Rethinking World History

Abstract

Is the history of the modern world the history of Europe writ large? Or is it possible to situate the history of modernity as a world historical process apart from its origins in Western Europe? In this posthumous collection of essays, Marshall G. S. Hodgson challenges adherents of both Eurocentrism and multiculturalism to rethink the place of Europe in world history. He argues that the line that connects Ancient Greeks to the Renaissance to modern times is an optical illusion, and that a global and Asia-centred history can better locate the European experience in the shared histories of humanity. Hodgson then shifts the historical focus and in a parallel move seeks to locate the history of Islamic civilisation in a world historical framework. In so doing he concludes that there is but one history - global history - and that all partial or privileged accounts must necessarily be resituated in a world historical context. The book also includes an introduction by the editor, Edmund Burke, contextualising Hodgson's work in world history and Islamic history.

Westphalian Eurocentrism in International Relations Theory

“…For example, in the process of Europe's colonial and imperial expansion, policymakers and scholars invoked Westphalian-grounded principles to justify acts of brutality and subjugation in the name of the privileged position of states that were deemed ''civilized'' in spreading the rule of law, tolerance, and civilization. Similar to other European-invented narratives (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992;Hodgson 1993;Patterson 1997;Goody 2006), the Westphalian narrative allows for the continued imagination and invention of Europe's intellectual and political superiority, treating the West as a perennial source of political and religious tolerance in international society.…”

The Eastern Origins of the Rise of the West and the “Return” of Asia

“…However, there is now a significant literature that re-casts these epistemic revolutions in an eastern light, wherein many of the key breakthroughs found their invention earlier in India, China but most especially in Islamic West Asia and the Levant [2,10,11,13,14,17,21,22,23,24,26]. Islamic breakthroughs in mathematics, many of which were reliant upon previous Indian breakthroughs (to be discussed below), especially that of algebra and trigonometry, were pivotal.…”

“…Building on the original insight of Marshall Hodgson's epic work [14], a similar story can be told of the British industrial revolution. Thus while British economic historians celebrate James Watt for his skills in inventing the steam-engine, it is possible that he owed some kind of a debt to the Chinese.…”

Historiographical traditions and modern imperatives for the restoration of global history

“…134 Marshall Hodgson recognized that 'once Western transmutation got underway it could neither be paralleled independently nor borrowed wholesale'. 135 Thus the writing of Islamic, Chinese, Indian, African and even Japanese history has continued to reflect well-documented tensions between traditions and universal desires for modernity with autonomy. Such tensions could only, moreover, remain more acute outside the West, where change could more easily be welcomed as indigenous and imminent, and as a felicitous congruence of tradition with progress.…”