On his book Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity
Cover Interview of March 04, 2020
In a nutshell
Escape from Rome offers an answer to a very big
question: Why has the world become modern instead of remaining stuck in the
agrarian age, when hunger, disease, illiteracy, and despotism were the norm? We
know that the transition to greater affluence, much better health, and vastly
expanded knowledge began in Western Europe. Yet the reasons behind this
take-off remain fiercely debated. Did Europeans come up with unique political
and economic institutions that favored transformative development? Did they
benefit from overseas trade, colonization, slavery and ruthless exploitation?
Did they find ways of fostering a culture of knowledge that opened up new
vistas, and did they embrace novel norms and values that liberated
entrepreneurs and eventually the masses?
I make the case that while all these factors contributed to
modernization, every single one of them was rooted in a single cause that has
not been properly recognized: the fact that ever since the fall of ancient
Rome, Europe housed many different states that were fought over by rival groups
from kings and aristocrats to priests and merchants. For 1,500 years, enduring
competition and pluralism shaped this environment in ways that encouraged
modern breakthroughs. This fragmentation caused a lot of suffering both within
Europe and around the world but also created the space that was required for sustained
innovation to take hold.
In other parts of the globe, by contrast, large empires
continued to rise and fall and rise again. This closed off comparable pathways
to modernity. Had the Roman Empire survived or been replaced by similarly
powerful entities, Europe would most likely have shared this fate. In that
sense, the collapse of Rome may well have been the best thing that ever
happened to humanity.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
Escape from Rome offers an answer to a very big question: Why has the world become modern instead of remaining stuck in the agrarian age, when hunger, disease, illiteracy, and despotism were the norm? We know that the transition to greater affluence, much better health, and vastly expanded knowledge began in Western Europe. Yet the reasons behind this take-off remain fiercely debated. Did Europeans come up with unique political and economic institutions that favored transformative development? Did they benefit from overseas trade, colonization, slavery and ruthless exploitation? Did they find ways of fostering a culture of knowledge that opened up new vistas, and did they embrace novel norms and values that liberated entrepreneurs and eventually the masses?
I make the case that while all these factors contributed to modernization, every single one of them was rooted in a single cause that has not been properly recognized: the fact that ever since the fall of ancient Rome, Europe housed many different states that were fought over by rival groups from kings and aristocrats to priests and merchants. For 1,500 years, enduring competition and pluralism shaped this environment in ways that encouraged modern breakthroughs. This fragmentation caused a lot of suffering both within Europe and around the world but also created the space that was required for sustained innovation to take hold.
In other parts of the globe, by contrast, large empires continued to rise and fall and rise again. This closed off comparable pathways to modernity. Had the Roman Empire survived or been replaced by similarly powerful entities, Europe would most likely have shared this fate. In that sense, the collapse of Rome may well have been the best thing that ever happened to humanity.