The debate among Europeanists about "the rise of the West" has assumed many guises over the years. In his new book, Michael Mitterauer offers a decidedly long-range view. He directs scholarly attention back to the early Middle Ages, tracing Europe's sonderweg or "special path" to social, political, religious and economic developments that occurred during the Carolingian era. The thesis is, by the author's own estimation, speculative and provocative. It elicited considerable debate in the German academy when the book was first published in 2003.
Like many before him, Mitterauer takes his starting point from Max Weber. He draws in particular on Weber's Collected Essays on the Sociology of Religion and the statement therein that the "special development of the Occident" owed to "a concatenation of circumstance." Mitterauer stresses the importance this "concatenation," a series of factors, against those who, misreading Weber, have posited mono-causal explanations for Europe's rise. Mitterauer singles out for particular contempt the scholarly emphasis on western capitalism. It is perhaps with this in mind that Mitterauer does not include in his book a chapter specifically devoted to economy. Instead he deals with the subject in various places in other chapters.
Mitterauer is keenly aware of the scope and magnitude of his endeavor and takes great pains throughout the book to make clear to the reader that his choice of topics--any choice of topics--is necessarily limited. He nevertheless emphasizes the interconnected nature of his choices, which bear on multiple issues at the same time. Mitterauer compares western developments with those in the East, drawing on a range of examples, most typically taken from Islam and China. There are also comparisons made with Byzantium and North Korea.
Mitterauer divides the book into seven chapters. Each is dense with information and collectively demonstrate the impressive erudition of the author. Mitterauer begins (chapter 1) in the fields between the Seine and Rhine rivers, with the "agricultural revolution of the early Middle Ages." Europe's "special path" was initiated by the introduction of rye and oats into the Carolingian heartland, two grain species whose hardiness increased food supply in Northern Europe. Mitterauer follows with examination of the manor and family, two key social/economic forms that marked Europe's distinctiveness. Mitterauer's discussion of family (chapter 3) includes consideration of Christianity, which plays an important role in the remaining chapters. Mitterauer argues that Christianity gave European kinship its distinctive quality and, made the European family more flexible than its Chinese and Islamic counterparts (97). Christianity also helped Europeans forge ties beyond the household. It created a larger spirit of brotherhood, reflected in the formation of guilds and confraternities.
Mitterauer turns to political forms in Chapter 4. He points to representative government as a distinct feature of Europe, drawing on the German scholar Otto Hintze's valuation of Europe's parliamentary democracy as a consequence of its distinctive social development. Mitterauer traces the roots of representative government back to the feudal system, which was, for him, a far more widespread phenomenon than most Anglo-American scholars would allow. Mitterauer asserts that "lordships systems defined by the feudal system prevailed in most regions of medieval Europe" (99). The assessment is difficult, however, to apply to the Italian peninsula, where northern manor and feudal arrangement never took hold.
The remaining chapters deal most consistently with aspects of the Church. Mitterauer sees in the Crusades of the eleventh century the roots of European expansionism of the early modern period. He includes also consideration of the activities of the Iberian Peninsula (215- 216) and the Italian city-states (217-231), the latter most thoroughly involved in what Mitterauer calls "proto-colonialism." In Chapter 7, Mitterauer creatively juxtaposes preaching with printing, linking Christianity directly to the great technical innovation of the age. Mitterauer credits printing with facilitating the emergence in the West of the centralized bureaucratic state (270). He also argues that printing helped standardize language and with that, the formation of "linguistically and culturally based nations" (271). The assertion evokes the sociologically based theories of Benedict Anderson, who is not cited in the bibliography. Mitterauer's concluding chapter deals prospectively with additional issues, such as technical innovation (mills and mining), the autonomous nature of urban communities ("communalism") and the uniquely Christian concern with the Eucharist.
This brief summary does not do justice to the range of topics and complexity of ideas dealt with by Mitterauer. The author gives us a great deal to ponder and provides many original insights. There should, however, be no mistake: Mitterauer's focus is firmly on the Carolingian empire, which remains at the core of the study and is the source of Europe's special path; and his interpretation is embedded in a familiar German historiographical tradition (Weber, Hintze). In this respect Mitterauer's theses appear less original than he would have us believe, shifting known arguments to the more distant past. Mitterauer's comparisons with Islam and Asia sharpen his interpretive agenda. But he deploys his evidence selectively, to demonstrate difference, even where the similarities would appear more apparent to the reader. Such is the case with the Carolingian agricultural revolution, which was roughly contemporaneous with similar developments in Islam and China. Mitterauer distinguished the latter from the former on the grounds that the northern European experience was more enduring. The argument is teleological and vague, and the author needs at the least to argue the issue more thoroughly. Instead, Mitterauer leaves the topic in favor of others, apparently concerned more with fulfilling Weber's requirement that Europe's rise be linked to a "concatenation of circumstance." As a result, Mitterauer succeeds more in uncovering distinctive traits of Northern Europe in the early Middle Ages than establishing a truly "special path" that marked the "rise of the West" with respect of other cultures. It needs to be said as well that for all his sensitivity to the regional differences in Europe, Mitterauer does not seem to afford the same consideration to China and Islam, which are dealt with as monoliths.
The caveats notwithstanding, Mitterauer's book is a rewarding and, as intended, provocative read. The author himself acknowledges its limits, stating in the conclusion that the prior procession of chapters, though "causally linked," did not "provide a satisfactory interpretive model" (277). This is true. But what is most effective about the book is that it raises important questions that will serve as a basis for further discussion.