In this case, eclecticism, with respect to methodology, sells short the vast details so painstakingly put together covering all the major civilizations.

The Paths of Civilization is rich in details. The prose is elegant and masterful. The book is divided into three parts. Part I containing 7 chapters is the theoretical basis for the analytical task. These chapters trace the theoretical dilemma scholars are bound to encounter as they select their "angle of observation" for me study of civilizations. Contextual and positional environment of the concept of civilization must be analyzed. Contextual analysis would pay attention to culture and history while positional analysis would address geographical elements. This is not an easy task. The author notes that where the observer of a phenomenon stands, in this case, the evolution of civilizations, determines the body of work the researcher plans to develop. "The choice of focus is influenced either by the angle of empirical observation or by one's theoretical starting point, which may involve taking an a priori ontological or epistemological position" (p. 3). Methodologies that the author marshals to define "the paths of civilization" include history, sociology, economics, political science, and anthropology.

Early in the first chapter, the author reflects on past studies undertaken by A. J. Toynbee, Max Weber, and Karl Marx. Toynbee's approach is dismissed on the basis of inconsistency, lack coherence and lack of appeal to European scholarship. Toynbee's 12-volume work can be "appreciated as a source of interesting insights and juxtapositions rather than a coherent view of history" (p. 5). Marx's appeal to Marxists was an inspiration to his followers, but their failure to capitalize on Marx's structural focus while dwelling on his polemics has reduced Marx's universal appeal. Krejci grabs on the failure of Marx's disciples to fully develop his own ideas along structural analysis. Marx had left a legacy of looking at history from "socio-economic insights." Marx's structural elements rather than his "global categories" need to be extended to cover the structure of power as a definitional tool for the attributes of civilizations.

Chapter 4 "Spatio-temporal outlines of civilizations" lays the groundwork for analyzing civilizations in the Levant (Egypt and the Middle East), South Asia, East Asia, Europe, America and Africa. The dynamics of social formation (chapter 5) viewed from Marxian, Spencerian, and Weberian perspectives brings the spatio-temporal and social formation together as germane components of the path of civilization. Chapter 6 discusses structures and ideas based largely on Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrian prophesies. Chapter 7 covers the geopolitical formation as regards tribes, dynastic states, city states, nations, nation-states and international organizations. "In the style of this book, the states and their historical precursors as well as the territorial derivatives, such as colonies or dependent territories, may be described as geopolitical formation" (p. 37). Civilizations start at the lowest level of human organization and evolve into global influence at the international level. These chapters represent the theoretical base for the author's panoramic approach to th regional civilizations mentioned above.

Parts II and III are descriptive analysis of the substantive part of the book. The antiquity of each civilization is explained fully and then related to the theoretical groundwork set forth in Part I. What becomes apparent from careful study of the book is that the author possesses unsurpassed mastery and encyclopedic knowledge of global civilizations even to their lowest common denominator of primitive tribal life in remote Africa or Asia. The depths and breadth of the pedagogy is short-sold by abrupt transitions from one topic to the next.

Reading the book one cannot help but surmise that it is perhaps an outline of a multivolume work that the author is working on, but now being introduced as a bell-weather until a fully developed work is heralded. The richness of details summarized in short chapters and the frequent use of provisional punctuations, particularly the parenthesis, indicate a work in progress rather than one that is completed. Chapters 1 through 7 cover 37 pages only. Chapters 8 through 13 cover the empirical analysis of book expertly detailed and developed. Chapter 14-16 are concluding "observations" covering only 25 pages.