On Tue, 10 Dec 1996, A. Gunder Frank wrote:
> F Y = WSN? - Interest, and especially in re Warren Wagar's postings!
> respectfully forwarded
> gunder frank
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 16:48:55 -0500
> From: "whitney@neu.edu Whitney Howarth, Northeastern Univ" <MANNING@neu.edu>
> Reply-To: H-NET List for World History <H-WORLD@h-net.msu.edu>
> Subject: Eurocentric vs. Euro-dominant history
>
> From: Whitney Howarth, World History Center, Northeastern University
> whowarth@lynx.dac.neu.edu
>
> ***Eurocentric vs. Euro-dominant history***
>
> Most scholars purusing World History as a research field will
> agree that a Eurocentric model does not successfully present our
> global historical reality. Though many world history textbooks still
> tend to fall short of the "global" mark, an increasing number of world
> history monographs tend to focus on world-systems and cross-cultural
> interactions (i.e. Wallerstein and Curtin). Educators, wisely,
> often supplement these textbooks with such monographs in hopes of
> presenting a fuller narrative of the past, and to formulate a new
> historiography which does not perpetuate Eurocentrism. Ideally,
> I envision a world historical methodology which embraces connections and
> searches for patterns trans-nationally, but find myself often perplexed
> by the numbers of contemporary world historical pieces which tend to
> promote the "dominance" of Europe (post-1500) as the prevalent theme
> of research.
>
> Within this category I include books like Walter Rodney's *How
> Europe Underdeveloped Africa* and Daniel Headrick's *Tools of Empire* --
> books which by no means take a Eurocentric stance, but which,
> nonetheless, do present world history through a Euro-dominant
> perspective. (Headrick's thesis for example, for those unfamiliar with
> his work, explains Europe's ability to expand into Africa only after the
> development of machine guns, quinine and steam boats). Similarly, works
> such as Alfred Crosby's *Ecological Imperialism* and Willian McNeill's
> *Plagues and Peoples* attempt to explain Europe's status historically in
> the world system (in this case biologically, rather than technologically)
> without attaching a qualitative meaning to that status. It appears then
> that world history post-1500 is dominated by a model of dominance (!)
> which I find unsettling at best. Though quite fond of the above mentioned
> texts and appreciative of their efforts to present a new perspective to
> "old" subjects, I remain wary of the precedent they may establish.
>
> I hope that scholars who have denounced a Eurocentric approach to
> world history have not done so merely to adopt a Euro-dominant one. If
> such is the case, it seems likely that we are merely substituting one
> myopia for another.
>
>
Dear Gunder and All,
All this ingenious hair-splitting about Eurocentric and
Euro-dominant and world-system versus world system and Gunder
Frank/Bergesen versus Wallerstein and whether there was or was not an
Afroeurasian world system with or without the hyphen is getting us nowhere
unless we stop thinking of ourselves as omniscient scientists studying the
human adventure through our super-powerful electron microscopes. We are
not above the fray looking down, we are IN it, right up to our eyebrows.
Obviously everything that almost everybody has said thus far has
some merit, depending on the questions one asks of history and the
perspective from which one casts his/her gaze and the hypotheses
with which one works. Because of the questions I ask and the perspective
I occupy, I agree almost 100% with Immanuel's latest posting, and hence I
said "Bravo!." But does this mean that Immanuel is "right" and Gunder is
"wrong"? Of course not. We can conceptualize and slice up world history
in a jillion ways. The past is, strictly speaking, unknowable. We merely
draw pictures of it, word-pictures that do not and cannot and will not
ever correspond to the reality itself.
I am not saying we should stop drawing our pretty pictures, only
that we should stop thinking of ourselves as gods who have, or soon will
have, the Truth. A little postmodern humility would go a long way toward
civilizing our dialogue with each other and with the tens of billions of
people who came before us.
Peace and love,
Warren