다양한 유럽중심의 역사와 해결책들
Varieties of Eurocentric History and Some Remedies for the Problem
0
조회
0
다운로드
2
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
The term Eurocentrism means different things to different people. Eurocentrism is an issue to take seriously. In an effort to bring focus to the effects of Eurocentrism for the disciplined understanding of the past, I would like to explore three kinds of Eurocentric thinking that have influenced historical scholarship–simple Eurocentrism, ideological Eurocentrism, and structural Eurocentrism–and then propose some remedies for the problems that have resulted. At one time a variety of simple Eurocentrism was almost universal in professional historical scholarship. To some extent, this approach to world history reflected the state of professional historical knowledge about the larger world before about 1950. This kind of Eurocentric conception stands on the foundation of willful ignorance－active disinterest and refusal to engage the larger world－and it is accordingly simple to remedy by taking the world beyond Europe seriously and developing reliable knowledge about its past. Eurocentrism is not destiny. Once they have recognized Eurocentrism as a problem, scholars have been able to attack it and devise better approaches to the global past. More complex and more difficult to address is a deeper form of Eurocentric history that draws its inspiration more from Max Weber and Karl Marx than from Hegel. Here I refer to it as ideological Eurocentrism because even though it stood on a flimsy empirical foundation, historians nevertheless took it as a persuasive framework for purposes of explaining the world they saw in front of themselves. The founders of ideological Eurocentrism looked on a world in which Europe was supreme, and they assumed that European industrialization was the end of history. Global dominance of Europe and its offshoots, particularly in North America, lasted about two centuries, but it was by no means the end of history. In comparison with the varieties of Eurocentrism that I have called simple and ideological, structural Eurocentrism is a deeper and more subtle problem that is accordingly trickier and more difficult to remedy. By structural Eurocentrism I mean the structures of thought and categories of analysis–all deriving from modern, capitalist, industrial, and imperial Europe–that steer historians and other scholars to understand the world from a particular perspective. Chakrabarty’s proposed solution to this problem was to “provincialize Europe.” Chakrabarty’s approach does not entirely liquidate structural Eurocentrism, but it certainly dilutes it by decentering Europe and contextualizing European modernity. Two additional approaches complement Chakrabarty’s project of provincializing Europe: systematic reflexivity and a new cosmopolitanism. Where Chakrabarty challenged Eurocentrism by focusing on the local, the new cosmopolitanism attacks Eurocentrism by focusing on transregional and global issues in such a way that Europe is one member in a larger constellation of alternative societies. Three approaches in particular reflect the mentality or sensibility of the new cosmopolitanism: a critical-postcolonial, a philosophical-ethical, and a fresh historical approach. My view is that historians are capable of improving their craft. Historians successfully overcame the limitations of the simple and ideological varieties of Eurocentrism, and there is no reason to doubt that the approaches discussed here will enable them to deal effectively also with structural Eurocentrism. Historical knowledge will always be imperfect, but with care and effort on the part of its practitioners, it can certainly become a better and more sophisticated guide to the global past.
Abstract
The term Eurocentrism means different things to different people. Eurocentrism is an issue to take seriously. In an effort to bring focus to the effects of Eurocentrism for the disciplined understanding of the past, I would like to explore three kinds of Eurocentric thinking that have influenced historical scholarship–simple Eurocentrism, ideological Eurocentrism, and structural Eurocentrism–and then propose some remedies for the problems that have resulted. At one time a variety of simple Eurocentrism was almost universal in professional historical scholarship. To some extent, this approach to world history reflected the state of professional historical knowledge about the larger world before about 1950. This kind of Eurocentric conception stands on the foundation of willful ignorance－active disinterest and refusal to engage the larger world－and it is accordingly simple to remedy by taking the world beyond Europe seriously and developing reliable knowledge about its past. Eurocentrism is not destiny. Once they have recognized Eurocentrism as a problem, scholars have been able to attack it and devise better approaches to the global past. More complex and more difficult to address is a deeper form of Eurocentric history that draws its inspiration more from Max Weber and Karl Marx than from Hegel. Here I refer to it as ideological Eurocentrism because even though it stood on a flimsy empirical foundation, historians nevertheless took it as a persuasive framework for purposes of explaining the world they saw in front of themselves. The founders of ideological Eurocentrism looked on a world in which Europe was supreme, and they assumed that European industrialization was the end of history. Global dominance of Europe and its offshoots, particularly in North America, lasted about two centuries, but it was by no means the end of history. In comparison with the varieties of Eurocentrism that I have called simple and ideological, structural Eurocentrism is a deeper and more subtle problem that is accordingly trickier and more difficult to remedy. By structural Eurocentrism I mean the structures of thought and categories of analysis–all deriving from modern, capitalist, industrial, and imperial Europe–that steer historians and other scholars to understand the world from a particular perspective. Chakrabarty’s proposed solution to this problem was to “provincialize Europe.” Chakrabarty’s approach does not entirely liquidate structural Eurocentrism, but it certainly dilutes it by decentering Europe and contextualizing European modernity. Two additional approaches complement Chakrabarty’s project of provincializing Europe: systematic reflexivity and a new cosmopolitanism. Where Chakrabarty challenged Eurocentrism by focusing on the local, the new cosmopolitanism attacks Eurocentrism by focusing on transregional and global issues in such a way that Europe is one member in a larger constellation of alternative societies. Three approaches in particular reflect the mentality or sensibility of the new cosmopolitanism: a critical-postcolonial, a philosophical-ethical, and a fresh historical approach. My view is that historians are capable of improving their craft. Historians successfully overcame the limitations of the simple and ideological varieties of Eurocentrism, and there is no reason to doubt that the approaches discussed here will enable them to deal effectively also with structural Eurocentrism. Historical knowledge will always be imperfect, but with care and effort on the part of its practitioners, it can certainly become a better and more sophisticated guide to the global past.
참고문헌 (47)
- Adas, Michael P., "Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance" (1990), Ithaca
- Amin, Samir, "Eurocentrism" (1989)
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony, "Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers" (2006)
- Arrighi, Giovanni, "The Long Twentieth Century" (1994)
- Bentley, Jerry H., "Myths, Wagers, and Some Moral Implications of World History", Journal of World History, 16 (2005)
- Bernal, Martin, "Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. vol. 1" (1987), New Brunswick
- Blaut, James M., "Eight Eurocentric Historians" (2000)
- Blaut, James M., "The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History" (1993)
- Breckenridge, Carol A., "Cosmopolitanism" (2002), Durham
- Chakrabarty, Dipesh, "Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for ‘Indian’ Pasts?", Representations, 37 (1992)
- Chakrabarty, Dipesh, "Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference" (2000)
- Dirlik, Arif, "Is There History after Eurocentrism? Globalism, Postcolonialism, and the Disavowal of History. in : History after the Three Worlds: Post-Eurocentric Historiographies" (2000)
- Dirlik, Arif, "History without a Center? Reflections on Eurocentrism. in : Across Cultural Borders: Historiographyin Global Perspective" (2002)
- Duara, Prasenjit, "Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China" (1997)
- Dussel, Enrique, "Beyond Eurocentrism: The World-System and the Limits of Modernity. in : The Cultures of Globalization" (1998)
- Dussel, Enrique, "Europe, Modernity, and Eurocentrism", Nepantla: Views from the South, 1 (2000)
- Frank, Andre Gunder, "Re Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age" (1998)
- Gat, Azar, "The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers", Foreign Affairs, 86 (2007)
- Goldstone, Jack, "Why Europe? The Rise of the West in World History, 1500-1850" (2008)
- Goody, Jack, "The Theft of History" (2006)
- Gran, Peter, "Beyond Eurocentrism: A New View of Modern World History" (1996)
- Hammel, Jürgen Oster, "'Peoples without History’ in British and German Historical Thought. in : British and German Historiography, 1750-1950: Traditions, Perceptions, and Transfers" (2000)
- Hämäläinen, Pekka, "The Comanche Empire" (2008)
- Headley, John M., "Europeanization of the World: On the Origins of Human Rights and Democracy" (2008)
- Hughes-Warrington, Marnie, "Coloring Universal History: Robert Benjamin Lewis’s Light and Truth. (1843) and Brown’s William Wells. “The Black Man (1863)", Journal of World History, 20 (2009)
- Huntington, Samuel P., "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" (1996)
- Jones, E. L., "The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia, 3rd ed" (2003)
- Kanth, Rajani Kannepalli, "Against Eurocentrism: A Transcendent Critique of Modernist Science, Society, and Morals" (2005)
- Landes, David S., "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor" (1998)
- Lewis, Bernard, "The Roots of Muslim Rage", The Atlantic Monthly, 266 (1990)
- Loon, Hendrik Van, "The Story of Mankind" (1921)
- Mazrui, Ali A., "The Seven Biases of Eurocentrism: A Diagnostic Introduction. in : The Challenge of Eurocentrism: Global Perspectives, Policy, and Prospects" (2009)
- Mann, Michael, "The Sources of Social Power, 2 vols" (1986)
- Marks, Robert B., "The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative, 2nd ed" (2006)
- Mokyr, Joel, "King Kong and Cold Fusion: Counterfactual Analysis and the History of Technology. in : Unmaking the West: “What-If” Scenarios that Rewrite World History" (2006)
- Muhlberger Steven, "Democracy’s Place in World History", Journal of World History, 4 (1993)
- North, Douglass C., "The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History" (1973)
- Pomeranz, Kenneth, "The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy" (2000)
- Said, Edward W., "Orientalism" (1978)
- Sen, Amartya, "The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity" (2005)
- Smith, Alan K., "Creating a World Economy: Merchant Capital, Colonialism, and World Trade, 1400-1825" (1991)
- Spakowski, Nicola, "National Aspirations on a Global Stage: Concepts of World", Global History in Contemporary China, 2009, pp.4, ~
- Vries, P. H., "Are Coal and Colonies Really Crucial? Kenneth Pomeranz and the Great Divergence", Journal of World History, 12 (2001)
- Wallerstein, Immanuel, "The Modern World-System, 3 vols" (1974)
- Wolf, Eric R., "Europe and the People with out History" (1982)
- Wong, R. Bin, "China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience" (1997)
- Xu, Luo, "Reconstructing World History in the People’s Republic of China since the 1980s", Journal of World History, 18 (2007)