The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation

ISBN-13: 9780521838351 / Angielski / Twarda / 2004 / 396 str.

John M. Hobson

Opis

John Hobson challenges the ethnocentric bias of mainstream accounts of the "Rise of the West" that assume that Europeans have pioneered their own development, and that the East has been a passive by-stander. Describing the rise of what he calls the "Oriental West," Hobson argues that Europe first assimilated many Eastern inventions, and then appropriated Eastern resources through imperialism. Hobson's book thus propels the hitherto marginalized Eastern peoples to the forefront of the story of progressive world history.

Recenzje

'Hobson's book will provide students of world/global history with important source material, as well as controversial ideas, for years to come.' Economic History Review

Spis treści

1. Countering the Eurocentric myth of the West: discovering the Oriental West; Part I. The East as an Early Developer; 2. Islamic and African pioneers: building the global economy in the Afro-Asian Age of Discovery, 500–1500; 3. Chinese pioneers: the first industrial miracle and the myth of Chinese isolationism, 1000–1800; 4. The East remains dominant: India, Japan and Southeast Asia, 1400–1800; Part II. The West was Last: 5. Inventing Christendom and the Eastern origins of European feudalism; 6. The myth of the Italian pioneer; 7. The myth of the Vasco de Gama epoch, 1498–1800; Part III. The West as a Late-Developer: 8. The myth of 1492 and the impossibility of America: the Afro-Asian contribution to the catch-up of the West, 1492–1700; 9. The Chinese origins of British industrialisation; 10. Constructing European racist identity and the invention of the world, 1700–1850; 11. War, racist imperialism and the Afro-Asian origins of British industrialisation; Part IV. Conclusion: The Oriental West versus the Eurocentric Myth of the West: 12. The twin myths of the Western liberal state and the civilisational divide between East and West, 1500–1900; 13. The rise of the Oriental West.