Shadia Drury's "Chauvinism of the West" - Review by Ron Dart

Shadia Drury, Chauvinism of the West: The Case of American Exceptionalism (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024)                              

Each year a few fine and must-read books are published (others not worth more than a passing glance), but there can be little doubt that Shadia Drury’s Chauvinism of the West is a ten-bell book. There is much packed into this historic read of the West and its impact on the notion and ideology of American exceptionalism—the origins, history and contemporary reality of American politics, foreign policy and global politics are parsed and exposed well and wisely.

Chauvinism of the West is divided into 6 compact, probing and arrow hitting bull’s eye well chapters: 1) The Roots of American Exceptionalism, 2) Manifest Destiny Goes Global, 3) What’s Wrong with Spreading Democracy, 4) Neoconservative Realism, 5) Fascist Elements in Neoconservative Realism and 6) The Political Theology of the West. Each of the paced well and tightly argued chapters are divided into smaller sections that hold the reader as Shadia’s argument unfolds and develops. The almost 50 pages of the “Annotated Bibliography” convert the at odds book with the orthodox way of viewing America into a spacious library that highlights further reading for those interested in following the pathway and trail that Shadia organized and constructed.

The cover of Chauvinism of the West speaks its own evocative and convincing message, metaphor of Statue of Liberty falling into the sea, foaming waves soon to bury and drown it, city in the distance soon to suffer the same fate.

The West has a long history, at the highest level, of seeing itself as the embodiment and bearer of Jewish, Greek, Roman and Christian religious, political and philosophical thought and action. But, much hinges on whose read of these Traditions is to be mined a timely and timeless question? Shadia does a detailed read of how a form of Puritanism shaped the early American culture and ethos, how, yet again, a read of the Enlightenment magnified such a inflated sense of uniqueness, then how a selective read of Athens and Sparta defined significant domestic and foreign policy.  Shadia, to her credit, highlights how a crude form of aggressive realism (read a selective approach to Thucydides on this) is counterproductive and how/why it is held high by many American neoconservatives (inching alas towards fascism—obvious to most except the most blind these days). This use/abuse of the broader and fuller Western Tradition is both counterproductive and distorts the more complex and layered notions of such a Tradition (and the lessons to be learned from it).  And, again, to Shadia’s credit, she lingers long with Homer and the Greek tragedians as wise and insightful political philosophers, historians and philosophers. This going back of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle seems to have some affinities with Nietzsche and Heidegger but Shadia is no uncritical fan or cheerleader of either of the German recoverers of the pre-Socratic way and its relevance for the West (and American thought, culture, former policy and politics). I might add that Shadia’s read of The Persians by Aeschylus is worth many a meditative read, the message not to miss for our ethos, Aeschylus probably the best of the three prominent Greek tragedians.

I was reminded of George Grant’s Philosophy in the Mass Age and Lament for a Nation when sifting through how Shadia has interpreted such an intellectual, political and applied approach to the chauvinism of the West and the imperial (new Romans) genetic code of the United States, but Shadia goes much deeper than Grant in her approach and should be applauded for doing so.   

Many a moment in Chauvinism of the West, Shadia pulls bow tight and takes aim at certain forms of Western Religion and the way they distort a more complex reality with their unhelpful and unhealthy notions of certainty and their equating of Jehovah, God, Allah with our all too human reads, interpretations and applications of such approaches. Needless to say this has had a dire impact on peoples, states and communities. The merging of theology and politics brings Chauvinism of the West to a fit and fine conclusion, Christian and Structural Realism pondered and a questioning whether a war with China is inevitable.

Shadia has been a Cassandra of sorts to the larger academic community, her books on Aquinas, Socrates, Strauss and Kojeve often at odds with those who slip into subtler forms of hagiography of such icons in the West. The intellectual Sanhedrin has certainly not been minimally on board with Shadia’s read of the West and, I suspect, this summa of sorts will be no different.

I might add, by way of a parting fini, that Chauvinism of the West is most timely given the fact Donald Trump will soon become the new President of the United States and such Pied Piper (and his many naïve acolytes) embody yet the newest and yet an older form of chauvinism. We should be grateful that Shadia, like the earlier George Grant in Lament for a Nation or Al Purdy’s edited The New Romans, stands on guard for a distinctive Canadian vision of a different way than the empire to the south. And, may she not be treated as was Hypatia of old.  

Fiat Lux

Ron Dart