God and Gold - A Review

Mead, Walter Russell. God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. 449 pages. Acknowledgments. Notes. Index. $27.95.

History is a word with a great many meanings. In its origins, it comes down to “story.” History is the stories we tell about our past. In that sense, I suppose, Beowulf is not only the oldest Anglo-Saxon poetry, it is also our oldest history. Of course, Beowulf is fictitious, a story out of legend. The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Bible, and many another collection of tales are likewise the stuff of myth and legend, and not to be construed as literally historical. I recall the distinction made in my college New Testament class between “historic” and “historical” (from the German historische and geschichtliche), that is, between events which seem to have had a profound effect on later societies, such as the Trojan War and the founding of Rome, and events which could be shown to have occurred.

Even when we are dealing with history (Geschichte) as narratives of actually verified events, there are big differences between chronicles and explanatory texts. I just posted a review of Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. That is a chronicle, a more or less chronological recounting of events, arranged in the traditional fashion of the passage of presidential administrations. Choice of Enemies, another book I read recently, starts in 1979 and runs, similarly, through the administrations of Carter, Reagan, 1 Bush, Clinton, and 2 Bush. Walter Russell Mead’s God and Gold, is in an entirely different category.

Mead is not merely setting out to recount a series of historical events; he intends to explain them. In particular, he notes that since the Dutch got into the global trading business in the 17th Century, the three great sea powers of the world, Holland, Britain, and America, have dominated economic, political, and social developments all over the Earth. It is not too much of an exaggeration to agree with Mead’s subtitle that this is the world made by those powers.

For one thing, in the past 400 years, since the days of Louis XIV, the British and Americans have won every war they’ve fought, except for the two occasions on which they fought one another. For another, Rotterdam, London, and New York have controlled and directed world finance over that same time span. In fact, most of the instruments of modern fiscal operations were invented in those financial centers. If a country wishes to participate in the world economy today, or (as may be the case) a country must engage in international trade, even against its wishes, it must do so according to the terms set by modern capitalism. For an example of the social influence of the maritime powers, I think it is only necessary to cite a story I was told of a professor at an Indian university who proudly displayed on the name placard on his door: “Failed Ph.D. Harvard.”

Mead starts the book with an account of some similarities among the experiences of England and America, between for example Cromwell and Reagan, and their many successes. But he also notes that both the English and the Americans keep expecting history to end. That is, they keep thinking that, having defeated the Spanish, or the French, or the Germans, or the Russians, they have reached the uplands of perfect peace, in which all the peoples of the world will live in perfect harmony, drinking Coca-Cola and acting like good Britons or Americans in all other ways. So far, history has not cooperated.

Mead sets out to answer “six key questions,” which are worth recounting in full.

· What is the distinctive political and cultural agenda that the Anglo-Americans bring to world politics?
· Why did the Anglo-Americans prevail in the military, economic, and political contests to shape the emerging world order?
· How were the Anglo-Americans able to put together the economic and military resources that enabled them to defeat their enemies and build a global order?
· Why have the Anglo-Americans so frequently believed that history is ending – that their power is bringing about a peaceful world?
· Why have they been wrong every time?
· What does Anglo-American power mean for the world?

These are interesting and, I think, very important questions. Mead makes a good effort to answer them with humor, with impressive scholarship, and with a nice eye for great little examples and metaphors to make his points. Even if you think, after reading this book, that Mead has gotten every answer wrong, he will have given you enough to think about to keep you busy for a long time. This is the kind of book that leads you to go read the books referred to, so that it might serve as the touchstone of a lifetime’s education. We have Lewis Carroll, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, John Milton, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Edward Gibbon, and many others brought in as witnesses before the bar of history.

The part of Mead’s exposition I found most interesting was the manner in which the Anglo-Americans adopted an Anglican approach to religion. Unlike the Lutherans and some other Protestants, the Anglo-Americans don’t subscribe to the idea that scripture should be, or can be, the sole authority to guide life and religion. After all, the best minds, reading the best manuscripts, disagree on the meaning of scripture. But, unlike the Catholics, the Anglican approach does not wholeheartedly embrace tradition. Bishop Newman tried to reconcile the Anglican church with tradition, and he ended up converting to Catholicism. And, despite the best efforts of such as Gibbon, Hume, and Jefferson, reason has never been able to run the table as a life-directing methodology.

So the Anglican approach is to balance the three sides of religious belief, and never go too far in one direction or another. Mead takes Bergson’s philosopy and Popper’s ideas about the open society, and carries them on to show how the open society allows for the rate of innovation that has made capitalism a success. In short, Mead brings to the table a full toolkit of philosophical, historical, political, and military analytic approaches to demonstrate that the last four hundred years of Anglo-American dominance was no accident, but the result of a complementary set of cultural attributes. His use of his tools is masterly. I can give no higher recommendation than to say that I plan to read this book again, and in the not-too-distant future.