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Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: AudiobookHub Recommendation
Chapter 2: — The Question Behind the Statues
Chapter 3: — Origins as Identity: Why Western Civilisation Exists
Chapter 4: — Herodotus and the Rejection of Purity
Chapter 5: — Livilla and Rome’s Asian Ancestry
Chapter 6: — Al‑Kindī and the Baghdad Inheritance
Chapter 7: — Godfrey of Viterbo and the Trojan Europe
Chapter 8: — Theodore Laskaris and the Fractured Christendom
Chapter 9: — The Renaissance Splices Greece and Rome
Chapter 10: — From Myth to Weapon: Knowledge, Empire, Race, and the Modern West
Description
The West: A New History argues that “Western Civilisation” is not a neutral description of a timeless cultural lineage but a constructed narrative—one that has been repeatedly invented, revised, and weaponized. Rather than telling a traditional “rise of the West,” Naoíse Mac Sweeney traces how the story about the West was formed: from ancient debates over identity and purity, through medieval rival claims to antiquity, to Enlightenment-era knowledge systems, empire, race, and modern geopolitics.
To keep the argument grounded, the book follows fourteen historical figures—from Herodotus and the Roman imperial family to al-Kindī in Baghdad, a Byzantine emperor in exile, a Renaissance courtesan-philosopher, an Ottoman power broker, an Angolan queen, an American revolutionary, an enslaved poet, and modern critics and rivals such as Edward Said and Carrie Lam. Each life reveals how “the West” was redefined to fit changing political needs, and why the old story no longer matches historical evidence or contemporary values.
Who Should Listen
- Listeners who want a clear, critical history of how the idea of “the West” was made (and why it matters now).
- Students and general readers interested in origins, identity politics, empire, race, and the politics of classical antiquity.
- Anyone looking for a global, evidence-based alternative to the simplistic “Greece-to-NATO” story of Western Civilisation.