Anthoy Pagden tries to explain modern hostilities looking at old Persian wars

Andy Cruz
    Author Anthony Pagden examines the two thousand year old epic battle between East vs West in human history that continues to the present day. Spanning the Greek-Persian wars to the current conflict with the Islamic world the author in his book called" worlds At War" sees these worlds conflict through contradictory values through the ages against one another. Through various wars against Asian representatives and the powers of Greece and Rome the reader learns that this long pivot for power has shaped the region of the Mediterranean  today. The causes of all these conflicts though cannot be similar and the author often points out the importance of individual rights as the key factor.

 Europe has long held a civilizing attitude against their near Eastern foes and this book deals exclusivity between the Near East and Europe as Pagden dwells on the battles and conflicts of various empires and countries. The superiority feeling of both regions to their neighboring empires and need to check them is a theme of this book but in history you can find more examples of Asian minor empires battling each other and of course Europeans battling each other being more prevalent than an East-West divide. Pagden tries to explain todays conflicts through examining history which really doesn't offer and intangible clue to the modern mistrust and hatred of the two regions. Romans and Ottomans both ruled over empires not made up of their own citizens and usually cam in contact with neighbors only to expand frontiers or keep them in check. European colonialism became possible because of the weakness of constant warfare in the near easy whether it be from the Persian-Arab divide or the Hindu-Islam divide in Europe and Pagden could write similar books on this that could as well be five hundred pages. No where does he mention the numerous Ottomon-Persian battles but instead focuses on the crusades and so forth.

The definition of what constituted a European or "Asian" is often ambiguous as the author points out when considering how Russia was thought of and given retrospect through the centuries being thought as an oriental despotism into a one of a European monarch in a span of a century or two, This work by Pagden also is pointless when one contradicts the French Napoleonic  reasoning to spread their revolution invading Egypt and that their objections then put it more out of touch with most European monarchs as with the Near East. Why Pagden seems to view history in a East West divide instead mostly on Islamic non-Islamic divide in this book or French/English one is not known as the Greeks and Roman battles with Eastern empires have no real relevancy with modern divisions of the same lands. This book is too long and makes no sense and just is another history book of past facts and events.