At the risk of more rants, I will also recommend Sen's "The Argumentative
Indian". There are a couple of chapters (the first two) that deal with democracy,
pluralism, and voice in a broad (Indian) historical sweep making precisely the argument
that democracy is neither new nor western in practice. As for other areas of discussion,
which apparent was not present in the Financial Times piece, there are many essays in the
book that deal explicitly with inequality, illiteracy, poverty, gender discrimination,
etc.
Anthony
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Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor Currently
Comparative International Development Senior Visiting Research Fellow
University of Washington Asia Research Institute
1900 Commerce Street National University of Singapore
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA 469 A Tower Block
Phone: (253) 692-4462 Bukit Timah Road #10-01
Fax : (253) 692-5718 Singapore 259770
http://tinyurl.com/yhjzrm Ph: (65) 6516 8785
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On Thu, 23 Aug 2007, Louis Proyect wrote:
Walt Byars wrote:
Hi, can anyone recommend some books or articles criticizing the (absurd
sounding) claim that that the idea of political freedom and its
desirability were invented in the West and only exists in other cultures
because of Western influence (and similar such claims)?
I don't know of any single book that does the trick, but I would
recommend the following:
1. Basil Davidson, "African Civilization Revisited: From Antiquity to
Modern Times"
2. Edward Said, "Orientalism"
3. Zia Sardar: various titles focused on Islam
4. A.G. Frank: "Re-Orient"
