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ما بعد المركزية الأوروبية
يهتم مؤلف هذا الكتاب بتقديم رؤية جديدة لتاريخ العالم في إطار نظرية" أنطونيو جرامشى" المفكر الماركسي الإيطالي، وذلك من خلال دراساته للواقع الإيطالي والثقافية الإيطالية، ومن هنا اختار المؤلف أن يتحدى الفكرة السائدة عن ( المركزية الأوروبية )، في أطرها المختلفة الليبرالية أو الماركسية أو المحافظة، التي تذهب إلى أن تاريخ العالم لا يمكن أن يفهم إلا على ضوء التطورات الراهنة لتاريخ أوروبا، وتتمحور حول المركزية الأوروبية .
- GenresPolitics
689 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1996
About the author
Peter Gran
7 books14 followersPeter Gran is professor of history at Temple University. He is the author of Islamic Roots of Capitalism: Egypt, 1760-1840 and Beyond Eurocentrism: A New Modern World History, both published by Syracuse University Press.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 19, 2024
لم أستطع تكملته... حينما يكون الملل خام
June 15, 2026
Gran's book is a revisionist work of World History that sought to deconstruct the paradigm of European exceptionalism in history and political sociology. Inspiring, drawing, and employing neo-Marxist interpretations, Gran devise new interpretative approaches based on hegemonic models of ruling that offers methodological lens to analyze and compare different political systems across the world. By using these hegemonic models, Gran argues that blocs such as Europe, Latin America, Asia, and others do not make sense in terms of unity and homogeneity. He proposes four models to develop his argument: the Russia Road, the Italian Road, the Tribal/Ethnic system, and the Burgeoise Democracy.
In each one, he identifies one European and one non-European society to show that certain European countries have more in common with distant nations than with their neighbors. Instead of grouping countries by geography (like West vs. Third World, Europe v. Asia) or industrial and technological advancement, his focus is to systematize and group countries by how their ruling elites manage internal conflicts from the working class to maintain power. In this way, he argues that non-Western paths to modernity are not failed attempts or delayed stages in pursuit of the teleological, desired final political organization of Western democracies, but sophisticated systems in their own terms, which he groups into categories.
So, success and failure, with Western Europe as a benchmark, are just narrative myths in Gran's book. He rejects the idea of exoticism and golden ages for non-European societies and treats them as fully functioning political economies rather than as stagnant or anomalous. His attention to vertical ruling (dominant class to working class), also gives some space, although not as much as the author claims, to shows that reality is not just driven by elite desires. People challenge, interact with, adapt to, and accept how the ruling class organizes the system, so he emphasizes a dialectical relationship between the dominant and dominated classes, and his methodology focuses on bringing social history into world history. His methodology is driven by a neo-Marxist lens, and he draws on ideas from Antonio Gramsci and Foucault, contending that nation-states should be studied and understood as sites of class conflict defined by race, gender, tribe, or region.
The book challenges Eurocentrism from a really interesting perspective, highlighting political and economic similarities between non-Western societies and European countries, while also revealing disparities in political and economic development within Europe and Western Europe. It is convincing in how it dismantles Eurocentric interpretations, but the book seems somehow limited to the goal it aimed to achieve. Although he does not argue that the four models are rigid frameworks for analysis, some places show overlaps among them while also forcing certain historical processes to fit into one of these models. As a historian focused on Brazil's history, I was constantly reflecting on Brazil, and how it could fit in the Italian road model (not as he explained, focused on a cultural and geographical division between North and South in Italy, India and Mexico, but other similar geographical and cultural tensions), but also with several aspects of the Bourgeois Democracy, or even some of the Russia Road. Overall, the models emphasize continuity across historical change, which is an interesting approach, but it tends to exaggerate continuity to force the model to endure significant transformation in certain places.
Despite the author's criticism of Latin America as a category that cannot be equated with the Third World, Mexico is almost the only Latin American country to apply his model, and it is considered to show how the model works in Latin America as a whole. He also did this to Africa, Asia, and North America, which somewhat contradicts his deconstruction of Europe as a bloc. The strongest part, at the end, is his argument that modernization and political structures should not be seen as a late stage in a teleological line, but as a self-developed, sophisticated political and economic system that addresses internal struggles. He questions whether the majority of the world is not modern, as the Eurocentric model proposes by establishing itself as the top of modernity. Regardless of how inspired by Western Europe it was, each place took on its own shape and can be modern without being equal to a quantitative minority of countries.
In each one, he identifies one European and one non-European society to show that certain European countries have more in common with distant nations than with their neighbors. Instead of grouping countries by geography (like West vs. Third World, Europe v. Asia) or industrial and technological advancement, his focus is to systematize and group countries by how their ruling elites manage internal conflicts from the working class to maintain power. In this way, he argues that non-Western paths to modernity are not failed attempts or delayed stages in pursuit of the teleological, desired final political organization of Western democracies, but sophisticated systems in their own terms, which he groups into categories.
So, success and failure, with Western Europe as a benchmark, are just narrative myths in Gran's book. He rejects the idea of exoticism and golden ages for non-European societies and treats them as fully functioning political economies rather than as stagnant or anomalous. His attention to vertical ruling (dominant class to working class), also gives some space, although not as much as the author claims, to shows that reality is not just driven by elite desires. People challenge, interact with, adapt to, and accept how the ruling class organizes the system, so he emphasizes a dialectical relationship between the dominant and dominated classes, and his methodology focuses on bringing social history into world history. His methodology is driven by a neo-Marxist lens, and he draws on ideas from Antonio Gramsci and Foucault, contending that nation-states should be studied and understood as sites of class conflict defined by race, gender, tribe, or region.
The book challenges Eurocentrism from a really interesting perspective, highlighting political and economic similarities between non-Western societies and European countries, while also revealing disparities in political and economic development within Europe and Western Europe. It is convincing in how it dismantles Eurocentric interpretations, but the book seems somehow limited to the goal it aimed to achieve. Although he does not argue that the four models are rigid frameworks for analysis, some places show overlaps among them while also forcing certain historical processes to fit into one of these models. As a historian focused on Brazil's history, I was constantly reflecting on Brazil, and how it could fit in the Italian road model (not as he explained, focused on a cultural and geographical division between North and South in Italy, India and Mexico, but other similar geographical and cultural tensions), but also with several aspects of the Bourgeois Democracy, or even some of the Russia Road. Overall, the models emphasize continuity across historical change, which is an interesting approach, but it tends to exaggerate continuity to force the model to endure significant transformation in certain places.
Despite the author's criticism of Latin America as a category that cannot be equated with the Third World, Mexico is almost the only Latin American country to apply his model, and it is considered to show how the model works in Latin America as a whole. He also did this to Africa, Asia, and North America, which somewhat contradicts his deconstruction of Europe as a bloc. The strongest part, at the end, is his argument that modernization and political structures should not be seen as a late stage in a teleological line, but as a self-developed, sophisticated political and economic system that addresses internal struggles. He questions whether the majority of the world is not modern, as the Eurocentric model proposes by establishing itself as the top of modernity. Regardless of how inspired by Western Europe it was, each place took on its own shape and can be modern without being equal to a quantitative minority of countries.
July 6, 2007
Written by a personal friend and mentor of mine, this book proproses a new and exciting way to approach modern world history. Gran borrows many of his ideas of Antonio Gramsci specifically and argues that the study of nation-states should be seen entirely as class conflict--which is deflected either by race, gender, tribe, or region. This book has been very influential to my thinking. Read it merely to get to know my ideas better (talk to me to get to know me better).
November 9, 2012
He busted my balls as a History major but made me a better historian and taught to think of history outside the box. Not for the average reader but a must read for historians.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews