The European(1) global hegemony, which had its start in the late Fifteenth Century, was not the aberration, the unique and singular situation, that historians had previously thought it to be. Historians' Euro-centric view of the past five hundred years, culminating in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, is now challenged by new viewpoints, evidence and attitudes which are reevaluating history to ascertain what can be salvaged, what can be reworked into an acceptable form, what needs to be discarded, and what can be added from non-European perspectives. The Euro-centric view of history which has been previously proffered reminds one of the building in the Shelley poem "Ozymandias", an imposing, elegant, well-structured and, ultimately, vain and hubristic edifice that time has left behind.
The new history, the new paradigm of history, whose proponents are striving to revise our notion of the past, is commonly known as world history. It attempts to integrate the various and sundry differing perspectives which now crowd the historical realm and to try to assimilate and reconstruct from the new scholarship and old histories the best of both to produce a gestalt that is a more satisfying recreation of the past than either could generate alone.
The first tenet of the Euro-centric view is that global intercourse was instituted by the Europeans and that prior to their period of exploration there was no regular interaction on an inter-regional scale. Simply given the common knowledge that has come down through time to us from travelers (e.g., Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, crusaders, etc.) in eras before the European expansion, we can see that this is patently untrue. Curiously, even with the acceptance of the validity of the reports of these travelers by the majority of the people, and, especially by the elite and educated, the false conception of the uniqueness of international interconnection as having been instigated by the Europeans was not debunked. These reports were not taken as credible evidence of the strength of the existing connections, but, in an almost pathological denial, the singularity of the European-provoked world system was more strongly defended.
Recent scholarly sources also prove the inaccuracy of this presumed singularity. From Jeremy Bentley we learn of the role played by religion in the intercourse of the regions of the world. The great religions disseminated along trade routes, through empire building and via the communion between imperial realms. A particularly cogent example of this is the spread of Islam in the Seventh Century, as it exploded out of the Arabian Peninsula to, at length, blanket the Afro-Eurasian land-mass from the Atlantic to the Pacific from the Equator to the middle northern latitudes. This created an intercommunicating zone of dialogue which was the most extensive since the beginning of history, to say nothing of the imperial and commercial connections, through the medium of the sacral language of Qur'anic Arabic and the Shari'a. Indeed, the pride that the Euro-centric texts show in Christianity as the source of European moral righteousness and basis for their mandate of imperialism is not a European religion at all, but flows from the well-spring of the Fertile Crescent of south west Asia. This area, a geographical nexus, has seen not only the birth of Christianity and Islam, but also of Judaism and other more localized sects.
Philip Curtin, among others, looks at these early intercommunications in the light of trade. He illustrates how merchants' pursuit of their livelihoods led to prolonged contact among many peoples, even including the Europeans. Examination of trade diasporas and their contribution to the phenomenon of interrelationships across regional boundaries demonstrates the factors that instigated these associations and how they were maintained. Schwartz and Reid, in different fashion and somewhat inadvertently, also show that some of these trade networks were still extant at the arrival of the Europeans in the trade-linked Asian regions and, ironically, how they facilitated the European advance, precipitating their own demise as the formation of the European trade structure took place.
The real stake in the heart of the proposition of European initiation of the world system is Janet Abu-Lughod's incisive and insightful work in the development of the theory of the world system of trade in the Thirteenth Century. With her contribution, a clear connection is established which spans the Afro-Eurasian land-mass prior to the inception of European hegemony. The 'first world' economic powers of the centuries before Europe's rise were China and Islam's Caliphates, not to mention the Mongols, who were subsumed into the Chinese.
The combination of these numerous arguments inevitably leads us to the conclusion that not only did the world have substantial, continuing and frequent contact on a trans-regional basis, but, also, that the European areas represented something of an underdeveloped backwater in this system. Indeed, some attribute Europe's rise to its integration into this world trade system and its desire for greater access to it.
However, there are two unique features that the Europeans did furnish. Through their eventual technological superiority the new system became more and more interdependent. This reliance on one another is a new factor in the equation, one that had not heretofore been present. Granted, one either has a certain mineral or not and one might well have to either trade for it or export it; nevertheless, whatever the case, the level of bulk trade which oriented whole economies to export production was completely new. Further, integration into an industrial capitalistic market system, when that occurred, was also novel.
The second distinct feature was the bringing together of the two hemispheres for the first time. Until the Europeans, with their expansionist tendencies, had brought the Americas and Afro-Eurasia together, the two hemispheres might as well have been two different planets. Subsequent history notwithstanding, this is one of the most significant events to occur in the last millennium. We shall explore some of the salient aspects of these features later, below.
Acknowledging that destruction of one portion of the Euro-centric structure will not bring the entire edifice down, we turn to the technological basis that is a conceit of the Euro-centric view. Due to the overwhelming technological superiority that Europe eventually developed there have been proponents of the postulate that Europe is the font of all technological advancement and that this made a significant, if not fundamental, contribution to the industrialization of the world. This understanding has been disproved by the fact that Europe depended on the adoption and adaptation of a variety of inventions imported from the East. The Asians, particularly the Chinese, disseminated many ideas and inventions throughout the Eurasian world and contributed the compass, lateen sail, metallurgy, and gunpowder to posterity. These items, specifically, and others; such as, domesticated draft animals, combined with competitive and expansionary imperatives internal, but not unique, to Europe, assisted in the long term development of methods, materials, and tools which eventually granted the Europeans technological superiority. This technological advantage allowed for the ready suppression of opposition from the indigenous inhabitants of the areas into which they were expanding. This, in turn, placed the Europeans in the preeminent political position they attained worldwide. Therefore, although actual industrialization was originated in Europe, the bases for that industrialization were not uniquely European. Further, its political superiority was founded on the exploitation and improvement of imported technology which predated its expansion by centuries.
Eric Jones, although overemphasizing his case, does present a reasonable explanation for Europe's ability to seize opportunities represented by the borrowings mentioned, in the geographical features and nation-state system of the region. However, he minimizes the benefits that were acquired from the borrowings of technological, scientific and agricultural advances that originated in other parts of the world. As the Japanese were able to industrialize after the Meiji Restoration with the assistance of technological and scientific input from the Europeans, so it was that the Europeans were able to industrialize, adding peculiar ingredients of their own to the mix, with the aid of contributions from the precursor civilizations of China, India and Islam. Their industrial revolution did not spring full-blown from the brow of their civilization as has been alleged, but was fathered and nurtured by assistance from a number of sources.
As further refutation of the supposed uniqueness of European industrialization, we find that other civilizations had proceeded to the brink of industrialization in earlier times. Ali Mazrui contends that ancient Egypt had workable steam power, which was unfortunately lost due to the inability of the Egyptians to adapt it to anything other than opening doors. The Chinese seemed to be poised on the edge of industrialization in the Thirteenth Century before reversing their course in a conscious political decision impelled by imperial considerations. At that time their production of iron was so great that the British, that quintessential industrial power, could not match it until the late Nineteenth Century. In this case, it appears that the centralization of empire compares unfavorably with the decentralization of the states system, with the states system encouraging the innovation that precipitated industrialization while centralization discouraged it.
One more factor weighs in the impetus for the industrialization which ultimately granted technological superiority to Europe. Their interest in expansion, which can be traced back to the Crusades, provided an outward oriented mindset. This contrasts sharply with the attitude of the Chinese, for example, who, at approximately the time of the initial explorations of the Europeans that opened the world to its true nature, tended to the conservatism of imperium that impeded rapid expansion. Subsequently, this European interest in expansion established new markets which encouraged the growth of the manufacturing sector in Europe and spurred industrialization.
The circumstances we have just investigated argue that the uniqueness of the European hegemony did not begin as early as formerly maintained. Rather they indicate that the peculiar fact of Europe's completion of world dominance did not actually take place until the late Nineteenth Century when monopolization of industrialization and technological superiority reached their zenith in north western Europe.
In another, related area, with our knowledge of the trading networks that had been previously extant, we are cognizant that capitalism was not a special innovation of the Europeans, but that it was a variation of capitalism which the Industrial Revolution initiated. The trade systems with which the world had been long familiar were based on a commercial capitalism. The supply of luxury goods to elite for the profit of the merchants was the basis of this capitalism. The new genre was industrial capitalism. Based on the exploitation of wage labor, extraction of mineral and agricultural supplies and the supply of industrial manufactured goods in return, this new type of capitalism is distinguished by the absolute interdependence generated by the system and, incidentally, by its inherent inequity.
In the Euro-centric cosmos industrialization also has another function. It serves to judge all others in light of the European prototype, presupposing that the only route to industrialization is through that example. This precludes any other paths to the same destination. Thus, you must do it the European way or you will fail to industrialize. The attitude that this creates is enshrined in the modernization theory of Rostow, in which he outlines the steps to be taken to bring forth a modern industrial state. We have no alternative, functional model to refute this claim, but, simply lacking refutation does not ensure its accuracy. As an example of departure from this paradigm, the NICs of East Asia have industrialized while not following the model to the letter. Therefore, we can see that there may well be variation on the theme or even different models which are valid only not yet proposed, investigated or proved. In this I do not overlook the alternative model of the socialist states which have recently seen their system collapse, simply acknowledge the fact and move on to consideration of further options.
I have argued that the opening of dialogue between the Afro-Eurasian lands and the Americas was a significant contribution of the Europeans. This is undeniable. However, there is a school of thought that contends that the flow of benefits was all from Europe to the Americas. This is a specious argument. It ignores the unprecedented contributions that the Americas made to the rest of the world. In considering the exchange of biota alone, we can observe the scale heavily weighted to the disadvantage of the Americas. The Afro-Eurasians acquired many crops; e.g., the potato, maize, squash, manioc, cassava, etc., while the Americans received smallpox, measles and plague. Not to err on the side of the revisionists, the Americans did obtain horses and other draft animals that had long since disappeared from the Americas, plus some new crops; such as, sugar and wheat. However, not all the Americans had no beasts of burden, the Andean peoples did domesticate the cameloids, the llama and alpaca. The Europeans did endow the Americas with the blessings of Christianity, monarchy, colonial government and an economic system designed to exploit the indigenous people and expropriate their lands and the mineral and agricultural wealth thereof. On the other hand, how many countless Europeans have been done in over the ages by the curse of American introduced tobacco and cocoa. It has even been said that the Europeans brought the Americas oppression, disease, death and destruction, while the Americas gave the rest of the world gold, silver, foods which enhanced the nutrition of the entire population of the earth and, in the Iroquois Confederacy, the model of a working representative democratic government. While this may be overstating the case, it is true that the Afro-Eurasians benefited to a noticeably greater degree from the Colombian Exchange than did the autochthonous Americans. And that circumstance is completely in contrast to the general depiction of the Euro-centric representation.
A last comment on the influence of the Americas on Europe. In the Euro-centric paradigm authority flows one way, out from Europe. The revolutions in the Americas, which successfully threw off the mantle of European rule, put the lie to this conceit. Moreover, according to Benedict Anderson, they are the first instance of the identification of a people with their nation in the terms of nationalism, a brand new concept in the relation between people and their state.
In the edifice of Euro-centric thinking the psychological can be as important as the physical. The view propounded by this theory is that none of the other civilizations, either predating or contemporaneous with the European ascendancy, were worthy of the name and that they were generally barbaric, underdeveloped and awaiting the arrival of the beneficent Europeans in order to open the curtains of darkness, stagnation and ignorance behind which they labored. Further, it was accepted that until the European advent these peoples had no history; that is, nothing of note had ever happened until that seminal event of the Europeans' coming. Moreover, the Europeans were superior in and of themselves in this representation. The result of this, as Michael Adas elucidates, is that it was an undeniable inevitability that imperialism and control over other peoples was an innate property of European character and was only awaiting an opportunity for expression.
But, of course, this outlook ignores the vital, sometimes preemptive, role of indigenous peoples in facilitating European access and rule or even their opposition, successful and otherwise. In China the Europeans were supplicants at the court of a powerful empire during most of their period of advance, until their technological superiority could force accession to their demands. In India, there were groups that actively supported the Euro-imperialists in order to maintain their own autonomy at the expense of others, some that acquiesced in the imposition of European authority in order to advance their own fortunes, and others that opposed any outside influence whatsoever.
In addition, this view presumes that the Europeans had a plan of conquest in mind or that it was always that the Europeans initiated and the others responded. This was not invariably the case. Events might be precipitated by a representative of a European crown, or by the local elite, in a colony or even a foreign country which would present a fait accomplí to the metropole or require a response that was unanticipated or even unintended. Nor did situations always proceed according to plan, if there were one. The takeover of Bengal was effected by the unauthorized initiative of a representative of the British East India Company. The circumstances surrounding the acquisition of most of the imperial realms which were obtained by Europeans could be attributed to fortuitous accident rather than conscious, purposeful action by the metropole. This raises the question of agency and of who was acting upon whom. In an Euro-centric view, there is no room for this question, and yet, through prior and continuing research, we are made aware of circumstances which require exactly that question.
Euro-centrism also presupposes the sense of nationalism we take for granted. The concept of nationalism as we understand it did not animate the actions of peoples prior to the end of the Eighteenth Century and even then took some time to disseminate throughout the world to become the predominant force that it is today. Loyalty was more of a personal commitment to the ruler of an area. It would not be unusual for that loyalty to be less than complete, whether in pre-Raj India or pre-Nineteenth Century Europe. In the Nineteenth Century European, through the example set by the Americans, this sense of nationalism would already be well developed. However, the same could not be said for a Bengali, a Sikh, a Persian, a Tibetan, a Japanese, a Sulawesi, an Ibo, a Lakota or, indeed, most of those peoples whose experience with the concept was limited. This caused an attitude in the European which denigrated the indigenous peoples as disloyal, traitorous, and untrustworthy by definition if they assisted the imperialist authorities, thus reinforcing and lending credence, not only to the belief of the superiority of the Europeans and their ideals, but also giving validity to subsequent Euro-centric histories of the era and to the internalization and acceptance of feelings of inferiority on the part of the indigenous peoples. Coupled with the loss of their pasts, as Europeans became the only source of historical knowledge, this inferiority became self-perpetuating. Moreover, as Anderson indicates, even when their pasts were exhumed, the Europeans were the source of information on these subjects and, as the experts, let it be understood that the past glories of a community were not accessible to the current degenerate specimens of that people. With the dispersion of nationalism around the world, we have seen people taking back their pasts and reconstituting their self-images. A difficulty with this change is whether or not the sources can be trusted, due to the fact that the European influence on them has been so pervasive for so long. It is thought by some that the histories can only be accepted as a European representation of the history of other peoples. It also raises the question of the status of historical knowledge. That question, with which historians struggle whether dealing with foreign histories or their own, is to understand how is it that we can know the past with accuracy. While all of the source problems that accrue in historical research normally apply, with the reconstruction of these histories of others we must add the filters of biased interpretations informed by European prejudices and culture. Moreover, the knowledge of the culture under investigation is also constrained by the nature of the European inquiry into the culture itself, informed as it was by self-limiting access to peoples and literature in the society studied by the Europeans. The difficulty faced in accommodating these factors is great, but the very fact that we are able to acknowledge them is part of the process that will help us to verify or refute them. Another continuing enterprise to be encouraged in this is the work of non-European scholars. In addition, an acceptance of the work of non-European historians who lived in and wrote of the past as having validity and comparison of accounts to determine the most plausible information can also be beneficial to our understanding.
Euro-centrism is nothing if not pervasive. So much so that it even has affected the geographer's art. Most, if not all, of us have grown up with maps contorted to emphasize the perceived importance of the northern hemisphere, and Europe and North America, in particular. The Mercator Projection is ubiquitous. And as ubiquitous as it is, it is just as distorted. Apologists (Euro-centrists) have forever been arguing that the projection of the globe on a flat surface necessitates distortion. That is correct. However, it does not necessitate the kind of mutilation seen in the Mercator map, where the bias is skewed both north and west. Attempts to produce a projection that accommodate the objections to Mercator have been manifold. Unfortunately, most have used the device of slicing the map into many pieces, rendering useful internal comparison difficult or impossible. Even so, it is admirable that there have been continuing endeavors to rectify this situation. Recently we have seen the introduction of a new projection which may have overcome many of the objections to both Mercator and the attempts which followed it. This is the Peter's Projection and it has eliminated the north-south bias by placing the equator in the center of the projection and by seeking to represent the land with areas equal to actual proportions on the globe. This has resulted in some deformity in the shapes of the land masses, but portrays size and directions which are accurate. All efforts to more accurately represent the past and those items which influence our perceptions of the past are to be welcomed. This new map fits that category.
As we have seen comparison presents the starkest arguments against Euro-centrism. It provides the ammunition required to make the knowledgeable decisions about the past that are essential to any serious attempt at understanding history. Unfortunately, it can also allow over-reaction to previous misinformed interpretations and attempts at revision which are ill-advised. The revisionist view of world history tends to regard Euro-centrism in a completely negative light. While this perspective has merit, it is also true that there are things that Euro-centrism has to tell us about the past, so let us not throw out the baby with the bath water. The ideal method of overcoming Euro-centrism is to integrate it into the schema of modern world history, accepting that which can be demonstrated to be valid, discarding that which can be shown to be inaccurate, biased or misinformed and employing our understanding of both it and the new paradigms to enhance the insight into how perception affects history and to produce as valid a reconstruction of the past as possible.