Can European thought be dislodged from the center of the practice of history in a non-European place? What problems arise when we translate cultural practices into the categories of social science? Provincializing Europe is one of the first book-length treatments on how postcolonial thinking impacts on the social sciences. This book explores, through a series of linked essays, the problems of thought that present themselves when we think of a place such as India through the categories of modern, European social science and, in particular, history.
Provincializing Europe is a sustained conversation between historical thinking and postcolonial perspectives. It addresses the mythical figure of Europe that is often taken to be the original site of the modern in many histories of capitalist transition in non-Western countries. This imaginary Europe, Chakrabarty argues, is built right into the social sciences. The very idea of historicizing carries with it some peculiarly European assumptions about disenchanted space, secular time, and human sovereignty. Measured against such mythical standards, capitalist transition in the third world has often seemed either incomplete or lacking. Chakrabarty finds that "Nativism," however, is no answer to Eurocentrism, because the universals propounded by European Enlightenment remain indispensable to any social critique that seeks to address issues of social justice and equity. Provincializing Europe proposes that every case of transition to capitalism is a case of translation as well--a translation of existing worlds and their thought-categories into the categories and self-understandings of capitalist modernity. Chakrabarty demonstrates, both theoretically and with examples from colonial and contemporary India, how such translational histories may be thought and written. Provincializing Europe is not a project of shunning European thought. It is a project of globalizing such thought by exploring how it may be renewed both for and from the margins.
I was delighted to read the chapter on "Adda", a unique Bengali culture. In Europe, café culture comes close to it. The French had the "salon" culture. Having participated in many "adda" in my youth in Calcutta, I miss it while living in the US or in Europe. Chakrabarty does a favor to my occidental friends by properly explaining what it means and what it did for Bengali social system.
Summing up, I would recommend this book to several groups of people. First, if you want to learn about the intricacies of the Indian, particularly Bengali, culture, this book is for you. Second, of course, this book is a required reading for any serious student of India and Indian culture. Third, students of international business should also be interested in this book as it lays the foundation of the many cultural tenets that are important in economic activities.
Whither subalternity?.......2000-12-11
Pace Chakrabarty, "Provincializing Europe" is replete with intellectual antics, including an inventive chapter devoted to re-reading "Das Kapital", and charged with 'ubiquitous obliquity' (to borrow Tom Stoppard's phrase from another context). However, it is not the detailed argumentation of the book that concerns us here; its essence will suffice to indicate the direction neo-Subalternism has taken. Chakrabarty's book aims to dismantle historicism itself, identified as that evil of the Enlightenment which views social phenomena as unities and historically developed. To achieve this, it proposes the disruption of metanarratives grounded in a 'single and secular historical time' (Chakrabarty 2000, 16 et passim) - (neo)colonial, nationalist, Marxist, whatever - by introducing authentic 'difference' thereto. This difference is sought in religion and the inclusion of gods and spirits as agents of history. Meanwhile, despite the repeated insistence that this is still Subalternist historiography, the subaltern meanders in the wings of Chakrabarty's stage, while his world of the Bengali middle-class male comes to constitute his 'archive' (Chakrabarty 2000, 117-236). As for the question of power, the analysis of relations of domination and subordination internal to society has given way to the power struggle between the oppressive Enlightenment and the recalcitrant historian in the new brand of "Subaltern Studies". Here, power is indeed entirely dispersed and only appears to coalesce in the Enlightenment and its intellectual heritage.
While enticing in its intellectual sharpness and breadth (Chakrabarty discusses Einstein and Marx in one fell swoop), there are a number of problems with this approach. The most urgent among these is that it paralyzes organized secular politics, lends credence to the politics of the religious right wing, and hence legitimates communal and sectarian carnage - a fact of life in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Furthermore, the fact that religion is the traditional stronghold of patriarchy as well as exploitation based on caste appears to escape Chakrabarty's notice. Only intellectuals located at a distance of oceans and continents from the destructive forces they valorize can afford to be so blasé about the very real threat of annihilation faced by minority groups in the context of an ascendant right. Polemics and reality (that specious construct) aside, and on a more scholarly note, the problematic of power stands sidelined. Subscribing to the idea that power is universal, and refusing to acknowledge that it coheres in concentrated form at certain sites (between subaltern and elite) is counterproductive to understanding power as it is exercised in systems of domination and subordination. By no means is such anxiety limited to the scholarship being released under the banner of Subaltern Studies. Susan Pedersen recently voiced similar concern over the direction of feminist history. Her eloquence merits citation in extenso: "[I]nsights that have proven so productive for cultural analysis - insights about the multivalent, collaborative and web-like nature of power - tend to be less useful for the study of narrower political processes. For, once we assume power is everywhere, it usually turns out to be nowhere very much; if it is analytically directionless, it scarcely needs to be taken into account. Our acceptance [...] of the truth that power is everywhere and that the weak, like the strong, play the game of power, has led us away from grasping the other truth that the players are not equal, that even multivalent systems can have internal movements preponderantly in one direction or another, that there are degrees of power, that a middle ground exists between an assumption of total agency and an assumption of total fixity - and that it is on this crucial middle ground that the most interesting questions are found and much interesting history happens."
Finally, the fact that Chakrabarty's archive is the Bengali middle-class male and that he, along with his associates, is mired in theorizing to the neglect of substantive research of subaltern history speaks for itself. ....
Book Description
Great Britain's geopolitical role has undergone many changes over the last four centuries. Once a maritime superpower and ruler of half the world, Britain now occupies an isolated position as an economically fragile island often at odds with her European neighbors.
Lawrence James has written a comprehensive, perceptive, and insighful history of the British Empire. Spanning the years from 1600 to the present day, this critically acclaimed book combines detailed scholarship with readable popular history.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful survey, for academic or layperson.......2007-01-08
This book was one of the first I read on the British Empire, a cure for the veritable itch of interest. The sheer volume of this book may be overwhelming for the casual reader of history, but it is full of insight and subtleties that enrich it for both experts and novices alike. It has academic value as well, not least in its well-compiled bibliography of secondary sources, and overall balanced account. This book is also a narrative, not an academic treatise, and it therefore accommodates the reader that is seeking a synthesis of the facts. As an introduction to the British Empire - from rise to fall - I have found it most useful. If you are only going to buy one book to buy on the British Empire, perhaps this should be it.
Unsurpassed Survey Treatment.......2006-08-04
If a reader is seeking a reasonably concise (even at 600+ pages) treatment of the complete arc of the British Empire, this is the best I have come across. Other readers, more familiar with pivital episodes of that drama, should recognize that the work is, after all, a survey and does not purport to describe even the most significant of the empire's turning points (with the exception of India) in great detail. These many pages are a thoroughly enjoyable read for the simple reasons that Author James possesses an obvious command of his subject matter and writes in enviably understandable declarative sentences which should serve as models for other historians. It is interesting to compare and contrast this work with Niall Ferguson's "Empire", an equally readable and somewhat more provocative account of British world hegemony. Both are worth the read, and both provide object lessons regarding the Middle East which are not a little dispiriting at this moment when Israel is ramping up its invasion of Lebanon and Iraq appears inexorably headed toward civil war. Too bad only we history buffs seem to ponder works like these; apparently our political and military leaders don't have time for them, busy as they are fighting the "War on Terror". One can only hope that the lessons they learn in doing so won't be as painful and ultimately destructive of national pride, human and economic resources, and the capacity for doing good in the world as the British experience.
Believe it or not, its too short........2006-07-07
It is hard to imagine a seven hundred-plus page book being too short, but here it is. This is one of those rare lengthy tomes that keeps your attention and, which is even rarer, whets your appetite for more. Reading Mr. James' book opens up a wide vista of other books to read: more detailed history of India, the South Pacific, the Spanish Main, etc.
Mr. James has a well developed talent for a style that is informative and entertaining. The chapters are numerous and fairly short and each one covers a different topic. There is quite a lot of referencing back and forth, but again Mr. James does a good job of keeping the threads of his Cat's Craddle from unravelling.
It is very clear the Mr. James has a great deal of knowledge about this subject but he does not become pedantic nor try to impress us with this knowledge. He did make me run for the dictionary once or twice, but that is always a pleasure because it means I've learnt a new word!
Though it seems funny to say, this book is too brief. It is a great introduction to the topic and the book will leave you wanting for more and, more importantly, it points you in the right direction. If you have any Anglophile in you, read this book.
Great Overview of the British Empire.......2006-04-13
James's account of the British Empire is a great piece of scholarly work for anyone interested in British imperialism/colonialism. This is especially useful for those not wanting to spend time and money on the five volumes Oxford History of the British Empire. Of course the Oxford one is small compared to some of the others out there.
I particularly enjoyed James's use of artistic achievements to setup the historical context of the particular period he is discussing. His treatment of the less savory aspects of British imperialism is fair and balanced. Though he could probably have been a harsher critic on the British opium policy in India, China and Southeast Asia.
Overall, James gives the reader an excellent survey/overview of the British Empire. He even covers the Falkland War with some detail! For those amateur historians or generally interested in the British Empire this is a great one to pick up.
Very complete and compelling.......2005-07-19
I knew very little about the history of the English Empire (I'm Italian), and this book told me everything I wanted to know.
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Becoming True to Ourselves: Cultural Decolonization and National Identity in the Literature of the Portuguese-Speaking World (Contributions to the Study of World Literature)
Maria Luisa Nunes
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
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ASIN: 0313257264 |
Book Description
Becoming True to Ourselves is a penetrating exploration of literary strategies of decolonization in the Portuguese-speaking world. Divided into three parts, the analysis centers on an examination of the Portuguese, Brazilian, and African colonial experiences as viewed through the eyes of native contemporary writers over a 100-year span. This examination enables the author to uncover the fundamental relationship between cultural decolonization and national identity and reveals an unusually vital literary tradition that both reinforces and helps impel these nation's drives toward cultural, political, and economic independence.
Book Description
Here is the story of the British Empire from its late-nineteenth century flowering to its present extinction. Louis traces the British Empire from the scramble for Africa, the turbulent imperial history of the Second World War in Asia, and the mid-20th century rush to independence to the Suez crisis, the icon of empire's end. It forms the ideal platform from which to examine the aims and outcome of empire.
Customer Reviews:
An excellent collection of essays from a great scholar.......2006-10-08
William Roger Louis is a giant among scholars of British imperialism. The editor of the "Oxford History of the British Empire", for nearly half a century his scholarship has helped define the field. Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Suez crisis he has collected his essays related to that defining episode. These not only cover the incident itself but a number of related topics - for as he explains, "the Suez crisis can be studied as an episode in decolonization and that decolonization itself . . . can best be understood in the context of the long colonial era extending from the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 to the death of Nasser in 1970 and the withdrawal of all troops East of Suez in the following year."
Louis groups these essays into ten categories. After an introductory overview of Suez and decolonization, he provides an essay on colonial empires in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and four on "the scramble for Africa". These are followed by four which examine the First World War and the mandates system, two on the British possessions of Singapore and Hong Kong, and four on India, Palestine and Egypt, which are linked together by the theme of impending independence. After five essays on decolonization in general, he includes six on aspects of the Suez crisis itself and four more on Britain's withdrawal from the rest of the Middle East in its aftermath before finishing with three essays on the historiography of his field.
Though all but one of these essays have been published before now, bringing them together allows Louis to draw out three main themes. The first is the one which occasioned the volume - the study of Suez in the broader context of decolonization. This last, failed effort to hold onto the empire through force led the British to attempt to maintain some vestige of their influence through more informal means, which is the second theme of his collection. Finally, as British control gradually slipped, new states emerged throughout Africa and Asia; it is the consequences of their emergence which forms the final theme Louis emphasizes.
Taken together, these essays represent a formidable body of work on one of the key developments of modern times. Though some of the essays have been reworked, the basic scholarship within them remains as informative and insightful as it was when they were first published. Delving into the pages of this book provides insight not only into the demise of the British Empire, but into how it shaped and defined the world in which we live today. No student of British imperial history should be without this volume, and anyone interested in understanding the twentieth century will profit from reading it.
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Colonial Discourse/ Post-Colonial Theory
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
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Similar Items:
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Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts
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The Location of Culture (Routledge Classics)
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Orientalism
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Colonialism/Postcolonialism (The New Critical Idiom)
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Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction
ASIN: 0231100213 |
Book Description
Equally suitable for undergraduates and specialists in the humanities, this collection provides an in-depth introduction to debates within post-colonial theory and criticism. The readings are drawn from a diverse selection of Third World and Western thinkers, both historical and contemporary. "Post-colonialism" is taken by the editors to include Third World and diasporic experience, like "colonialism," it is understood to contain a complex set of cultural, ethnographic, political, and economic processes and conflicts.
Book Description
In this account of the Algerian War's effect on French political structures and notions of national identity, Todd Shepard asserts that the separation of Algeria from France was truly a revolutionary event with lasting consequences for French social and political life.
For more than a century, Algeria had been, legally and administratively, part of France; after the bloody war that concluded in 1962 it was other, its eight million Algerian residents deprived of French citizenship while hundreds of thousands of French pieds noirs were forced to return to a country that was never home. This rupture violated the universalism that had been the essence of French republican theory since the late eighteenth century. Shepard contends that because the amputation of Algeria from the French body politic was accomplished illegally and without explanation, its repercussions are responsible for many of the racial and religious tensions that confront France today.
In portraying decolonization as an essential step in the inexorable "tide of history," the French state absolved itself of responsibility for the revolutionary change it was effecting. It thereby turned its back not only on the French of Algeria—Muslims in particular—but also on its own republican principles and the 1958 Constitution. From that point onward, debates over assimilation, identity, and citizenship—once focused on the Algerian "province/colony"—have troubled France itself. In addition to grappling with questions of race, citizenship, national identity, state institutions, and political debate, Shepard also addresses debates in Jewish history, gender history, and queer theory.
Book Description
In this closely integrated collection of essays on colonialism in world history, Frederick Cooper raises crucial questions about concepts relevant to a wide range of issues in the social sciences and humanities, including identity, globalization, and modernity. Rather than portray the past two centuries as the inevitable movement from empire to nation-state, Cooper places nationalism within a much wider range of imperial and diasporic imaginations, of rulers and ruled alike, well into the twentieth century. He addresses both the insights and the blind spots of colonial studies in an effort to get beyond the tendency in the field to focus on a generic colonialism located sometime between 1492 and the 1960s and somewhere in the "West." Broad-ranging, cogently argued, and with a historical focus that moves from Africa to South Asia to Europe, these essays, most published here for the first time, propose a fuller engagement in the give-and-take of history, not least in the ways in which concepts usually attributed to Western universalism--including citizenship and equality--were defined and reconfigured by political mobilizations in colonial contexts.
Customer Reviews:
Good but misguisded.......2005-07-27
In this interesting study the reader is taken on a tour of 'colonial studies' looking at colonialism as a discipline and its study as historiography. Colonialism is one of those topics that every western student is expected to have a knee jerk reaction of 'bad' when the word is mentioned. Along with 'imperialism' this is the word used to condemn the west and justify murder and terrorism everywhere in the world. From Hamas to the IRA to the Tammils, it is always generic 'colonialism' that is being fought against. But how does colonialism come into play with nationalism? What about the question of colonialism and the west. What was colonialism?
These definitions and debates are interesting, however in seeking a broader understanding and looking at 'colonial studies' this book doesn't address some important questions. Most important this book accepts that 'colonialism' is a western creation when in fact it is not. Since the 7th century Islam has colonized 1/5th of the world. The Ottomans colonized Eastern Europe and the Afghans and Turks did the same to India. China colonized Korea. We have examples of colonial societies outside the west not usually recognized as such, in the pursuit of western academics to pursue their goal of self hate. The Roman Empire and the Assyrian empires were colonial constructs. Colonialism didn't start in 1492. For instance for 1000 years, 500 of which took place before 1492, the Arabs colonized East Africa and deported 5 million slaves from the region. They ran plantations and imported religion, in a similar model to the one applied by the Spanish in South America.
Seth J. Frantzman
Customer Reviews:
Ghana's 50th Anniversary!!!.......2007-03-07
I'm fortunate to be able to review Osageyfo's book especially on a day like today. I've read biographies on Dr. Nkrumah and a myriad of essays on his work, I can state categorically that hearing his thoughts directly is incomparable. As an intellectual and philosopher Nkrumah is head and shoulders above the rest. And to paraphrase another noted President, "History has absolved him". What makes this book excellent is Nkrumah's eloquence and pragmatic analysis of the psychology, ideology and traditions of Africa vis a vis the West. It's difficult to describe just how great this book really is.
Nkrumah's Philosophical Consciencism.......2006-06-30
Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for De-colonization is without question among the greatest books ever written. It is the definitive work on the subject of the worldwide African freedom struggle. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah guides the reader to an understanding of the indispensable link between culture, society, philosophy and ideology.
He demonstrates that all societies, all peoples, have their own ideology emerging from their particular philosophical views. He shows how in the instance of the enslaved and colonized Africans some individuals succumb to the imposed philosophies and ideologies of the enslaver and colonizers, whereas others, such as Dr. Nkrumah himself, are capable of gleaning from the experience that which is useful in reconstructing the African perspective on life and reality.
His book is primarily concerned with helping the reader understand how to develop and use redemptive philosophy and ideology in the African context to overcome the immense negative consequences of the great crimes against humanity perpetrated on the peoples of Africa. He further posits that the generic approach he advocates, that is philosophical consciencism, is applicable for adaptation by other peoples similarly impacted by the monstrous systems of slavery, colonialism and its modern rendition neocolonialism.
It is a must read for all those who are really concerned with the dismal state of the world today.
I give this book a 5; if possible I would give it an exponentially higher rating. It is just that good.
Commie Dictator's excuses.......2002-11-25
Nkrumah's philosophy of "de-colonization" was to set up a one party Stalinist Police State. After running Ghana into the ground on approved Marxist-Leninist economics, he bailed to Romania. He died in 1972, Good Riddence to Bad Rubbish.
The Traditional thought.......1998-05-13
Consciencism is the philosophical justification of the historic reasoning that made African Tradtional society egalitarian and generaly humanist. This work exposes the difference between western logic and the traditional thinking that dominated even feudal society in Africa. This view sees people as the extension of society and does not attempt to explain the foundations of the world , it attempts to show how reality is used to improve the human condition. It is a major contribution to philosophy while it is sometimes considered a political perspective.
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- Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction
- Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World
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