The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (Studies in Critical Social Sciences)

Title page
......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Preface......Page 10
Early World Historians and the Idea of Progress......Page 14
Termination of the Western Civilization Course......Page 17
World History Texts from the 1920s to the 1940s......Page 19
World History Texts in the 1960s......Page 24
Rise of Dependency Theory......Page 26
Wallerstein’s World-System and Critical Theory......Page 29
Franz Boas’s Relativism and Marvin Harris’s Cultural Materialism......Page 32
The Conversion of William McNeill: From “Rise of the West” to “Interactive Webs”......Page 36
Cultural Relativism, Scientific Materialism, and Humanism Combined......Page 40
The Exclusion of Sociobiology......Page 45
Kant’s “unsocial sociability”......Page 51
Progress and the State of Nature......Page 55
Dynamic Man versus Reactive Man......Page 58
The Ascendancy of Multicultural World Historians......Page 64
Patrick Manning: It Takes an African Village to Write World History......Page 69
Disparaging the West: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto......Page 75
The Basic Empirical Claims of the Revisionists......Page 84
The Two Arguments of Re-Orient......Page 87
One Asian World System?......Page 92
The Role of Colonial Profits......Page 96
Trade, Power, and Liberty: the Secret of British Imperial Success......Page 100
China’s “high-level equilibrium trap”......Page 106
The “Geographical Limits” of China’s Post-1400 Extensive Growth......Page 109
Was Eighteenth Century Europe following a Malthusian path?......Page 115
Was traditional China a Low Fertility Regime?
......Page 121
Conclusion......Page 128
The Basic Propositions of Pomeranz’s “Great Divergence”......Page 130
Malthus was Born too Late in a World too New......Page 136
End of the Old Malthusian Regime in England......Page 143
Standard-of-Living Debate......Page 149
New World Resources versus European Resources......Page 153
Was Cheap Coal Sufficient or Necessary?......Page 159
Dynamic Rather than Static Comparisons......Page 164
China’s Ecological Endowments and Imperial Windfalls......Page 166
Hobson and the Eastern Origins of the West......Page 178
Eurocentric Historians......Page 180
Imitation, Innovation, and Invention......Page 185
Revolution in Time......Page 187
The Printing Revolution......Page 192
The Science and Chivalry of Henry the Navigator......Page 195
Columbus and the Cartographic Revolution......Page 202
The Industrial Enlightenment......Page 208
Goldstone’s “Happy Chance” versus Jacob’s Scientific Ethos......Page 212
Contingency versus Long Term Patterns......Page 216
Europe’s Solo Act: A Mercantile-Militaristic State?......Page 219
Military Revolutions in Europe 1300-1800......Page 222
The Inter-State System......Page 227
Greek Hoplites and the “Western Way of War”......Page 232
Mercantilism and the Birth of Political Economy......Page 235
Liberty and the States System......Page 239
The West is more than Wealth and Power......Page 244
The Cultural Poverty of the Revisionists......Page 252
The Cultural Richness of Max Weber......Page 259
Judaism and its Contribution to Western Rationalism......Page 267
Schluchter on the Genetic Developmental Dynamic of the West......Page 273
Habermas and the Rationalization of Substantive Values......Page 278
The Liberal Democratic Ideals of the West and its Historiography......Page 282
Change without Progress in the East......Page 298
Measuring Human Accomplishments......Page 302
The Historiography of Europe’s Revolutions......Page 310
Phenomenology of the Western Spirit......Page 315
Hegel and the Geographical Basis of the “infinite thirst” of the West......Page 321
Hegel and the Beginnings of Western Reason......Page 325
Hegel on the “desire” of World-Historical Individuals......Page 328
The Master-Slave Dialectic and its Historical Reference......Page 331
Hegel’s Account of the State of Nature......Page 338
Kojeve and the fight to the death for pure prestige......Page 341
Spengler and the Faustian Soul of the West......Page 346
McNeill and the Indo-European Roots of the West’s Warrior Ethos......Page 351
The Founding Fathers of the West: Democratic Citizens or Aristocratic Warriors?......Page 354
Indo-Europeans as the “Other” of World History......Page 358
The Distinctive Indo-Europeanization of the West......Page 365
Chariots, Mycenaeans, and Aristocratic Berserkers......Page 376
Aristocratic and Martial Traits......Page 384
The Impact of Indo-Europeans on the Civilizations of the East......Page 390
“Big Man” Feasting and the Origins of Inequality......Page 393
Prestige-Seeking Chiefs......Page 397
From Simple to Paramount Chiefdoms......Page 401
“Eastern” Group-Oriented and “Western” Individualizing Chiefdoms......Page 403
City-States: Sumerian versus Greek......Page 412
The Autocratic Character of Mesopotamia and Egypt......Page 415
The Epic of Gilgamesh is not a Heroic Tragedy......Page 423
Fukuyama and the Megalothymia of the “first men” of the West......Page 432
Why Hegel’s “Master” Must be Aristocratic......Page 436
Kojeve and the “first appearance” of Self-Consciousness......Page 441
Charles Taylor and Plato’s Self-Mastery......Page 444
The Beginnings of Genuine Personalities in History......Page 448
Nietzsche’s “Homer on Competition”......Page 454
Arête and the Education of the Greeks......Page 458
The Roman Aristocratic Link......Page 469
The Germanic Barbarian Rejuvenation of the West......Page 473
Feudalism: an Aristocratic Type of Rule......Page 479
Charlemagne’s Continuation of the Western Tradition......Page 483
Christian Virtues and Aristocratic Expansionism......Page 488
Aristocratic liberty and the Rise of Representative Institutions......Page 494
Cited Works......Page 502
Index......Page 532