An award-winning Oxford history professor reframes the narrative of Western civilization, tracing its innovations and traditions to societies around the world

How the World Made the West poses a bold challenge to “civilizational thinking” on the origins of Western culture—that is, the idea that civilizations arose separately and distinctly from one another. Rather, Josephine Quinn locates the roots of the modern West in everything from the law codes of Babylon, Assyrian irrigation, and the Phoenician art of sail to Indian literature, Arabic scholarship, and the metalworking riders of the Steppe. The ancient Greeks and Romans themselves, she finds, consistently presented their own cultures as the result of contact and exchange. Drawing on the art, literature, and artifacts of the times as well as the latest scientific findings in carbon dating and human genetics, Quinn replaces the myth of the West with a lively new understanding of world history.

Josephine Quinn worked on How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History during her 2019-2020 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She will discuss her book with award-winning poet Ken Chen. 

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Josephine Quinn is a professor of ancient history at Oxford University and Martin Frederiksen Fellow and tutor in ancient history at Worcester College, Oxford. She has degrees from Oxford and the University of California–Berkeley; has taught in America, Italy, and the UK; and co-directed the Tunisian-British archaeological excavations at Utica. She is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books, as well as to radio and television programs. She is the author of one previous book, the award-winning In Search of the Phoenicians, and lives in Oxford.

Ken Chen is associate director of creative writing at Barnard College and the author of the poetry collection Juvenilia, which was selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and was a Cullman Center Fellow in 2019-2020.

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ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

Livestream | Captions and a transcript will be provided. Media used over the course of the conversation will be accompanied by alt text and/or audio description. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

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The Cullman Center is made possible by a generous endowment from Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman in honor of Brooke Russell Astor, with major support provided by Mrs. John L. Weinberg, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Estate of Charles J. Liebman, The von der Heyden Family Foundation, John and Constance Birkelund, and The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and with additional gifts from Helen and Roger Alcaly, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, The Arts and Letters Foundation Inc., William W. Karatz, Merilee and Roy Bostock, and Cullman Center Fellows.