Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History

The Interrelations of Societies in History

Author(s): Marshall G. S. Hodgson
Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Jan., 1963), pp. 227-250
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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 THE INTERRELATIONSOF SOCIETIESIN HISTORY*

It has been long pointed out that the destinies of the various sections of
mankindbegan to be interrelatedlong before the twentiethcentury,with its
global wars and cold wars; or even the nineteenthcentury,the centuryof
Europeanworldhegemony. Here we will studycertainof the historicalways
in which these destinies were intertwined;in this way we may distinguish
morevalid modesof tracinglarge-scalehistoryand of comparingthe societies
involvedin it, froma numberof popularbut unsoundmodesof tryingto do so.
I shall speak mostly of the ages before moderntimes, noting only brieflyat
the end of the paper certain crucial ways in which modern interrelations
amonghumansocietieshave been differentfrom earlierones.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL WORLD-IMAGE OF THE WEST

It would be a significantstory in itself to trace how modernWesternershave

managedto preservesome of the most characteristicfeaturesof their ethno-
centricmedievalimageof the world.Recastin modem scientificand scholarly
language,the image is still with us; indeed, all sorts of scholarlyarguments
are used to bolsterit againstoccasionaldoubts. The point of any ethnocentric
world image is to divide the world into moieties, ourselvesand the others,
ourselvesformingthe more importantof the two. To be fully satisfying,such
an imageof the worldmustbe at once historicaland geographical.As in the
Chineseimageof the "MiddleKingdom"and the Islamicimageof the central
climes,so also in the Westernimage,most of this sleight-of-handis performed
throughappropriatehistoricalmanoeuvers.WesternEuropemay be admitted
to be smallgeographically,but all historyis made to focus there.
But we must begin with the map. A concernwith maps may seem trivial;
but it offers a paradigmof more fundamentalcases. For even in maps we
* This paper was delivered originally as a lecture at the downtown College of the
University of Chicago in a series on "The Idea of Mankind", sponsored by the Com-
mittee for the Study of Mankind. It contains a sketch of ideas which the writer hopes to
substantiate more fully; meanwhile, it constitutes an advance over the writer's "Hemi-
spheric Interregional History as an Approach to World History" in Cahiers d'histoire
mondiale, Vol. I (1954), pp. 715-723.

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228 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON

have found ways of expressingour feelings. We divide the world into what
we call "continents".In the easternhemisphere,wheremore than four-fifths
of mankindstilllive, these are still the samedivisionsas wereusedby Medieval
Westerners-Europe, Asia, and Africa. As we know, Europe west of the
Russias has about the same populationas historicalIndia, now India and
Pakistan;about the same geographical,linguistic,and culturaldiversity;and
about the same area. Why is Europe one of the continentsbut not India?
Not because of any geographicalfeatures,nor even because of any marked
culturalbreach at the limits we have chosen. The two sides of the Aegean
Sea have almostalwayshad practicallythe sameculture,andusuallythe same
languageor languagesand even the same government. Much the same is
true of the Black Sea and of the Ural Mountains.
Europe is still ranked as one of the "continents"because our cultural
ancestorslived there. By making it a "continent",we give it a rank dis-
proportionateto its naturalsize, as a subordinatepart of no largerunit, but
in itself one of the major componentparts of the world. Incidentally,we
thus also justify ourselvesin evaluatingit on a far more detailedscale than
other areas. I believe it was the New Yorkermagazinethat publishedthe
"New Yorker'smap of the United States",in which New York City, New
England,Florida,and the West appearedas roughlycomparablesubdivisions.
With our division of the world by continents,we allow ourselvesa similar
projectionof our own interests. Italy is a countryin the south of the "con-
tinent"Europe;India is a country(naturally"vast"and "mysterious")in the
south of the "continent"Asia.
The New Yorker map of the United States went on to reflect the New
Yorker'snotions in the very sizes the severalareas appearedto have on the
map. Our Mercatorworld maps have done much the same thing for our
Westernworldimage.Somesay the Mercatorworldmap is so popularbecause
it showsthe correctanglesessentialfor navigation(eventhoughits shapesare
almostas badlydistortedas its areas). But if you use a mapnot for navigating
but for placing and comparingat a glance different parts of the world,
shapesand areas are more importantthan angles. Moreover,areasare more
importantthan shapes, because they have cultural implications. What is
objectionableabout the Mercatorworldmap in fact is not that it distortsthe
shape of North America, nor even that it shows Greenlandso large-our
conceptionof Greenlandmakes little difference. Rather,it is that it shows
India so small, and Indonesia,and all Africa. (I call such a world map the
"Jim-Crowprojection"because it shows Europe as larger than Africa.)
The point is not, of course, simplythat we make Europebig or put it in
the upper center. Such mattersin themselvesmight be as irrelevantas the
fact thatwe put the primemeridianat Greenwich.Whatmattersis the peculiar
way our perceptionsget distortedby the map projection(as they are by no
primemeridian).The fortiethparallelnorthhas a curioussignificancefor our

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 INTERRELATIONS OF SOCIETIES 229
worldimage. Historically,almostall the greatcentersof civilizationhave lain
south of the fortiethparallel:all, that is, save Europe. Most of Europelies
north of that parallel. But it is preciselyat about the fortiethparellelthat
the Mercatorprojectionbegins to exaggerateareasunconscionably.In con-
sequence, that projectionand others like it show Europe on a far larger
scale than the MiddleEast, or India,or China. India does appearto the eye,
on that projection,as a "countryin Asia" on the order of, say Swedenin
Europe. And it is possibleto show on such a world map numerousdetails
in Europe,towns and riversthat are famous amongus, while India or Indo-
nesia, say, are quicklyfilled up with only the most essentialfeatures-which,
indeed,are all we have usuallyheardof.
No wonder, then, that despite all our awarenessthat Mercatordistorts,
and that many better projectionsare available,Mercatorremainsthe most
commonformof worldmap outsidegeographers'classrooms.It confirmsour
predispositions.It flattersour egos. If we decidewe must abandonMercator
becauseof its notoriety,we adopt a projectionwhich may reducethe size of
Greenland,but leaves India as diminutiveas ever, comparedto Europe;for
instance, Van der Grinten,used by the National GeographicSociety. Yet
what we reallywant is to face the world as it actuallyis, not as our Western
self-esteemwould like to pictureit. We may study our own Europein more
detail than other areas-on appropriateseparate pages of the atlas. But
whenwe look at the worldas a whole-when we look at mankindas a whole-
we want our own partsof it to fall into place so that we can see ourselvesin
true proportion. We need an equal-areaworld map for any purposesfor
which we need a world map at all.

THE HISTORICAL WORLD-IMAGE OF THE WEST

So much for our geographicalparadigm. An idea of world historyis much

less tangiblethan a map of the world. But muchthe samepointscan be made
aboutthe Westernimageof worldhistory. Here too the very termswe allow
ourselvesto use fosterdistortion.We aim to overcomeany parochialoutlook,
but so long as we do not radicallyoverhaulour historicalcategoriesand our
notions of the structureof the historicalworld, we find ourselvesdragged
back by older preconceptionsthe momentthe center of our attentionshifts
to other concerns.
We know how the traditionalstory runs:historybegan in the "East"-in
MesopotamiaandEgypt(butnot in Paradise,still furthereast, as the medieval
Westernershad said); the torch was then passed successivelyto Greece and
Rome and finally to the Christiansof northwesternEurope,where medieval
and modernlife developed. Duringthe MiddleAges, Islam temporarilywas
permitted to hold the torch of science, which properly belonged to the West,

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230 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON

until the West was readyto take it over and carryit forward. India, China,
and Japanalso had ancientcivilizationsbut wereisolatedfromthe mainstream
of historyand "contributed"still less to it (that is, to WesternEurope). In
moderntimes WesternEurope expandedover the rest of the world, so that
Islam and India and Chinahave ceased to be isolated,and have enteredthe
orbit of the ongoingWesternCivilization,now becominga worldcivilization.
In this story,thereare two key notions. Thereis a "mainstream" of history,
whichconsistsof our own directantecedents.This includesall West-European
history since it became civilized, of course; and, before that time, selected
periodsfrom areasto the southeast:Greekhistorytill the time of the Roman
empire(but not since-the Byzantinesdo not count as mainstream);and the
Near East till the rise of the Greeks,but not since. Note that this conception
of "mainstream"is not identifiablewith the history of lands of cultural
creativity,or times of intensityof historicalchange. The "mainstream"of
history, in the traditionalimage, runs throughnorthwesternEurope in the
DarkAges of the Merovingians-althougheveryoneknows:that the Byzantines
and the Muslims(and the Indiansand the Chinese)were far more civilized
then. The "mainstream"of history is simply our own closest historical
antecedents.
In fact, all the lands of the "mainstream"are sometimesidentifiedwith
the "West". ClassicalGreece is called "Western",thoughByzantineGreece
is often includedin the "East". This bringsus to the secondkey notionwhich
allowsus to constructa worldhistoryin whichour own culturalancestorshold
most of the attention. All the other civilizationsof the EasternHemisphere
are lumped togetherunder the heading "East","Orient". This concept in
historyis the equivalentof the concept "Asia"in geography. It enables us
to set up our West as conceptuallyequivalentto all the othercivilizedregions
taken together-the "East";just as the Europeanpeninsulais detachedfrom
the Eurasianlandmassand made equivalentto all the rest of that landmass
taken together-"Asia". Apartfrom Eurasiaand the northernpart of Africa
(the latter is, of course, includedin the "East",though Morocco is west of
Spain),the more distantpartsof the worldwere relativelysparselyinhabited
and for the most part not highly civilized;their historydoes not force itself
on our attention. Hence such a conceptionof Eurasiaallows us to erect a
classic ethnocentricdichotomyin the main part of the world-ourselves and
the others, Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Barbarians,"West"and "East".
Since by definitionthe "mainstream" of historyruns throughthe "West",by
the same definitionthe "East"is isolatedand static;hence the West, already
appearingas one half of mankind,is made the more importanthalf also.
One of the most curiousfeaturesof this modernWesternethnocentrismhas
been its superimposition on all the otherethnocentrismsof the world,generally
compounding the confusion.Muslimsor Hindushavetendedto acceptmodern
Western conceptions as indiscriminatelyscientific; they have commonly

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 INTERRELATIONS OF SOCIETIES 231

accepted their geographicaland historical terms from the West, and the
implicationsthat follow from them. Sometimes the Western conceptions
prove convenient, as when an Egyptian, identifyinghimself as "oriental",
claims spiritualsuperiorityto the West on the groundthat Jesus, Buddha,
and Confuciuswere all also "Orientals";
or, acceptingthe Westernconception
of "Africa"as a continent,finds an excellent excuse, as an "African",to
meddlein Sub-Saharanpolitics withoutlookingimperialistic.Sometimesthe
Westernconceptionsprove less convenient. I found displayedon the wall
of an ardentMuslimin a governmentoffice in Cairo a map of the Muslim
world, showinghow widespreadis Islam. But the map was a French one,
drawn on the Mercatorprojection,and consequentlydrasticallyminimized
the area of Islam as comparedwith Europe. The official was so used to the
Mercatorprojectionthat he had not noticedthis case of what mightbe called
official imperialism.
Now just as the Mercatorprojectionhas been criticized so much that
everyoneis awarethat it distorts,so the Westernhistoricalworld image has
been criticized;most of us are uneasily aware that "the East" is more im-
portantthan we had thought. But just as most people think of Greenland
as the best example of Mercator'sdistortion,failing to see just where the
distortionis most misleading,and why certainrelatedprojectionsare just as
bad, so it is rare for one to see the full implicationsof the distortionsin the
Westernpictureof worldhistory,and to judgesoundlyof the variousattempts
to improveon them. Jim-Crowworld maps continueto be the usual maps
in newspapers,magazines,and generalbooks; and few protest. Similarly,one
or anothermodificationof the Westernworld-historicalimage still underlies
most discussionsof mankind.This is true,unfortunately,even on the scholarly
level, for some of the presentationsof worldhistorythat try hardestto escape
the traditionalpattern still show its distortiveinfluence.

THE CONTINUITY AMONG THE REGIONS OF THE EURASIAN HISTORICAL

COMPLEX IN PRE-MODERN TIMES

I mustlimitmyselfhereto discussingthe majorcivilizedregionsof the Eastern

Hemisphere. The overwhelmingmajority of mankind-until the last two
centuries-lived withinthe regionI am including. It was in a zone of Afro-
Eurasianlands extendingfrom Atlantic to Pacific, but chiefly north of the
equator,that most of those societieswere to be found, before moderntimes,
which had the developedagriculturaland urbanlife which carriedwith them
density of population. It is becoming conventionalto articulatethis Afro-
Eurasianzone of civilizationinto four main nuclearregions,which we may
call Europe, the Middle East, India, and the Far East of China and Japan.
Such a divisionmakesa good deal of sense from about 1000 BC on, at least,

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232 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON

down to about 1800 of our era. Each of these regionspresentsa considerable

continuityover some three thousandyears of culturaldevelopment. More
precisely, in each of these regions there was a core-areawith reasonably
persistenttraditions,fromwhichculturalinfluenceshave radiatedmoreor less
continuouslyinto a wide surroundingregion.
We must place these areas with greaterprecision,as we will have much
to say of them. The core-areaof whatmay be calledEuropewas the northern
shoresof the Mediterranean, fromAnatoliato Italy especially.It had a Greek
(and, later, Greco-Latin)culturewhichpervadedincreasinglythe landsto the
north; but the Mediterraneanlands remainedeconomicallyand culturally
dominantover the more northernones, on the whole, from the time of the
Minoansto the end of the MiddleAges. The core of the MiddleEast was the
Fertile Crescent and the Iranian Plateau, to which lands north and south
from CentralEurasiato Yemen and East Africa looked for culturalleader-
ship, as did increasinglyeven Egypt, despiteits distinctroots in its own past,
and NorthAfrica, and eventuallyall the Sudan. The greatculturallanguages
of the Middle East were of the Semitic and Iranianfamilies; though the
particularSemitic and Iranianlanguageschanged, much culturallore was
carriedover fromone periodto the next. In the vast domainof Indictradition
east and south from the Hindu-Kushrange, the Indus and Ganges valleys
formeda somewhatsimilarcore; there the Sanskritand Pali languagesdevel-
oped, whichbecameclassicalas far awayas Cambodiaand Java. Finally,the
Hoang-Hoand Yangtzevalleysin China formeda fourthcreativecore-area,
from which culturalinfluencesspreadto an ever-increasingdistancein all
directions,within a constantlyexpandingChina and beyondit to such lands
as Japanand Vietnam.
Westernscholars,at least since the nineteenthcentury,have tried to find
ways of seeingthis Afro-Eurasianzone of civilizationas composedof distinct
historicalworlds,whichcan be fully understoodin themselves,apartfromall
others. Their motivesfor this have been complex,but one convenientresult
of such a divisionwould be to leave Europe, or even WesternEurope, an
independentdivision of the whole world, with a history that need not be
integratedwith that of the rest of mankind save on the terms posed by
Europeanhistoryitself. But such attempts,if pressedconsistently,leave us
with a false notionof bothworldhistoryand even Europeanhistory. For even
amongthe four greatnuclearregions,the cleavageswere not decisiveenough
to sustainsuch an interpretation.A brief surveyof some of the moreobvious
cleavageswill enable us to assess their significance.
If one tried to groupthese greatculturalregionsso as to dividethe whole
of the Afro-Eurasianhistoricalcomplexinto two portions(whichis not often
seriouslyattempted),the least useful divisionwould be one in which Europe
formedone portion,the "West",and the otherthreeformeda secondportion,
the "East";for the cleavagebetween Europe and its nearestneighborswas

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 INTERRELATIONS OF SOCIETIES 233

unusuallyslight. The lands north of the Mediterraneanwere always very

closely linked with those of the Fertile Crescentand Iran. I have listed the
Anatolian peninsula(the western half of the present TurkishRepublic) as
part of Europe, since it was one of the chief formativecenters of Greek
culture,and has alwayssharedthe fortunesof the Balkanpeninsula;but it is
commonlylisted as part of the MiddleEast, and not entirelywithoutreason.
The MediterraneanBasin formed a historical whole not only under the
Roman Empirebut before and since; even at the height of the MiddleAges
a land like Sicily broughttogethercreativelyGreek,Arab, and Latin. Greek
thoughtbecame an integralelement in the Middle Eastern tradition,while
Middle Easternreligionhad a centralplace in Europeanlife.
A somewhatsharperdivisionexistedbetweenEuropeand the MiddleEast
on the one hand and the Indic lands on the other. Greeksand Arabs, Latins
and Persians,have had much the same reactionto India, in medievaltimes,
findingit alien to a degreethey have not found each otheralien. The Hindu-
kush and the Baluchistandesert formed a more serious barrierthan the
Taurus. Yet even so the constantthrivingtrade between the Middle East
and Indiawas reflectedin importantculturalexchanges,whichreinforcedthe
fact of a partly common background. For, long before the coming of the
Indo-Europeansassureda commonoriginto the languagesandmythsof India,
Iran, and Greece, the Indus Valley civilizationhad been closely linked with
that of Mesopotamia.
The greatestbreachin continuitywas betweenChinaon the one hand and
the Indian, Middle Eastern, and Mediterraneanlands on the other. The
Himalayasweremoreeffectiveeven thanthe Hindu-kush.Until modem times,
direct contact was usually limited to mercantileexpeditions. Alexanderin-
vaded both Greece and the Punjab;the Turk, Timur,campaignedin Russia
and on the Gangeticplain; but though Timur dreamedof China, he could
scarcelyhave reachedit. Yet the Mongolarmiesat one point masteredmuch
of Chinaand at the same time won victoriesin Germany,in Iran, and on the
Indus. As we know, Buddhism,originatingin India, colored deeply the life
of Chinaand Japan;while numerousimportantinventions,amongthem gun-
powder,the compass,paper, and printing,apparentlycame at varioustimes
from Chinato the MiddleEast and so to India and Europe.
As Eurasianhistory is studied, it becomes clear that these interrelations
were not purelyexternal,accidentalculturalborrowingsandinfluencesamong
independentsocieties. They reflect sequencesof events and culturalpatterns
shadinginto each other on all culturallevels. The four nuclearregions are
imperfecthistoricalabstractions.All regionsformedtogethera single great
historicalcomplexof culturaldevelopments.
Till moder times, the four core-areaswere the most creativecenters;but
therewere alwayslesser creativecentersbeyondthem, such as Tibet;and the
core-areasthemselvescannotalwaysbe takenas units. Very earlythe cultural

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234 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON

traditionsof the westernand easternMediterranean regionsbeganto be distin-

guished, till finally Greek and Latin, Orthodox and Catholic, developed
relativelyindependently of each other. Iran and CentralEurasiaoften seem to
have had theirown historyapartfromthe FertileCrescentandEgypt.Northern
and southernIndia presenteda majorcontrastto each other. Finally, there
is no point wherethe sort of differencesthat existedbetweenthe greatregions
could be decisively distinguishedfrom the sort of differencesthat existed
between particularnations. Yet all our modern serious attemptsat under-
standingworld history are based on the assumptionof a series of distinct
societies,distinctcultureworlds,each with its own innerunity and with only
externalrelationsto the others. Universalizingefforts,such as that of Ranke,
are only seemingexceptions,based on optical illusionswhich made Europe
seem the world, and all other regions isolated and parochial.
As we considerthe originsof the greatcivilizations,it will becomeevident
both why it is impossibleto draw any sharplines within the Afro-Eurasian
historicalcomplex, and why none the less historiansconstantlytry to draw
such sharplines. As we know, literateculturearose very nearlyat the same
time, but in different(thoughusuallyurban)forms, in the Indus, the Tigris-
Euphrates,and the Nile valleysand probablysomewhatlaterin the Hoang-ho
and other less independentplaces such as Crete. This processseems to have
had a common, interdependentdevelopmentat least from the Indus to the
Aegean;that is, in the areaswhichbecamethe subsequentcores of the Indian,
Middle Eastern, and Europeantraditions. Some sort of Neolithic life had
been widespreadfor some time; when once it crystallizedinto urban,literate
forms in one place, it did so in many; and then rapidlyspread over wide
regions. It was only when developingcivilizationhad come to a certainpoint
-at about the same time in the main centers of the Afro-Eurasianzone-
that the great regionaltraditionscan come to be distinguished.They grew
out of a relativebreakdownof the local culturaltraditionsin a more cos-
mopolitansetting,into which many local strainshad intermingled,from the
Aegeanto the Indusvalley. The distinctionamongthe differentgreatregions
was secondary,and based largelyon accidentsnot only of geographybut of
history, even from the start.
This point is supportedby the fact that in the marginalareas, such as
CentralEurasia,whereinfluencesfrom the severalcore-areasoverlapped,the
culturecannotbe reducedto a mixtureof those of the main culturalregions.
Commonly,all areas had their own traditionsreachingback into Neolithic
times, and formingdirectlyan integralpart of the broaderEurasiancultural
whole. The French have emphasizedthis in the case of ancient Gaul; it is
equallytrue of Malaysiaor of CentralEurasia. In the Oxus-Jaxartesvalleys,
no doubt Semitic-Iranianinfluenceshad the greatestsway of any from out-
side; the writingsystemscame from the Fertile Crescent,for instance. For
long periods,again,the Oxus-Jaxartesregionwas linkedwith northernIndia

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 INTERRELATIONS OF SOCIETIES 235
both politically and to a large degree in religion, literature,and the arts.
Buddhismflourishedthere (it was from there that it came most readilyto
China). Chineseinfluence was strong recurrently,not only when the area
was underChinesepoliticaldomination.Even Hellenismflourishedtherefor
a period. Yet the historyof the Oxus-Jaxartesbasin possessesits own con-
tinuityover time; it cannotbe read simplyas a functionof the historyof the
severalgreat culturalregions. Moreover,the historicalcontext in which its
historymakessensecan be nothingless thanthe wholeEurasiancivilizedzone.

THE PLACE OF SUPRA-NATIONAL SOCIETIES IN THE AFRO-EURASIAN

COMPLEX

Hence the more sophisticatedhave tried to make not permanentregionsas

such, but supra-nationalsocieties, defined purely historicallyand so limited
in time as well as space, the desiredindependenthistoricalworlds. It is in
this sense that the phrase, "the Westernworld",has meaning,if it has any
seriousmeaningat all. This attempthas its own limitations. Such societies
are conceived as held together by some element of conscious solidarity,
perhapsthroughspiritualpresuppositionsor throughcreativestyle. They are
distinct "worlds"in the sense of realms of communicationon the highest
culturallevel. Spengler'sis the most famous of the many attemptsat distin-
guishingsuch societies. Toynbee made a ratherhalf-heartedattemptto do
the same, with his doctrineof separate"intelligiblefields";but the weightof
his materialforced him to go beyondthe usual limits, and in effect he aban-
dons the attempt. If we examineToynbee'swork more closely we find that
his alleged "intelligiblefields" are not really independentintelligiblefields,
nor even the most importantintelligiblefields of his own historicalstudy.
In the end what is most importantin this system comes to be the develop-
ment of the religions,and he shows the religionsdevelopingright acrossthe
lines of his nineteen civilizations,which he began by supposingto be in-
dependentlyintelligiblefields. In the end most of his work makesno sense
except in terms of one large intelligible field-the whole Afro-Eurasian
historicalcomplex, in which the several generationsof his "societies"are
variously related to each other.
This is necessarily so; for important as the various supra-national societies
were as frameworks of historical life, they overlapped each other, and even
so they did not exhaustthe field amongthem. They were superimposedon a
continuumof historicallife which recognizedno insuperablegeographical
boundaryanywherebetween the two oceans. Commerciallife, the patterns
of urbanand ruralrelations,andthe spreadof technology,particularly
military
technology, commonly evolved in relative disregardof the boundariesof
religiousor literarytraditions;such matterswere often determinedmore by

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236 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON

local conditionson the one hand and by the general culturallevel of the
civilizedzone on the other.
When historiansspeak of civilizationsor societies, in such connections,
they are usually referringprimarilyto certain limited, if very important,
aspects of civilized life. Normally,before moderntimes, a given area was
indeed associated,at any given time, much more closely with some neigh-
boring areas than with others. These associationshave been of three main
types, political,literary,and religious. The politicalassociationshave usually
been relativelytransient,and only rarelycome into considerationhere except
as reinforcedby literaryand religiousassociations.
In the earlydaysof civilization,each languageareaseemsto havedeveloped
with relativeautonomyfrom every other; but fairly early certainlanguages
came to be recognizedas unusuallyrichin culturalvalues,andwerecultivated
as culturallanguageseven by peoples which did not use them as the ver-
nacular. Thus Sumerianand Babyloniancame to be classicallanguagesfor
the FertileCrescentandto some degreefor Iran;all the peopleswhoseliterate
elite paid some degreeof deferenceto that classicaltraditionformedin some
sense a single civilization. They possessedcommon terms of referenceand
common standards,and sometimes the recognitionof a classical literary
traditioncarriedwith it varying degrees of common legal forms, common
politicalideals, commonartisticpatterns. This becameespeciallytrue by the
end of the first millenniumBC, when local culturaltraditionswithinthe main
geographicalregionshad been largely submerged.
But by the MiddleAges, the rise of the religionsof salvationhad established
bonds which were as strong as, or even strongerthan, those of literary
tradition;such bonds sometimescut right acrossthe lines of literaryassocia-
tion. -In the regionsfrom Europeto India, religiousaffiliationbecamemore
importantthan literary,and peoples came to be linked togetheras Christian
or Zoroastrianor Buddhist, rather than as using Greek or Cuneiformor
Sanskrit. In Chinaand the Far East, religiousaffiliationwas eventuallyout-
balancedby liyliteraryaffiliation,and Chinesesociety was ruled in the end in
the name of the Confucianclassicsratherthan of Buddhistor Taoist faith.
In any case, on the "highcultural"level most educatedmen foundthemselves
associatedwith a given letteredtradition,"literary"or religious,normallyto
the exclusionof any others.
The importanceof such groupingsfor the developmentof humanlife can
hardlybe overestimated,particularlyfor that of the ideal and the imaginative
life, religion,art, belles-lettres,and even law and politicaland social institu-
tions. To some degreeeven the life of the peasantwas mouldedby the ideals
set forth in the letteredtraditioncultivatedby the educatedelite of his area.
But it is not because of any implicationsfor peasant life, but because of
literaryand philologicalimplications,that historianshave concentratedatten-
ti6non them. They are indeedthe centralconcernof a humanistichistorian.

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 INTERRELATIONS OF SOCIETIES 237
But in the course of giving them almost exclusiveattention,many historians
have misinterpretedthem;they have absolutizedthese letteredtraditionsinto
"historicalworlds"to an illegitimatedegree.
Such societies were never closed wholes; there were always fields of
activity, even importantfields, that were but superficiallymoulded by the
centraltraditionin question. As in the case of the geographicalregions on
whichthey were often based,therewere alwaysterritorieswheretwo or more
traditionscompeted,and actual life, even on the high culturallevel, was a
synthesisof diverse elements. These were not anomalies,as our theorists
have tendedto countthem.Indeed,differentsortsof letteredtraditionmingled
in differentdegreesin given societies. Thus it is possibleto regardByzantine
life on the one hand as a continuationof the ancient Greek cultureand on
the other hand as part of a Christiancomplex, wider in area, but more
restrictedin time. Revealingly,there existed lesser letteredtraditionsof the
same basic sort, which had less extensiveeffects, but cut across other lines.
Thus the society formed by the Platonic-Aristotelianphilosophers,clinging
to a particularstrand of the Greek literary tradition,cut across the lines
formed by Christianity,Islam and Judaism;these philosopherslived lives
largelymouldedby their commonphilosopicalheritage,and often had more
in commonwith each otherthanwith any of theirrespectivereligiousgroups.
More tenuous, but perhaps even more important,was the interregional
traditionof natural science, originatingin Babylonianand Greek writing,
takenup in Sanskritand later in Arabic,and transmittedstill laterto Chinese
and Latin-a vigoroustraditionof wide implications,whichcut acrossall the
main culturallines of the Afro-Eurasianzone.
Islam was the community which succeeded perhaps most strongly in
buildingfor itself a total society, demarcatedsharplyfrom all culturebefore
and beyondits limits. Thoughit appearedrelativelylate in Eurasianhistory,
as the religionsgo, it developedits own systemof comprehensivelaw-where
the Christiancommunitiestook over pagan Roman law. It createdits own
classicalliteratures,with only a limitedreminiscenceof earlierMiddleEastern
traditions. Social organization,economic patterns,the arts, all carried an
unmistakableIslamiccoloring. Moreover,thoughthe Islamicsocietywas far
the most widespreadamong its contemporarymedievalsocieties,yet an un-
usually strong social solidarityprevailedamong Muslims,from Morocco to
Java and from Kazanto Zanzibar.
Yet even so, on investigation,it is clear that Islam as a letteredtradition
cannotbe treatedas a distincthistoricalworld, an exclusiveintelligiblefield.
The Middle-Easternoriginsof the Islamic society are relativelyobscure;we
know too little aboutlife in the FertileCrescentand Iran in the immediately
precedingcenturies. But it seemslikely thatone centralphenomenonof early
Islin had gotten well under way in the last generationsof Sasani rule: the
centeringof power in urbanmercantilecommunities,under the lead of an

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238 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON-

absolute monarch who could override and break down the locally rooted
power of the landed nobility and gentry. The rise of the late Sasani sects
and that of the classicalMuslimsects both seem to be closely relatedto this
situation. We are learningthat we cannotreallymake out whatwas goingon
in earlyIslamicpoliticaland religiouslife withouta muchfullerunderstanding
of the Sas&nilife which precededit. Moreover,the orthodoxfaith of Islam
itself,as it was createdin the courseof the firsttwo or threeMuslimcenturies,
cannot be understoodsimply as a fulfilmentof the vision of Muhammad;
that vision could have been fulfilled in innumerableother ways, or indeed
(aS might have seemed most likely) reducedto a merely political ideology,
to wither away as the Arab ruling class became assimilated. The being of
Islammustbe explainedin termsof the aspirationsof SyrianChristianmonks
and MesopotamianJewish zealots-aspirations which gave to early Muslim
converts their very notion of what a religion ought to be, and which they
fulfilledin an unprecedentedway.
When later the Islamic society expanded over half the Afro-Eurasian
civilized zone, the persistingregional configurationof that zone reasserted
itself despite all Muslim solidarity. By the sixteenthcentury, at the latest,
Islamin easternEurope,Islam in the MiddleEast proper,and Islamin India
were clearly pursuingtheir separatepaths. Alreadywhen Babur,founderof
the Mogul empire,enteredIndia, he seems to have found the local Muslims
as alien to him as their Hindu friends;and despite the continuedrelianceof
his descendantson Middle Eastern and Central Eurasian personnel, and
despite a strong puritanicalforce within Indian Islam which rejected its
Indian-nessand eventuallywon over the Mogul emperorhimself, Islamic
society in India under the Moguls increasinglydevelopedits own Indian
institutionalframeworkand cultural patterns, and formed a relativelyin-
dependent society. East-EuropeanIslam, under the Ottoman empire in
Anatolia and the Balkans,evolvedin a like direction. The Ottomanempire,
like the Mogul, reversedin its own area the long-standingtrend of Islam
toward decentralizationand towardreductionof the social role of political
authority;it builtup enduringcentralinstitutions,religious,legal,andpolitical,
thoughtquite differentones from those of the Moguls.But the heartof Otto-
man life remainedits Europeancenter-the formerlyGreeklandsof Anatolia
and the Balkans. The Arab areas south of the Taurusremainedonly half-
subdueddominions,sharingrelativelylittle in the creativesides of Ottoman
life; 'Iraq,at least, tied its sympathiesto the thirdgreatMuslimempireof the
time, the Safaviempireof Iran.
Indeed, not only in these three empires,expressingthe traditionsof the
three core-areasof previousmillenniums,but throughoutthe Afro-Eurasian
zone, Islam was a microcosmof interregionalcivilization,containingwithin
its society all the types of relationshipswhich had formerlybeen carriedon
as betweenthe severalregionsinto whichit had spread. In Malaysia,Isl&m

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 INTERRELATIONS OF SOCIETIES 239
had powerfuleffects;it overlaythe earlierIndictraditionswiththe hemisphere-
wide Muslimallegiance,and replacedthe earlierIndic-typeliteraryinspiration
with a new inspirationexpressedin a new alphabet,if not a new tongue.
Yet even in their new faith, the Malaysianswere inspiredlargelyby Indian
Islam as they had been by IndianHinduism;and theirnew literarytraditions,
so far as these did breakwith the old (whichwas not entirely),derivedalso
from the mixtureof Persianand Arabicheritagewhich prevailedin southern
India. More important,Islam in Malaysia(sometimesa bit to the scandal
of orthodox Muslims there and elsewhere), rarely took on, before quite
moderntimes, the rigorousseveritywhich from time to time purgedIslamic
life in its more central regions; Islam for Malaysia was a new and more
universalmysticism,and was taught as such by the heirs of the Indic gurus.
In fact, Islam for Malaysiawas the naturalconsequenceof its positionin the
Afro-Eurasianzone as a whole. Malaysialay at the crossroadsof the Southern
Seas. Its higherculturallife, fromthe time when civilizationfirst came there,
was ultimatelyadoptedfrom the life of its ports. Yet these on the one hand
remainedsomewhatapartfrom the life of the interior-never deeply rooted
in local traditions,and on the other hand naturallyremainedopen to the
broad currentsof culture from throughoutthe SouthernSeas. When the
dominantcultureof merchantsin those waters was Hindu or Buddhist,the
portcitiesbecameHinduandBuddhist,and eventuallythe hinterlandfollowed
them. As interregionaltrade graduallyincreasedin volume and range, the
MiddleEasternports came to have a more pivotalrole in the tradeof all the
SouthernSeas; it was then the Middle Eastern culture which increasingly
prevailedin the ports of those seas-especially in Malaysia. By the later
MiddleAges this meantIslam. But the fundamentalpatternof Malaysianlife
persisted;and it can be understoodonly in the context of the Afro-Eurasian
civilizedzone as a whole.
It has become clear that historicallife, from early times at least till two
or three centuries ago, was continuous across the Afro-Eurasianzone of
civilization;that zone was ultimatelyindivisible. The various regions had
their own traditions;important social bodies arose, sometimes within a
regionalframework,sometimescutting across regionallife, which moulded
much of the culturallife of their constituents. But all these lesser historical
wholeswereimperfectwholes.Theywere secondarygroupings.Local civilized
life could go on withoutfull participationin any of them; some of the most
creativeof historicalactivities,such as that of naturalscience,cut rightacross
their boundaries. The whole of the Afro-Eurasianzone is the only context
large enough to provide a frameworkfor answeringthe more general and
more basic historicalquestionsthat can arise.

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240 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON

THE AFRO-EURASIAN COMPLEX AS A CONTEXT OF INTERREGIONAL

CHANGE

At the sametime it will have becomeincreasinglyclearthatthe Afro-Eurasian

civilizedzone was not a statichistoricalcontext. It had its own characteristics
as a set of interrelations.The several civilized regions formed a persistent
historical configuration,in which each region had its typical place, its
repeatedlytypicalrelationshipsto the others.This interregionalconfiguration,
then, even while maintainingits key characteristics,constantlychangedas to
the detailedmannerof its interrelationships.The civilized zone as a whole
had its own history.
Throughoutthe millennia, resources of informationand technique ac-
cumulatedin each regionand sooneror later found theirway throughoutthe
Afro-Eurasianzone. The sourcesof wealth availablefor interregionaltrade
constantlyincreasedas new areas were drawnin. Such cumulativegrowth
meant that possibilitiesopen to later generationswere markedlydifferent
from those open to earlierones. This accumulationwas especiallyimportant
in the case of the techniqueof travel and of warfare. The inventionof the
horse-chariotchanged,in the immediateevent, the relationshipof people to
people; more importantly,it seems to have changedthe nature of distance
itself, and launchedthe first empires. A like result came from the advent
of the armed and mountedhorseman,in whose presence-and notably in
CentralEurasia-distance shrank still further. Related to these changes,
of course,was the rise of nomadicherdingas an ever dangerouscomplement
and challengeto agriculture.A constantlymore effectiveuse of gunpowder
broughtfurtherdecisive changes in warfarewhich men had to adapt to in
most Afro-Eurasianregions within centuries after its primitivebeginnings
in China, and which almost everywhereseem to have had effects on the
concentrationof politicalpower. Therewas a gradualimprovementof ship-
buildingand of marinechartingin both majorsectionsof the Afro-Eurasian
chain of seas which led from the northwestAtlantic and the Mediterranean
throughthe Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. The inventionof the
compassin China and its dramaticuse in WesternEurope for ocean travel
formed only the most strikingof the changesin navigation. Not merely in
war and commerce,but in everyfield the constantpiling up of changespetty
in themselvesbroadenedthe rangeof culturalactivity,and so the numberof
points at which variousculturescould be importantto each other: Chinese
art fashionscould not have been so importantto Persianand Indianpainters
as they were, had there not been the discoveryof numeroussubtlepigments
and of the techniqueof book illumination,to say nothingof paper itself.
Even in the realmof the mind,interregionalconditionsalteredsignificantly.
Certainlythe technicalinventionof paper in China and its transmissionto
the other regions had importantintellectualresults. Less "technical"was

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 INTERRELATIONS OF SOCIETIES 241
the invention of the monastic life-of an order of men detached from normal
social connections, eminently mobile, and yet specialized in the highest intel-
lectual or spiritual discoveries of their society. Such men made perfect long-
range missionaries; when the Afro-Eurasian zone came to be permeated with
them, there could arise a level of interregional contact never possible when
the chief agents of intercultural contact were tired businessmen. Buddhism,
Christianity, and Manicheanism all took full advantage of this mobility of
their religious specialists. But perhaps more important than the invention of
monasticism-though not unrelated to it-was the general development of
large-scale systems of personal orientation, the historic religions, which with
or without monks had an almost universal tendency to proselytize. Particularly
in the case of Islam, at last, such religion transcended the purely personal
level and carried with it direct social initiative, moving toward the establish-
ment of a total society on an unprecedented, hemisphere-wide basis.
One sort of cumulative trend, to which most of the tendencies already
mentioned contributed, was of singular importance: the continuous expansion
of the Afro-Eurasian zone as a whole; that is, of the area in which urban-
dominated civilization was able to spread its commercial and political domina-
tion. Of special importance in this process were innovations such as the
invention of the mould-board plow in northern Europe or the adaptation of
the camel to the Sahara. These helped to expand the area of effective agri-
cultural exploitation or of major commercial intercourse, and not only helped
to change the internal balance of population and economic power within a
given region but eventually changed the role of particular regions in the
Afro-Eurasian configuration as a whole. Many at least minor adaptations
in agricultural technique had to be made wherever agriculture and cities were
to find new terrain; and these were in fact repeatedly made.
Both through such inventions and in many other ways that led to expansion,
all the regions contributed to the continuous extension of civilization, and
this expansion became a basic determinant in the fate of them all by shaping
the sort of world they were to exist in. Sheer size of the interconnected zone
was important in itself, determining the availability of total human resources
at any given time; but still more important was the multiplying of the historical
components in Afro-Eurasian development; for one thing, the variety in the
regions contributing to it. The historical significance of the unbroken chain
of trade that passed through the Afro-Eurasian chain of seas from Atlantic to
Pacific was very different in different times according to the area of urbaniza-
tion achieved. Access to the sea routes had a higher value, for instance, when
Malaysia had become itself an active commercial area, and not a mere way
station. The significance of the Central Eurasian steppe changed likewise.
The constant expansion not only brought in new peoples, widening the scope
of Afro-Eurasian commerce, but by altering the proportion of the urbanized
area to the rest of the hemisphere, it changed the position of the remaining

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242 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON

more distantpeoplesvis-a-visthe civilizations.In particularthis was the case

with the CentralEurasiannomads and other unsettledpeoples, increasingly
limitedin theirrange(thoughthis fluctuated)and in theirindependencefrom
urban influences. Owen Lattimore, in the Inner Asian Frontiers of China,
has indicatedhow parallelwere the nomadicand the agriculturalevolutions,
and how in time the latter impinged ever more on the former. Thus in
numberlessways the culturaland economicpossibilitiesin each era depended
on the extension of the Afro-Eurasiancivilized zone in the whole eastern
hemisphere. The whole of that expansionhad effects greater than any of
its parts.

OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE AFRO-EURASIAN ZONE

The changeseffectedin the interregionalconfigurationof historicalrelation-

ships in these variousways not only were large;they interlocked. Since the
elements of the configurationwere interdependent,any given changeswere
likely to lead to new ones, and the total course of all these changesforms a
single story. In the sketchthat follows we can see some of the main lines of
that story, and its most importantturningpoints. These are mattersof the
developmentof interregionalrelations,and so not necessarilythe mainevents
of humanhistoryas such, but in fact the developmentof the Afro-Eurasian
interregionalconfigurationinvolved directly some of the most significant
aspectsof the historyof its variousregions;hence the sketchis ratherlike a
brief world history. At any rate, it is closer to a true world historythan is
the traditionalhistoricalworld image of the West, with which it may be
mentallycompared.
Very earlythe expansionof the area of civilizationtook on a fundamental
importance. The early isolatedriver-valleycivilizations,islands in a sea of
barbarians,were in touch with each other at best through tenuous long-
distance trading;yet if it is true that one importantfeature they had in
commonwas certainprocessesof workingmetals, and if in the very search
for those rare metals their traders and rulers forced an expansion of the
civilizedpatternsinto theirhinterlands,then it is this requirementcommonto
them all that led in turn to a new conditionwhich determinedthe fate of
them all. For in time this came to depend on the fate of larger regionsof
civilization. Only in such regions was the cosmopolitanismof the Amama
age possible, such as prevailedat least in the Middle East, when diverse
literate nations found themselves for the first time neighbors. Thus one
large-scalesituationled to developmentswhich produceda new large-scale
situation. But even the largerregionsof the Amara age were still surrounded
by yet larger areas scarcely touched by urban culture. From these wider
regions, borne by the improved military horsemanshipdeveloped in the
presenceof and in responseto the civilizationsthemselves,came the several

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 INTERRELATIONS OF SOCIETIES 243
waves of greatinvasions,especiallyat the end of the secondmillenniumB.C.
These invasions, largely led by Indo-Europeans,could almost swamp and
eventuallytransformthe developedregions of the Middle East, of northern
India, and possibly also of northernChina. So ended the period of the
bronze-agecultures,withtheirrecondite,basicallypictographicscripts-though
the alreadytypicalrelativeisolationof Chinamay have permittedthe survival
of such a script there.
A world of Greeks, Hebrews,Persians,Indo-Aryans,and Chou Chinese
emergedfromthose invasionsin the first millenniumB.C. Among these there
prevaileda new historicalclimate, that of the iron age-in which the zone
of civilizationexpandedto hemisphericdimensions,and some of the main
constant elements of the Afro-Eurasianinterregionalconfigurationwere
alreadyvisible. Despite the distancesinvolved, there was alreadyclearlya
degree of communityof destiny,though whetherit was more by parallelism
of separate developmentsor by active interrelationamong regions is not
alwaysclear at this early period. Interregionaltrade was beginningto make
use of coinage, almost simultaneouslyin Europe and in China though in-
dependentlyas to detail; and from the Mediterraneanto India there was a
new, alphabetic-and so relativelyaccessible-type of writing,whichgradual-
ly prevailedas the remnantsof the old local valley traditionsdisappeared.
We now come to an age everywheregreat,and at the same time important
for the changes it wrought in the Afro-Eurasianhistorical configuration.
Everywherethe secularexpansionwas continuing-the more rapidlyperhaps
for the seeminginterruptionof the great invasions. Urbancontrol spreadin
the Mediterranean westward;in Iranand CentralEurasia;in Indiasouthward;
in China. The sheer spatial vision of a MacedonianAlexander,fightingin
the Punjab,eagerto sail down the Ganges,and tryingto graspwith his mind
the Afro-Eurasianzone as a geographicallyrealizablewhole, witnessesto a
breadthof horizonsimpossiblea thousandyears before;a breadthwhich left
its mark in what followed-that is, in the great classical philosophicalout-
burstsfrom Thalesand Isaiahto Mencius. For as has often been pointedout,
in the latter half of the first millenniumB.C. we have unparalleledcreative
floweringsin all the four greatAfro-Eurasiancore-areas.
Indeed,the core-areaswere in some measureconstitutedpreciselyby these
flowerings. It is over againstboth the areawhichultimatelyaccepteda Greek
tradition,and that which ultimatelyaccepteda Sanskrittradition,as formu-
lated in this period,thatthe MiddleEast set itself off by clingingto contrasting
ideals. The intellectuallife of this time remainedever after classical for
Europe and China. Even for India it was of more significancethan might
appear on the surface;for this was the age of philosophypar excellence
behind the India of Shankara. For the Middle East, this was the age of
prophecy-Iranian and Hebrew-which created norms contrastingsharply
with those of more ancientletteredtraditions,and were presupposedin the

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244 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON

laterworkof Muhammadandhis followersin reconstructing the MiddleEast.

Jaspershas with reason called this the "Axial Age". It was an age which
differentiatedcultures,but it also led to a deeper interregionalinterchange.
Whatevermay have been the initialrole of interconnectionsin the intellectual
atmosphereof the time in fosteringthese simultaneouswonders,they resulted
in the presenceeverywhereof selectiveintellectualstandardswhichpermitted
interculturalinfluencesto proceed on the level of abstractthought-a fact
above all importantfor the course of science.
The worldwas at any rate now readyfor the pervasivespreadof Hellenism
-aspects of whichtraveledfrom the Atlantic to the Ganges,with repercus-
sions also in the Far East. Then Hellenismitself-perhaps even in India,
where the imperialimpulse came from the northwest-helped to make the
world ready also for the age of the great regionalempires,that of Rome in
the Mediterranean,of the Mauryasand their successorsin India,of the Han
in China. For these empiresreflectedin some degree,all of them (even that
of the HellenophileParthians,the most obscure of them), the work of the
classical sages, Stoic or Buddhistor Confucian,in human integration. The
relatively stable and wide-spreadorder brought about by this handful of
empiresin turnaffectedinterregionalrelations.The Romanssoon complained
of the loss of gold to distantIndia. This was surely a symptomof a wider
movementof the same sort as Hellenism. As the direct force of Hellenism
receded,what may be called Indicism,in variedforms, spreadequallywidely
-in the Far South East, in the Middle East (especiallyIran and Central
Eurasia),in Chinaitself; and it had repercussionseven in Europe. Indicism
involvedno spectacularconquestssuch as that of Alexander,but it is possible
that its effectswent deeperin a widerarea. But the most importantresultof
the empires was, as the early Christiansthemselvessaw in the case of the
RomanEmpire,that each of themclearedthe way for one, or morethan one,
of the great universalreligions. The most prominentfact about the inter-
regionalas aboutthe regionalaspectsof the followingperiodwas the towering
positionof the religions.
For meanwhile,in the wake of the sages had arisen (out of more local
antecedents)the greatuniversalreligions,with their scriptures,theirexclusive
moraland cosmologicalcreeds,theirhope for the ordinaryindividualbeyond
death, and their demandfor his personalcommitmentnow.
These appearednow either in the form of faiths like Christianityand
MahayanaBuddhism,createdin this mould from their inception,or of old
faithsmadeover like RabbinicalJudaismand(apparently)the HinduShaivism
and Vaishnavism.From the cities as centers,everywherethey movedout to
prevailover the population;early in the first millenniumCE, throughoutthe
Afro-Eurasianzone one or another of them achieved political power and
attemptedto gain an exclusiverecognitionfor itself. They left practicallyno
gaps, though there were some areas where none was fully successfulin its

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 INTERRELATIONS OF SOCIETIES 245

rivalryagainstthe others;amongthem, they practicallystampedout the old

paganismsor else subordinatedthem to the new spirit. Simultaneouslywith
the drive of the religionsfor power arose-with or without the inspiration
of the almostuniversallypresentIndianinfluences,the ascetic and monastic
tendencieswhichcame to dominateone aspectof Afro-Eurasianlife for more
then a thousandyears. With the advent of the universalreligions,region
was linked with region as fellow-worshippers believed one creed across the
most distantfrontiers;but at the sametime barrierswereraisedbetweenmany
regions as the new orthodoxies,on a higher level than any more primitive
ones, developedtheir own self-containedintolerance,with which they tried
to dominatethe life of one region or another.
In the courseof all this-and partlyas a fruitof the activityof the empires
-whole provinceswere being openedup to the latestformsof urbanlife, for
instanceGaul or Szechuan;hence by the time of Attila the urban-dominated
areasof GreaterEurasiahad come to presenta solid belt of territoriesacross
the hemisphereequivalentin mass to the remainingareasto the north. The
new invasions(nomadicor simplybarbarous)mightovercomeoutlyingareas
like WesternEurope or even the speciallyexposed north of China,but they
no longeroverwhelmedthe whole of the continuingculturaland commercial
nexus. Till the beginningof fully moderntimes therewas no generalbreach
in the literatetraditionssuch as that which so sharplyreducedthe role of the
bronze-agecultures. This was, to be sure, only in part the result of sheer
size; in part it was a matter of wider participationin the higher traditions
withinthe severalregions-a resultto whichboth the structuresof commerce
and the characterof the religions had contributed. Indeed, the religions
undertooka new sort of cultural offensive in their missionaryactivities-
particularlythose of Christianity,Judaism,Manicheanism,and Buddhism,
but also Hinduism-which extended beyond the old centers to marginal
areas such as northernEurope, Central Eurasia, the Far South East, or
northeastAfrica.
There prevailedin the middle of the first millenniumCE a radicallydif-
ferent temperfrom that of the age in which Hellenismhad spread. Every-
wherenow the idea of a universalreligionas commandingthe allegianceof a
populationwas taken for granted. It was into this culturalsettingthat Islam
erupted,claimingto be the culminationof universalreligion,andimmediately
transformingthe balanceof politicalpowerin the Mediterranean,the Indian
Ocean, and the Eurasiansteppe, where it set bounds to Chineseinfluence.
It createda powerfulsocial and spiritualideal which within not many cen-
turiesbeganto penetrateinto almosteverypartof the hemisphere,and which
presented,to a greateror lesser degree, a permanentculturaland political
challengeto each of the great civilizationswhich it did not actuallyabsorb.
For centuriesthe regionalimagination,in both India and Europe,was domi-
nated by the Muslimperil and given its unity by it. The unifyingeffect of

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246 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON

Islamin the MiddleEast itself soon had far-reachingresults. Islamicscholars

gatheredup the scatteredscientifictraditionsof GreeceandIranandIndi,aand,
fusingthem, spreadthem from Chinato WesternEurope.Islamicmerchants
carriedwidely some technologicaldiscoveriesof China, most notablypaper.
At the same time that Islamwas thus changinginterregionalconditions,other
Afro-Eurasiandevelopmentsgave Islam itself new directions. New regions,
such as the Far South East, were being more fully developed;there Islam
made rapidheadway,so outflankingthe older centers. Islam promiseditself,
not withoutreason,that it would soon be absorbingthe whole world.
Duringthese centuriesof the appearanceand the later expansionof Islam,
therewas takingplace at least the usualcumulativeimprovementin technique,
notably in military and even financial techniques;the range of commerce
expanded,as in sub-SaharanAfrica, which now effectivelyenteredthe Afro-
Eurasianarena of civilizationwith the advent above all of the camel in the
Sahara;or as in the far north-west(wherea subarcticlink to North America
aborted). The diversestrainsof learningwere being integratedin scholastic-
type synthesesof the old philosophicaltraditionswith the dominantreligions,
from Shankara,who in ninth-centuryIndia finally disposedphilosophically
of Buddhism,to Chu Hsi and Aquinasin the thirteenthcentury. Practically
as widespreadas scholasticismwas a markedinstitutionalcultivationof love-
mysticism(in the form of bhakhtiin Hinduism,Sifism in Islam, and the
mysticaltraditionsin easternand western Christianity)-a mysticismwhich
was often associatedwith the rise of numerousvernacularlanguagesalongside
the handfulof classicalones datingchiefly from the Axial Age.
Here again it is hard to know to what extent the paralleldevelopmentsin
learningand religionwerepurelyparallelisms,resultingfrom a commonset of
historicalproblemswithout much actualinteractionin any form. Certainly
to a degreeit was simplythat commonproblemswere being met, and some-
timesthey were answereddifferently-thus, in contrastto all otherregions,in
China in this period there was a clear decline of the universal religions,
Buddhismand Taoism, to the profit of what was essentiallya philosophical
systemof the "Axialage",Confucianism.Nevertheless,by this time the inter-
actionsamongregions-as a resultof Islam,or of the Mongols,or of scientific
or artisticborrowing,and the like-were so frequent,and involvedeven the
isolatedChinaand the distantWesternEuropeso freely, that these develop-
ments cannotbe fully disengagedfrom each other. Whethermerelyparallel
growthsfrom the past, or the fruit of a contemporaryclimateof needs, they
formed the inescapablecontext of interregionalcontacts, which commonly
assumeda religiousguise.
In the midstof this periodoccurredan eventwhichwasunusuallyconducive
to bringingall culturesof the Afro-Eurasianzone together on a common
level. The variegatedrichnessof the urbanculturaltraditionswas matched
by their tendencynow to dominateincreasinglyeven the remoterpartsof the

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 INTERRELATIONS OF SOCIETIES 247
Afro-Eurasianland mass. Muslims,Chinese,and, later, Russianscontinued
to converge in their Central-Eurasianexpansion,so that by the thirteenth
centurya tribe in remote Mongoliamight find itself crampedby the over-
weeningdemandsand the overwhelmingprestigeof the urbanpowers. The
young ChingizKhan, at the farthestedge of the steppe, was outraged,it is
said, by imperialagents. Once it was the river-valleycivilizationsthat were
surrounded;later, in Han-Romantimes, the civilizationswere merelyequiv-
alent in combinedmass to the barbarianranges on their margins,and able
to absorbtheir attacks. But now it was the turn of the barbarians,of the
nomads, to feel themselves surrounded. Their desperatelast massed fury
underChingizKhan perhapsreflects the advance of urbanismas much as
does theirunprecedenteduse of urbanskills in all their regionalforms. This
unexpectedproductof the joint efforts of the Afro-Eurasianpeoples in turn
devastatedthe greater part of the Afro-Eurasianzone, and permanently
deflectedits culturalandpoliticalhistory.
But the Mongols'fury,underthe interregionalcircumstances,only speeded
the day when the urbantraditionwould penetratefar into the greaterpart of
CentralEurasia,the nomads themselvesturningBuddhistand Muslim and
becoming increasinglyabject in subjectionto imperially oriented khans.
Despite what seems to have been an Afro-Eurasianzone-widedepressionof
urbanprosperityin the fourteenthcentury-under the Yuan, underthe later
Delhi Sultanate,in the MiddleEast that failed to repairports and irrigation
canals,in the slowedgrowthof West-Europeantowns;despitethe vast inter-
regionalsweep of the Black Death (with its uncalculatedeffects on the con-
tinuity of culturein marginalareas like North Africa, and generallyon the
interregionalbalance of power), the economic stage was being set for the
world-wideexploitationof the "richesof the East"by upstartsof the far West.
The rangeof commerciallydevelopedareashad come to cover the largerpart
of the hemisphere,and the techniquesof travel and trade, as well as the
varietiesof luxury and of specializeduse, were innumerable.The far West
had been stimulatedby religiously-inspired wars in the Middle East, but
insulatedfrom most of the Mongol torrent(in contrastto the time of Attila)
by newly urbanizedterritoriesin easternEurope.
We have been seeing that the Afro-Eurasianhistoricalcomplex was not
merelya frameworkfor mutualborrowingsand influencesamongorganically
independentcivilizations;it was a positivefactorwith its own properdevelop-
ment. This is visible even in the diffusionof inventions.At this point, after
the Mongol turmoil,the most recent Chinese inventionsevidentlyfound a
faster diffusionthan ever; their historicaleffects are not however reducible
to sheer diffusion,but reflectedthe complex pattern then attainedby the
interregionalconfiguration.They had very differenteffects as developedin
differentareas. Notable among these inventionswere gunpowderweapons,
the sea compass,and printing(includingmost recentlymoveableprint). Some

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248 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON

of these might have been independentlyinvented in Europe or elsewhere,

inspiredby a common backgroundwon throughthe then relativelydirect
traderelations;all of them could well have been inspiredfrom the Far East
by "stimulusdiffusion"(thatis, by suggestionthroughmeregeneralawareness
that they existed), or even have been direct importsfrom the Far East. In
any case, all of themcame to be known,and most of themto be used in some
degree,almosteverywherein the maincentersat aboutthe sametime. Every-
where (save in Chinaitself) the rise of gunpowderseems then to have passed
graduallyfrom its first use as a minorauxiliary"fire-works" weapon,to more
efficientand at last decisiveuses. But these uses differedin differentareas,
accordingto regionalsocial conditionsand accordingto the position of the
regionin the widercontext,and so had stronglydiverseconsequences.These
inventionshelpedsendthe freshOccidentout into the oceans,mostimportant-
ly, at first (becauseof the patternof interregionaltrade),the Indian Ocean.
Yet a similargunpowderartilleryseems to have helpedcreate,likewiseat the
start of the sixteenthcentury,the three great Muslim land empires (Otto-
man, Safavi,and Mogul)which,all threebeingorientedawayfromthe Indian
Ocean, failed to regain control of the long-distancetrade in that ocean for
Muslimsafter it had been lost to the first rush of Occidentals.

WESTERN EUROPE AS AN AFRO-EURASIAN FRONTIER

As we have come to realize, within this vast historicalcomplex, Western

Europe played a peripheraland till well into the Middle Ages a backward
role. The Carthaginiansand Etruscanswere remarkablepeoples, but they
added few basic improvementsto the culturalpatternswhich came to them
from the easternMediterranean.The samewas true of the Romans. Though
they won political supremacyover the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean,
on the northwesternfringeof whichtheircity was located,they alwaysthem-
selves looked to the east for culturalguidance. Even their most treasured
creation,the Roman law, was rathera Mediterraneancreationthan an Italic
one, thoughits languagewas for a long time Latin. Only in the High Middle
Ages did WesternEuropeansbegin truly to rise to the creativelevel of the
core-areasof civilization. At the start of the Crusadesthey were still crude
and ignorantas comparedwith eitherGreeksor Arabsin fields like medicine
and chemicaltechnology;they were not up to the "Greekfire" of the Arabs;
by the end of the Crusadesthe Latinshad for the first time becomemore or
less theirequals.
The famed Westwardmarchof empire,as we have seen, dissolvesinto a
general expansionof civilizationin all directionsof the compass. Western
Europewas a frontierregionratherin the same sense as the Sudanor Malay-
sia, though it began to develop urban,literatecultureearlierthan either of

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 INTERRELATIONS OF SOCIETIES 249
those areas. It sharedwith them a dependentrelationto the older cultural
centers. As in those areas,the flow of culturallearningwas quite one-sided
-from China,India, the Middle East, and (above all) the easternMediter-
raneanto the Occident,with little going in the oppositedirection. For a long
time this was reflectedeven in interregionaltrade. The Occident,like other
frontier areas to the south or the east, had primarilynatural resources,
includingslaves, to offer, ratherthan perfectedfinishedgoods. Accordingly,
local Occidentalevents-the ups and downsof local urbanizationandlearning
-were of relativelylittle importanceto the world at large. MedievalIslamic
writerswere stronglyaware of Byzantiumand India and China,but except
at moments and places of direct contact had little more interestin the far
Occident than in Tibet or East Africa. The main features of the Afro-
Eurasianhistoricalcontext, the "mainstream"if there was one, were little
affectedby events in such far corners.
Perhaps the Occident had advantages in its frontier position, somewhat
similarto those whichKoreaand Japanseemto have had in roughlythe same
period,beingequallyremovedfromthe mainlines of interregionalintercourse.
In virgin soil, as it were, the Occidentalswere able to develop independent
culturalvariantsupon olderthemes,relativelyundisturbedby the culturaland
militaryturmoilwhichoften prevailedfromthe Aegeanto Bengal. Moreover,
till the later Middle Ages the West Europeansalways had attractivespace
beyond the currentlimits of civilizationin which to expand their sphere of
activity (somethingwhich was largelydenied to the Japanese). The clew to
much of the Occident'scharactermay lie in its long being a frontierregion.
In any case, comparisonsbetweenthe Occidentand otherperipheralregions,
whichstood in otherrelationsto the core cultureareas,mightbe morefruitful
than between the Occident and those centers themselves;for instance, as
regardsthe relationbetween local creativityand receptivityto outside in-
fluences.
Whenwe look at humanhistoricallife as a whole, it will not do simplyto
give more attentionto "Eastern"societies-either for theirown interestor as
influencingor contributingto Europe.We mustlearnto recognizethe Occident
as one of a numberof societiesinvolvedin widerhistoricalprocessesto some
degree transcendingor even independentof any given society. Though the
Occidentwas relativelyisolated, the effect even on the Occidentof its in-
volvementin thesewiderprocessescannotbe reducedto the sum of influences
or borrowingsfrom this or that other society. It cannotbe reducedeven to
more general effects, positive and negative, resulting from the powerful
presenceof its neighborsto the southor east. Throughthem,the widerinter-
regional pattern ultimately sets limits at any given time to what alternatives
were open to the Occidentor any other society within it. The expansionof
the area of civilization, the accumulation of technique, the steady rise in the
level of social power everywhere, as well as many more particular sequences

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250 MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON

of events, took the forms they did and had the effects they did on an inter-
regional basis. The evolution of Western Europe depended, in some of its
first presuppositions, on the course of development of the Afro-Eurasian
historical life as a whole.1
MARSHALL G. S. HODGSON
The University of Chicago

1 What has been said so far has serious implications for the way in which we must
view the relation of Modernity to the older Occidental culture. I have developed some
of these implications in an article to appear in the Journal of the Central Institute of
Islamic Research (Karachi). Briefly, the most popular views of world Modernization
have seen it either as a shift from essentially unchanging tradition into repetition, at an
altered pace, of Modern Western sequences (cf. J. M. Romein, "The Common Human
Pattern", in Cahiers d'histoire mondiale, Vol. IV, 1958); or as an expansion of the
historical Occidental society which may be either adopted in various degrees or resisted
by other societies. Both views are inadequate. They must be supplemented by under-
standing Modernity as the outcome of the breakdownof the common historicalconditions
on which rested the pre-ModernAfro-Eurasianhistorical complex as a whole. A degree
of deliberate innovation was always present in the Afro-Eurasian civilized societies as
compared with tribal societies; even major florescences such as those of classical Greece
or classical Islam, which sometimes led to serious changes in the historical configuration,
could be consistent with its continuity. The Renaissance and the early Occidental
expansion in the oceans, in fact, did not in themselves escape the presuppositionsof the
pre-modern historical pattern in any crucial way. In the sixteenth century the level of
social and cultural power of the several Afro-Eurasian civilizations was still essentially
on a common level (everywhere far higher than so many millennia earlier). Between
1600 and 1800, developmentswithin the Occident finally destroyed these common histor-
ical presuppositions;but as soon as they were fully destroyed for the Occident itself
(that is, by the generation of 1800), they were effectively destroyed for all the other
civilized societies also, as a result of the already existing solidarity of Afro-Eurasian
history. Since 1800 the results of that event in most other societies have been very
different from those in the Occident, but equally "modern" in an important sense.
Modernity is not to be compared with the spread of Hellenism, nor to be reduced to
the stages of internal Occidental experience. Though its initiation within the Occident
has certain crucial consequences, Modernity is simply "Western"neither in its origins,
nor in its impact as a world event, nor even as an expression of regional cultural con-
tinuity; above all, not in the nature of the cultural problems it raises for us all.

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