Reading John M. Hobson’s The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) has reinforced a long-developing view of mine: what we’ve been taught in our schools, even our universities, about the history of the world is built on a myth that is largely falsifiable by facts. A more accurate re-telling is “inconvenient truth” in the same way Al Gore’s account in a recent documentary on global warming and its effects was.
In an introductory paragraph, Hobson describes our traditional view of world history, ending with the question on which his study unfolds in the rest of the book:
“We typically assume that the pristine West had emerged at the top of the world by about 1492 (think of Christopher Columbus), owing to its uniquely ingenious scientific rationality, rational restlessness and democratic/progressive properties. From then, the traditional view has it, the Europeans spread outwards conquering the East and Far West while simultaneously laying down the tracks of capitalism along which the whole world could be delivered from the jaws of deprivation and misery into the bright light of modernity. Accordingly, it seems entirely natural or self-evident to most of us to conflate the progressive story of world history with the Rise and Triumph of the West. This traditional view can be called ‘Eurocentric.’ For at its heart is the notion that the West properly deserves to occupy the centre stage of progressive world history, both past and present. But does it?”
Although very few Western historians are rabidly “Eurocentric” and most are re-thinking their more conventional views, Hobson’s arguments and evidence do not appear widespread in the works of contemporary historians. Personally, my hope is that they find their way into most textbook writers’ minds sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I recommend reading this book to get your own re-thinking started.
Posted by curiositymatters 
