The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric HistoryGuilford Press, 2012 M07 23 - 246 pages This influential book challenges one of the most pervasive and powerful beliefs of our time--that Europe rose to modernity and world dominance due to unique qualities of race, environment, culture, mind, or spirit, and that progress for the rest of the world resulted from the diffusion of European civilization. J. M. Blaut persuasively argues that this doctrine is not grounded in the facts of history and geography, but in the ideology of colonialism. Blaut traces the colonizer's model of the world from its 16th-century origins to its present form in theories of economic development, modernization, and new world order. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 3 | |
| 8 | |
| 11 | |
The Colonizers Model | 17 |
Origins | 18 |
Classical Diffusionism | 21 |
Modern Diffusionism | 26 |
Society | 119 |
Church | 123 |
Class | 124 |
Family | 128 |
Notes | 135 |
Before 1492 | 152 |
Medieval Landscapes | 153 |
Protocapitalism in Africa Asia and Europe | 165 |
World Models And Worldly Interests | 30 |
Diffusionism as a Belief System | 41 |
Notes | 43 |
The Myth of the European Miracle | 50 |
Mythmakers and Critics | 52 |
Modernization as History | 53 |
The Critique | 54 |
The Countercritique | 58 |
The Myth | 59 |
Biology | 61 |
Demography | 66 |
Environment | 69 |
Arid Despotic Asia | 80 |
Temperate Europe | 90 |
Rationality | 94 |
The Rationality Doctrine | 95 |
Rationality and the European Miracle | 102 |
Technology | 108 |
Notes | 173 |
After 1492 | 179 |
Why America Was Conquered by Europeans and Not by Africans or Asians | 180 |
Why the Conquest Was Successful | 183 |
Europe in 1492 | 186 |
Colonialism and the Rise of Europe 14921688 | 187 |
Precious Metals | 189 |
Plantations | 191 |
Effects | 193 |
Colonialism and Capitalism in the Seventeenth Century | 198 |
The Centration of Capitalism | 201 |
Notes | 206 |
Conclusion | 214 |
Notes | 215 |
| 217 | |
| 237 | |
Other editions - View all
The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and ... James Morris Blaut Limited preview - 1993 |
The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and ... J. M. Blaut No preview available - 1993 |
The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and ... J. M. Blaut No preview available - 1993 |
Common terms and phrases
accepted accumulation Africa America ancient argue argument Asia Asian assert Baechler basic belief system Blaut Brenner C. L. R. James capitalist causal centers Chapter China Chinese civilizations claim classical colonial critique crucial cultural diffusion diffusionism diffusionist discussed doctrine dominant early Eastern Hemisphere economic elite empirical environment ethnoscience Eurocentric Europe Europe's European miracle explain extra-European fact farmers farming feudal geography historians human ideas important India Industrial Revolution innovation invented irrigation Jones labor land mainly Malthusian Mann Marx Marxists matter Max Weber medieval Medieval Technology Michael Mann Middle Ages mode of production modern myth natural nineteenth century non-Europe notion Oriental despotism pattern peasant perhaps period plantation political population primitive progress proposition protocapitalist racism rationality regions rise of capitalism rise of Europe scholars shifting agriculture sixteenth century slave trade social societies soils superiority textbooks theory traditional tropical unique urban Weber West Western world history