‘국사’의 대연쇄와 오리엔탈리즘

Abstract

The Eurocentric mode of historical thought is endorsed by the evolutionary historicism comprehending both the narrative and concept of development in homogenous and unified time of history. The 'first in Europe, then elsewhere' structure of cvolutionary historicism gave rise to the Eurocentric diffusionism. It is believed that culture, civilisation, innovations flowed out from out from the European to non-European sector. Thus European history became the hegemonic mirror at which non-Europeans reflect themselves. The diffusion of national history in non-European peripheries brought an illusion that, if there is progress and development in Europe, there ought to be its equivalent in peripheries. The task of national history in peripheries has been to find the symmetrical equivalents tothe European history. It explains why national histories in the periphery become Eurocentric and Orientalist once they are entrapped in the global chain of the national history.