Re: different sociology

At 10:04 AM 2/20/2002, khaled odetalah wrote:
>   After “ Reorient”, what kind of different sociology we can imagine and
>seek to establish ? Should we seek a different version of current
>sociology’, or the whole idea of the discipline must be questioned? What
>about the idea of building on pre – modern sociologies such as
>IbnKhaldoon’s work?
>
>
> Khaled D. Odetalah  

The late Jim Blaut had a trilogy in mind but only the first 2 installments
were completed: "Colonizer's Model of the World" and "8 Eurocentric
Historians". The final volume was intended to present an alternative vision
of history, based on the viewpoint of the colonized. I suspect that this
example would have been a guide for te kind of sociology Khaled is
proposing as well. If there is anything that cries out to be written, it is
a sort of world history in 2 or 3 volumes that would once and for all put
Europe in its proper place. Long before I ran into Jim, I had been thinking
along these lines after reading Janet Abu-Lughod's "Before European
Hegemony". The material about a Chinese boat sailing to Africa in the 14th
century that could have fit all of Columbus's ships on its deck whetted my
curiosity. As a model for the kind of scholarship that is needed, you can
look at the Oxford History of the British Empire which is a collection of
articles by various authors. 

Louis Proyect
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