Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104639 in Books
• Published on: 1993-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 246 pages

From the Back Cover
This book challenges one of the most pervasive and powerful beliefs of our time concerning world history and world geography. This is the doctrine of European diffusionism, the belief that the rise of Europe to modernity and world dominance is due to some unique European quality of race, environment, culture, mind, or spirit, and that progress for the rest of the world results 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. It is the world model which Europeans constructed to explain, justify, and assist their colonial expansion.

The book first defines the Eurocentric diffusionist model of the world as one that invents a permanent world core, an "Inside," in which cultural evolution is natural and continuous, and a permanent periphery, and "Outside," in which cultural evolution is mainly an effect of the diffusion of ideas, commodities, settlers, and political control from the core. The ethnohistory of the doctrine is traced from its 16th-century origins, through its efflorescence in the period of classical colonialism, to its present form in theories of economic development, modernization, and new world order. Blaut demonstrates that most "Western" scholarship is to some extent diffusionist and based implicitly in the idea that the world has one permanent center from which culture-changing ideas tend to emanate. Eurocentric diffusionism has shaped our attitudes concerning race and the environment, psychology and society, technology and politics.

Blaut presents persuasive evidence that Europe was not more highly developed that other civilizations prior to 1492, and had no unique "potential"--intellectual, social, or environmental--for modernization. He shows that the "rise" of Europe over other world civilizations occurred because of the wealth obtained in early colonialism, mainly in the mines and slave plantations of the Americas. He then argues that the European conquest and exploitation of the Americas resulted from the fact that Europeans were geographically closer to the Americas than were African and Asian maritime-oriented civilizations, and that the conquest itself was facilitated by the great epidemics of Eastern Hemisphere diseases which decimated the populations and destroyed the civilizations of the "New World.

About the Author
J.M. Blaut is Professor of Geography at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History is the first volume in a projected trilogy bearing the title "The Colonizer's Model of the World." Professor Blaut's publications include Volume 2 of the trilogy, Eight Eurocentric Historians.

Customer Reviews

Excellent and persuasive arguments.
This book is superb. Blaut provides a convincing framework showing how 'traditional' views of history and geography have conspired to provide 'Western culture' with justifications for the appaling treatments it has inflicted upon much of the world, its colonies and dominions. The trouble is...nothing much has changed!

Enlightening view of world history since Columbus
The author contends that prior to 1492 most of the sea-faring cultures of the "Old World" (Europe, Africa & Asia) were, for the most part, equal in technological, political and economic status. It was only geographic proximity (and luck) that allowed the Europeans to "discover" America, which had advanced cultures, too. This "discovery" allowed the Europeans to be the first to exploit the natural and human resources of America and therefore position itself as the world powerhouse, that still exists today. Colonization and capitalism followed from the silver trade, then eventually the fur, rum and slave trades. The rest is history. Along the way, Mr. Blaut easily dismisses the notion that it was European culture or character (either good or evil) that led to their "advancements." But it is that main point that really opened my eyes: that other cultures, in all hemispheres, were equally advanced as Europe in 1492, and that Europe's colonization of America was just luck and their "advancement" truly sprung from just that. It is a good complement to "Indian Givers," by Jack Weatherford.

Refuting Eurocentrism
James Blaut, a geographer at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is particularly known for his excellent refutations and polemics against Eurocentrism in economic history. This book, "The Colonizer's Model of the World", is the pinnacle of that oeuvre, together with its companion work "Eight Eurocentric Historians" (Eight Eurocentric Historians).

The first and largest part of the book is devoted to refuting the mythology and mistakes of Eurocentric diffusionism, a body of theories and statements which purport to show that Europe or Europeans were in some way, whether mentally or physically or economically or environmentally or culturally, superior to Asians, Africans and other non-Europeans before the 'discovery' of America. Blaut does this by analyzing systematically the works of many recent and past popularizers of these theories, from the 'hydraulic societies' of Karl Wittfogel to the contemporary racist historiography of Eric L. Jones, and subjecting them to an unsparing criticism for their erroneous assumptions and ignorance of the non-European world. As Blaut shows, China, India, Southeast Asia and even Africa were not lagging behind Europe in any respect before 1492, including but not limited to technology, individual freedom (or lack thereof), and demographics. He also makes many essential geographic points, such as refuting the theories that tropical conditions are inherently unsuited for working or thinking, or that tropical soil is necessarily less fertile, or that Europe relied on rainfall agriculture unlike Asia. The book "Eight Eurocentric Historians" builds upon this part and goes into more detail about it.

The second part of the book is a discussion of the state of feudalism in Europe and elsewhere (about the same level of development except for the Americas, as Blaut shows) before 1492, and the immensely rapid growth, change, and development Western and Southern Europe underwent in the period roughly from 1492 to 1700. Blaut persuasively argues that only the colonization of the Americas, with the enormous influx of wealth and capitalistic production relations resulting from gold and silver mining and plantation work (particularly sugar), can adequately explain this phenomenon. He also explains why it was Europe that conquered America rather than the opposite, the answer being disease, and why it was Europe as opposed to Asia or Africa that did this, the answer being geographical location and advantageous wind patterns for sailing.

Blaut is unsparing and polemic in his writing, occasionally getting preachy, but his case is strong and aims home. He even criticizes otherwise radical authors for their failing in this regard, often legitimately, such as Marx and to a lesser extent Engels, Robert Brenner, Perry Anderson, and others. I do not endorse or support all his critiques on this field, as Blaut occasionally goes overboard, and his endorsement of Martin Bernal's "Black Athena" theory, now discredited, does not aid his case. (It must be noted that this book was written in 1993, and the refutation of this theory in "Black Athena Revisited" (Black Athena Revisited) was published in 1996.) Blaut nonetheless gives good cause also for the radical historians to revise and change the substance of some of the classic Marxist historical view - his book is yet more confirmation that the concept of the "Asiatic mode of production" is untenable and must be discarded, and it also gives more argument for introducting "protocapitalism" as a separate mode of production in between feudalism and Industrial Revolution capitalism, although Blaut himself is not yet willing to do so.

What is most important about this book however is not its historiographical import, but the essential corrective it is to much of the still popular view of world history and the development of Europe and its superior position. From Tarzan to Tintin and from Kipling to the popular view of American Indians, the entire picture of the interactions between Europe and the rest of the world are for many people still unwittingly based on completely incorrect Victorian prejudices and assumptions. This goes not just for the average guy, but even for intellectuals, in fact even for professional historians. And if Blaut's book could make a dent in this vision, it will have made a major contribution to international understanding and historical sense.