>By the standards of world historians - or anyone who disagrees
>that Europe was uniquely prepared for modern capitalism, or that
>by the 16th-17th centuries capitalism was fully underway in
>England, Brenner, Wood, including Anderson, and all the British
>Marxist historians ARE eurocentric.To the extent that marxists
>today continue to write about the rise of capitalism without doing
>comparative world historical research, they ARE eurocentric.
But then the claim doesn't mean very much. It just means you're not doing comparative
world history--which begs definition, btw. But so what? How does that invalidate any
of the claims that Brenner makes in Merchants and Revolution or the Turbulence essay?
The stuff you've been posting about Chinese agriculture (to the degree I've kept up)
has been fascinating. But it doesn't explain the rise of New World Slavery, the
triangle trade, the origins of modern finance, the transition from feudal to
capitalist social relations in the Atlantic economies, etc. (Which doesn't mean it's
not worthwhile, just that . . .)
Eurocentrism, in that context, is basically a way to harness the political claims of
wrong to an epistemology which, like all epistemologies, has its limits. If you want
to argue on this level--which is basically name-calling--comparative world history is
not non-Eurocentric--it's a more ambitious version of Eurocentrism, the way
"globalization" is a more ambitious (and "friendly") version of imperialism.
But that's a stupid argument. Spivak said somewhere that the problem is not
Eurocentrism, but not being Eurocentric enough.
Christian
P.S. I second Justin's rec of _Hydra_.
