/lit/ - Literature

>In his main work, The Uniqueness of Western Civilization,[3][4] Duchesne denounces the devaluation of Western culture by a revisionist multicultural ideology which has been sweeping the academic world since the 1960s,[5] arguing for the continued validity of the traditional view of Europe as the one culture that produced the modern world, but adding that Europe has always been the most creative civilization since the Greek discovery of reason, prose writing, tragedy, comedy, dialectical reasoning, theoretical science, citizenship and democratic politics.[6][7] Duchesne challenges World historians in their claim that there were surprising economic similarities between Europe and Asia as late as 1800.[8] He questions the way in which the debate about the 'rise of the West' has been conceptualized merely in terms of the onset of the modern world, the Scientific Revolution, the creation of a world capitalist economy, and the changes brought about in Europe during the Industrial Revolution. Duchesne maintains throughout the book four main theses:

>-In the last few decades, the writing of world history has been driven by academics determined to portray the achievements of civilizations in terms that support the egalitarian idea that all cultures are similar, producing a shoddy historiography and social science that have devalued the intrinsic quality of Western civilization and seriously underestimated its accomplishments between ancient times and the present day.[9]
>-At least since classical antiquity, the culture of the West has always been “in a state of variance from the world”.[10]
>-In cultivating a virtually unparalleled democratic culture, with the Greek and Roman assemblies, parliaments and municipal communes, universities, reading societies, intellectual salons and newspapers, the West made possible the rise of modernity.
>-He identifies the roots of the West’s restless creativity in the unique aristocratic culture of Indo-Europeans,[11] with its ethos of heroic individualism and competitive spirit.[12][13]

>"Indo-Europeans prized heroic warriors striving for individual fame and recognition, often with a ‘berserker’ style of warfare. This aristocratic culture was the primordial source sustaining the unparalleled cultural creativity and territorial expansionism of Western civilization. The Iliad, Beowulf, The Song of Roland, including such Irish, Icelandic and Germanic Sagas as Lebor na hUidre, Njals Saga, Gisla Saga Sursonnar, and The Nibelungenlied recount the heroic deeds and fame of aristocrats. These are the earliest voices from the dawn of Western civilization."

Is he right about the Greek invention of liberal democratic society?
Is he right about Europe being the most creative civilization?
Is he right about the inherent superiority of Indo-European culture?