Wiezal: my ars'ole bleeds history
Eurocentricism
...is
a term that has a number of contemporary meanings. The denotation
herein refers to those arguments that, "falsely favors Europe or
Europeans over other peoples and other places." (Blaut, 2000, p.200)
Exemplary Eurocentric historians includes Max Weber, Lynn White Jr., Robert Brenner, Eric L. Jones, Michael Mann, John A. Hall, Jared Diamond, and David Landes.
These historians are neither obscure nor unread. Weber is considered one of the founders of modern sociology. Jones' "European Miracle" published in 1981 become a widely recommended text for undergraduates. In 1998, Landes' work was reviewed widely and favourably in the highbrow English speaking press. Yet here are just a few of the false, erroneous and bogus arguments put forward by one or more or most of these writers in favour of a Eurocentric historical worldview, almost all made without evidence and in complete contradiction to prevailing academic opinion:
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Racial superiority (Weber only, but arguably some statements by Jones have racist connotations);
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European climate and/or soils favoured higher agricultural productivity;
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European climate is more conducive to clear thinking and productive action;
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European landscape favoured rise of democracy and/or better communication of ideas;
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European forests aided the development of small families, individualism, private property and capitalism, and worked against Malthusian population disasters;
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Europe has less natural disasters;
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Europe was less disease-ridden;
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Europeans were uniquely inventive and uniquely capable of creative and scientific thought;
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Europeans had unique democratic and ethical values;
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Christianity was more conducive to development compared to other religions;
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Medieval Europeans were unique in having markets;
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Medieval European cities were more free and progressive.
The same historians also put forward bogus negative arguments against other regions of the world developing, concerned with the inferiority of Asian/African agriculture, politics, ideas, religions and technologies, as well as their lack of sexual self-control and use of contraception.
All the above bogus arguments are founded on ideologically-driven myth, polemic and absurd argument, with little if any regard for scholarly evidence pointing to contrary conclusions.
"...the rise and triumph of Europe did not result from any prior actual or potential superiority over other civilizations, but resulted, rather, from the immense wealth that flowed into Europe from the Western Hemisphere and later from the colonized regions." (Blaut, 2000, p.9)
Reference
Blaut, J.M. (2000) Eight Eurocentric Historians (London: The Guilford Press)
Further Reading
Masuzawa, T. (2005) The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (Chicago: Chicago University Press)