Literature

A history book like no other (review)

In this unique book, Five Epochs of Civilization, William McGaughey adopts a radical style that portrays world history in an entirely new light. Due to the conservative nature of history writing, most history books are a mere rehash of earlier works. But this is not the usual run-of-the-mill book of history. While keeping to the basic historical tradition, stating the facts as they are, the author tries to weigh and interpret the facts against the various factors by which history takes its form. This book is a brilliant attempt to present in a most comprehensive and lucid manner the entire structure of human history in both space and time. And the author's peculiar approach makes it a successful attempt.

Rather than the traditional method in which topics are arranged and treated on geographical, political or anthropological basis, his approach is largely time oriented, following global changes in societal values and structures chronologically. And within this framework, he plots his themes and subject-matters based on what he considers to be the most distinctive periods in the evolution of human civilization. In fact, the identification and critical analysis of these turning points of world history is the main b urden of this book.

The book is divided into three parts with each part consisting of three to four chapters which are further broken into sub-headings. The introductory pages (i.e., pages xiii to xxii) give the summary of the book's contents; a general description of what the book is all about an an outline of individual chapters.

The first chapter is more or less a polemic on the historical epochs. The author identifies what, in his view, are the most important periods in world history. And with convincing arguments, he divides world civilization into five epochs and entitled them numerically; Civilization I to Civilization V. According to him, Civilization I began from 3000 B.C. and focused more on government based on military might, culiminating in large empires such as those of Egypt and China. Civilization II lasted between 550 B.C. and 1450 A.D., focusing on religion and culminating into the three world religions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Commerce and education was the main focus of Civilization III which spanned from 1450 A.D. to 1920 A.D. And from 1920 A.D. to 1990, Civilization IV held sway, with emphasis on the media of news and entertainment. Civilization V is largely speculative as it focuses on the future; the Internet and beyond.

McGaughey, however, recognizes the fact tht civilization, which is a gradual process by which human society becomes organized or developed through some advancement in human endeavour, cannot be divided so sharply along time limits. Hence, he explains in page 438 that it is a mistake 'to suppose that historical epochs suddenly begin or end on particular dates and the cultural scenery abruptly changes.' Rather, he said, 'the beginning of those new periods are marked by the addition of something (new).' The dates are therefore only approximations, aimed at splitting the humbled mishmash of human experience into discernable components.

Part Two discusses civilizations I to IV in detail. And Part Three highlights the cultural technologies which are the main shaping force of civilizations. In the first two chapters of this part, the author argues that the introduction of new technology usually marks the beginning of a new epoch. He identifies communication technologies as the major force in this regard; each form of technological breakthrough marking the beginning of each of the five civilizations. They include ideographic writing, alphabetic writing, printing, electronic communications and computer networks, spanning from 3100 B.C. to date.

The author discusses the cultural technologies as they affect social values, describing the process of societal development as a system of increasingly complex and pluralistic institutions. And in the subsequent chapters, he identifies changing beliefs and models of personality in the successive civilizations. In these chapters, he expatiates on the epochal values which he earlier enumerated in Chapter Three, Part One (page 94) titled 'Personality and Belief'. According to him, the values systems of each of the four epochs of civilization were predicated upon the principles of, 'It is good to be powerful and great', "It is good to be good', 'It is good to be educated and rich', 'It is good to be famous', respectively. What the epochal value of the fifth civilization will be is still a subject of speculation and debate. And the author does quite a lot of that in the last two chapters titled 'Using History to Predict the Future' and 'Intimations of a Fifth Civilization.'

The dominant cultural technology of the fifth civilization is obviously the computer. Hence, the author's arguments revolve round the advantages and disadvantages of this new technology. On the positive side, the technology will introduce a new communication order (as it is already doing) in which the process of commerce and education would not only be made easy but be greatly enhanced. And on the negative side, the computer will give rise to the development of more sophisticated weapons of destruction and, as man will likely be more clever than intelligent, thinking more or less like computer, the weapons will be prone to impulsive application.

The fifth civilization will indeed take humanity through dangerous realms of experience. And, as the author puts it, 'One cannot now predict whether this civilization will mark the final phase of human existence or being a further progression toward what will become a sixth and then seventh or eight epoch of world history.' In any case, he adds, 'World history will not end unless humanity ends.' (p. 503)

Five Epochs of Civilization is a masterpiece. McGaughey, who has previously published four books on social and economic topics, is not a professional historian. But, ironically, this seeming shortcoming turns out to be a plus to the production of this book. It apparently makes him feel free to bend the rules in order to make the work accessible and comprehensible to the average reader. He simplifies some of the technical terms to everyday expressions. And while the texts are in simple language, the illustrations are neatly laid out.

Also, knowing that he was threading through another man's field, as it were, he was thorough in his research. Evidently, he availed himself of the modern communication technology in gathering the relevant materials for the publication. The book is so comprehensive that it is capable of satisfying every reader, whatever his area of interest in history.

One of the most outstanding qualities of this book is its objectivity. The facts are true and the arguments are free of prejudice. The author discusses every place, people and belief as if he belongs to each and every one of them. The only deficiency, however, is his failure to discuss Africa as much as it deserves. A book as exhaustive as this ought to have a full page or two highlighting some facts about slavery and the colonisation of Africa by Europe. This aspect of world history is very important because it was a major factor in the emergence of the awakening which industrialised Europe at the expense of the third world countries. It is not enough to acknowledge the fact that the human race originated from Africa (as the author does on page 141), the reasons why this root of human civilization was, and is still, being held down by the force of history needs to be accounted for. This aspect is quite central to the present world political and economic order and it will determine the collective future of all human race in definitive terms, and should have therefore been treated as such.

Any way, since this book evidently aspeires to transcent ethnocentric bias and present a true world history, this omission could be regarded as an oversight that could be rectified in a subsequent edeition. Another area that needs to be corrected is the pagination of the illustrative tables. They are arranged on the table of contents with no page numbers indicated. It makes it difficult to skim the relevant pages of illustration.

On the whole, McGaughey's Five Epochs of Civilization is an excellent job, an epoch-making phenomenon in the art of history writing. It combs through the entire human history and brings out the essential configurations of the remote past, the complex present and the unknown but predictable future, which give world history its true name and meaning. The book is a databank for researchers and a reading pleasure for history scholars and the general readers. And it could be obtained directly from the publishers: Thistlerose Publications, 1702 Glenwood Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55405, USA."

(c) By Sumaila I. Umaisha, published in the New Nigerian of January 13, 2001.

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