oo History and Social Theory, second edition Peter Burke Polity6 Postmodernity and Postmodernism Some analysts of contemporary society have come to dessibe i not only 25 "post-industrial" and ‘te capitalise ur also as ‘postmeder’ (One ofthe ist 1 use de concep Was the historian Arnold Toynbee (foe the history of ee idea, P. Anderson 1998). Since Toynbee’ day, howeves historians ~ unlike conomism, geographers or sociologits “have made a surprisingly small contribution to the debate on the ratute of postmoderiy 1 say ‘surprisingly since peiodization is fe of the central concern of historians. One contribution that thoy could make isa acepial one, Toa historian, eepeilly ¢o one concerned with tends over the long tem the tm ‘pstmodera is bound to tok lke yet another example ofthe hyperbole o which ‘enerations of intelletuals have resorted, fam the Renaissance tnwards, ro persuade others that ther period or generation is 8 Special one. ‘The thetoic of any one generation would sound xtremely plausible, were it not for the examples of their Predecesor Tn any case, the concept ‘postmodern isan ambiguous one. Some people use the ter in opposition to ‘modern’, asthe description of Ecormpleely new epoch, while others think of postoderity (in French srmodermt) aba intensification oF atcleration of modern trends og in the words of the German sociologist Ulich Beck, "Second modernity” (Giddens 1990; Beck 2000). ‘Whatever agjrive we use co describe it, 2 major shit in antes has occurred inthe lat generation among historian and social thee conse as well ain the culture at large. There ia tendency to take Steactces les seriously, associated wid a dizy sense of iberty and rormooensry ao rosrmopennin 173 also of uncertainty and precariousness. The shift i surely a response to the acceleration of scil change. Just a we realize that oppor nities fr secure lng-tem employment are desing of that there i ‘more and more movement of people, goods and messages across political frontiers, so we ae increasingly aware of what Sabling cals the "sk to categories whenever they ace use everyay Ie (M4 Sable 1985: 149). A the Polsh sociologist Zygonunt Bauman (2000) memorably puts it, we liv in an age of tut, in a ‘qi ‘world where even personal elatonship seem to be es constant than they used to be Te iri this new socal and cultural environment thatthe histor: tans and theorists to be dcussed in this chaprer are working, Their “conscious responses t0 postmodemity may be describe, like mich of contemporary ar and lerature, 25 examples of postmodernism. However, inthe cass of history and social theory its more precise and may be sore illuminating. 10 speak of ‘postmodernism, and more especially of the ewin movements of destabilization and Ascent, Destabilization By “desabilizaton’, I mean a shift from the assumption of xy to the atsumprion of fudiy, or to vary the metaphor, the collapee of the traditional idea of sructutes, whether they ze economic, socal, political or cultural. Concepts such as ‘stuetute’ have been largely replaced by concepts suchas flow’ and transformation’ ‘One sig of change ithe rise of network analysis in anchropoloy, sociology and hiscory. Network analysis is a method, bu one chat is Sssocinted with certain image of society Instead of examining more tr less Sem social structure, network analysts concantrateon sia ‘lationship centred on single individual The theory they often we in thie work socal exchange’ The idea of social exchange i ot new, as we have sen (above, p68), but ie has Become asociated ‘rth view of society af the sum of the actions of individual Following strategies based on expectation of exes, What we sei 2 cevval of methodological individualism (above, p. 127) “The example of gossip provides vivid illustration of the die ence between the fenctionsl and. the individvais approaches, ‘Whereas functional analyis ofgosip notes how this acy binds the members of 2 ven group together, a more recent approach focuses on individual gossipers, ther competition with one anther174 rormnooenny ave rostmocean and thee use ofthis medium to acquire information o¢ 10 impeess ‘heie neighbours (Gluckman 1963; Pane 1967) ‘When Mrs Thatcher declared that “there is no such thing as society she was patting into word a current tend as wellas expres: ing an oklfashioned English inivxdalia. The historical sociologist Michael Mann agrees: would abolish the concept of “society” alto ‘cther: Instead of structures or "bounded totaliies” Mann operates withthe idea of networks, expecially what he cals “maple over- lapping and intersecting socio spatial nerworks of power" Discussing ancient Greece, for example, he distinguishes three such neworks that ofthe city-state, tht of che Greck wate system, and finally te fncien dea of humanity Tn similar fashion the anthropologist Eric Wolf denied the exis- tence of entities such as tribes, nations or ‘the West so many bounded systems, and prefered to speak of ‘bundles of relationships" (Fa tality of interconnected processes’ (Wolf 1982: 3-7; Mann 1986-93: 5. 1-2, 223-7), Some, a least, ofthe mcto-hiserians who se studying networks in the past (above, p. 41) are doing s0 for ‘nae reasons to Mana and Wolf, "Thote are some sociological precedents for this atempr ro replace or reconceptalize the tea of structure, Georg Simmel, fr instance, aimed that Society merely the name for a numb of individuals ‘connected by interaction’. Nother Elias, who is taken mot seriously a sci theoristeoday than he was nis own time, developed his Point with his concept ofthe ‘guration’, a pater of social rel Honships which s exemplified ona micro level by a football match, fn a medium level by an eightcenth-cenury court (one of Fla favouree hiorcal examples aod on a macto level by 4 nation, which might be regarded 38 4 network of newworks. According t0 Elas, people are bound togeher in diferent ways i differen kinds of society (1969: 18, 208-135 1970: 128-33}. [similar approach was adoped by Pere Bourdieu, who cried the approaches of both Durkheim and Lévi-Strauss at too rigid ad Imechanicl, He preferred the more flexible notion of ld More Precisely, Bourdieu distinguished series of field the religious Bld, the literary feld, the economic Feld and so on. Social actors are ‘defined by thi relative postion inthis space’, which Bourdieu aso described wel of fore" imposing certain relations on those who tener, relations which are not redcible tothe intentions of dividual ‘gents or evento dices sterations Between agent Interesting attempes have been made to use Bourdie's concep of 4 field to analye the birth” of French writes and French ntl lecrals a6 selFeonicious groups inthe seventeenth and nineteenth centuries eespectively (reveling in the process the difficulty of dei Ing ‘teary’ oe “tellsctal” space) (Gourde 1995; Vala 1985; Chale 1990), Agtin, Jesuit scence has been analysed as 2 “ule fel’ ina stay ofthe relationship between the discourse, i insti tional seting and the wider poltcal conext. The suthor of this Snalysis argues chat a discourse, sometimes taken to be tat (above, pr3B) cs never fixed but rather constantly negoited,consitated find reconstituted under pressures coming from the Fld (Feldhay 1999). Cultural Constructions Another aspect of destabilization isthe increasing icerest shown by hstorans and theorists alike ia whar might be called the ‘cor trace’ of cuore or society. The spread ofthe compound “socio Cilural ix 2 sign ofan increning awareness of this plasticity 0° tmalleabilty. There a tendency ro think of eultre as ative eathe= than passive, The structural had aleady moved inthis direction generation ago, and i might well be argued that LéviStauss, in farriclar, turned Mare on bis head {in echer words, eturned (0 Hegel) bysaggeting that the eally dcp steuctures ate not economic and socal arangements bot mental categories. Today, however both stuctoalism and Marxism aee frequently rejected os dterminst and the emphasis falls collective ereai iy (Certenu 1980), What used to be assumed to be objective, hard Social facts, like gender or clase or community, are now assumed to be culturally constucted’ or ‘constituted’ (Hacking 1999; Burke 200%: 74-99), In contrast to the strocuraliss, poststrucuraliss emphasize human agency and alo change, ot so much construction § reconsrution, a proces of continu eration. Foe this teason| the term ‘esetialiem’ ie one of the greatest inmate in thet socabulay. in this regard Foucault studies of changing, Westera views of smadacs (1961) and sexuality (1976-64), and his exigue of inpor- tcished conceptions of the rea” which Oni dhe realty of what i Itnagined have been extremely infoentil. Howeve, Foucauls work {part ofa wider and also longer trend. Gea psychologist, for ‘example, viewed perception a5 a kind of construction (above, p. 93 Phenomeaologits have long emphasized what it sometimes called the "socl constuction of reality” (Berger and Lckmann 1966) ‘Coleural’ Maexists such as Lous Althusser (1970) and MaurieGodelier are among the cheorists who have stressed the importance of thoughe aad. imagination in, the. production of what we call Srecieey (1984: 128-78). The critical theort Corncliae Castoriadis (1975) has also boo ifacntal ia this eegad, although the launch ing ofthe term Pimaginare probably owes most to the example of the paychoanalst Jacques Lacan tre Bourdieu catique of Lév-Senuis and other structuraliss ‘on the ground thatthe notion of eltural rules impli in hei work is too mechanical pointed in the same direction. Ar an alternative, he ‘proposed the more exile concept “habito’ derived fom Arie {hia Sr Thomas Aquinas and dhe are bistoan Erwin Panoiky) "Habito ir dfind ata set of ichemes enabling agents to generate an infty of practices adapted to endlessly changing situatons? {Bourdieu 1972: 16, 78-87). The core ofthe concept a kind of “regulated improvisation’, a phrsse reminiscent ofthe formulae and themes ofthe oral poets studied above (p. 109), Like Foucault (and the philosopher Maurice Mereau-Ponty), ourdew undermined the casi distinction berween mind and body associated with Descartes and parodied a the doctine of the ‘ghost Inthe machine’, The practices he wrote about ate not easy to cas- tify as mental’ ‘physical’. For example, the honour ofthe Kabyle ‘oF Aleta, among whom Bourdic did his eldwork, i expresed as ‘machin their wpright manner of walking asin anything they say. The “Toroiseike deliberation’ developed in conscious or unconscious resistance to the authorities by Hungaian farm workers such as Uncle Roka (described above, p. 91) provides another vivid lustea- tion of whae Bourdieu means by “haba Inthe fields of literature and philosophy, or the space between ‘hem, a similar asumprion of caltualereaiviey underlies the "dovon- struction" practised by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida and his followers, in other words thet distinctive approach to teats ~ unravelling tee contradictions, directing attention to thei ambigu- ies or play of meanings, snd reading them aganat themselves and theic authors. Ian inerest in binary oppositions was the hallmark Of the structural, the postsrutualst may be recognized by 2 Concer to undermine these categories ~ hence Deetda interest in the idea of the ‘supplement’, which a once adds to something and supplans i 1967" 141-64; 1972; cf. Novis 1982; Caller 1983), iow have historians reacted co these developments? If we define deconstruction, posstucturalimm and related developments in. Precise way, caampler of thir influence remain reatvey ew Although the word deconstruction’ in the sense of taking to pice) is increasingly fashionable, only afew historians, mainly’ Noch “Americans, sewal the inspiration of Dersda in theie substantive work joan Scott, for instance, has analysed the relationship berween women’s history and history in general in terms ofthe “ogc of the tupplement. Harey Harootunian has offered a new and contover Fil way of reading the discourse of “nativian’ (in other words, the feng of identity) in Tokugawa Japan, using the notion of "eoncep ‘sal schemes at forms of pay" a8 an amido to the teaditional view of eology asthe reflection of sce. Stuart Clark's study of he ea ‘of witcher places unsual emphasis on language and on the ist bility of meaning. Inspired by Dersida, Clark nots that "Even a3 ‘sigated Europeans combined to make the sixteenth and sventecath fenuries the great age of the antslemoni, their bee systems ‘depended necessarily on what they sought to exclude", W. Sot 1991: 49-80; Haroocanian 1988: exp. 1922; 8. Clark 1997: 143). ‘Again, Timothy. Michel's study of ninteenth-centoryFgype builds on Derides concept of difference - ‘aoe a pattern of distin ‘Sons or intervals herweon things, bat an alveayesnrable deferring ‘or difering within’ ~ im order to rethink accepted views ofthe color nal city. Mitchel sustain the paradox that “To represen tcl as ‘modem, the ity is dependent upon maining the barrie that keeps the other out. This dependence makes the outside the Oriental an integral par of the modern cy (1986: 145, 149). ‘with afew exceptions such a5 these, the hisorical profession is sul somewhar suspicious of postmodernism, as twas in 1991, when [ewrence Stone wrote leer to the wellknown joueoal Pact amd resent about the threat to history from people who claim that ‘there {stothing besides the text” or that ‘the rel fas imagined se the imag inary’ Two replies o this leer were published in later issu ofthe journal, Ie i nigiicane that boch were writen by members of a ‘Younger gencravon of historians, ad likly chat the majority of even that geneation, in Britain leas, remain close 0 Stone's posioon (Stone 1991; Joyce 1991; C. Kely 1991 Th on che ether hand, we turn from postmodernism to post modernity, as ie was described above, cis vaguer term docs Seem Appropriate for deserbing certain new features of historical practice. For inance there hat been a abife away from the ‘social hitory of culture’ of the kind practised by Amold Hause, cowards what the French histoeian Roger Charter (1997) has desribed as the “culral history of society’ Historians increasingly recognize the power ofthe “imagined asia the study by Georges Duby (1978) on the idea of the thvee orden” of society (above, p. 61), or in recent Work on images of France and Tadia (Noca 1984-95; Taden 1990). Again,178 rorrmoot ano pornonet recent studies on the social history of language have been concerned ‘ot ony withthe influence of society on language bu also with the ‘evere~for instance, with the importance of opposed terme sich as ‘middle clase and “working clase’ im the constttion of socal sroups (Burke and Porter 1987; Corfield 1991), Forms of social organization sich as ‘tbe’ or ‘cst’, once assumed to be socal fact, ate now viewed as collective represen: tations. For example, according tothe Pench antheopelogstJean- {Lue Amselle, ties or ethnic groups such asthe Bambara or the Fulani in West Afca were effectively invented by colonial admins- trators and anthropologists, though these tems were appropriated Inter by the Africans themselves some historians take a sila view (of caste in Indi Amslle (1990) himself teats terms such as "Bambara" as descriptions not of entices ~ a view he eres at ssentialist of “sobetantalist — but of systems of coleural tant formation. His point is double one, about both space and tine Spadally speaking, there are no cleat boundaries berween groups, while over time i i possible to observe a process of “incessant reclassification’ (on caste, see Diks: 2001), Even the city of bricks and moras, physical eniy if ever there was one, so longer regarded a a social entity. Ihas been dasolved by urban theorists such as Manvel Castells, wo note the dispersal of social relations and the importance of laws ~ flows of people, flows of commodities, Rows of information. Inthe world sytem of today, “The city is everywhere and in everything’, forcing peogea- ‘hers sociologi and historians to reimagine the urban, Wedening fut from the city, Castells has argued tht inthe age ofthe Internet, ‘Networks constitute the new social morphology of out society’ It height, then the nework analysis described above is among over things a symptom of posemodemiy, and possbiy a projection of ‘modern arrangements ~ we can no longer eal them “sructres’ 08 to the past (Castells 1968, 1996: 465; cf. Abrams 19785 Amin and ‘Tift 2002), For a rich historical account of the process of cultural constuc- tion, we may return to Schama’ study of the Dutch in the seven- teenth entry. Schama as partculrly concerned with the ways ‘which the Dutch, a new nation in this period, forged an Went for themselves, He discusses a wide variety of topics, rom cleanlines smoking and from the cle ofthe ancien Bataians to the myth of the Dutch Republic asthe new Teal viewing these topics in terms ofthe construction of iden. For example, following the interpre tation of fewish dietary Lats by the anthropologist Mary Dogs, Schama sess that “to be clean, militant, was an afirmation of separateness’. We aze not far from Freud’ idea ofthe narcissism of| nino differences (Schama 1987: 375-96, Douglas 1966), “This shift inthe stady of culture has been seuensel lumina ing, but it also raises problems. Tt would be dificult to deny the reductionism implicit some traditional approaches to cule, Durkhimian as well at Marxist, bue the seaction inthe opposite direction may wal have gone too far The eutren emphasis on cul tural creativity and on eaeure as an active force in history needs to be accompanied by some sense of the constraints within which that ‘restivty operates, Rather dan simply replacing the socal history of ful by the cltralhuory of society, we ned vo work with dhe toro ideas together and simoltaneousy, however difcl his may be In other wordy i i most uefil to see the relationship between culture and socery in cilectcal terms, with boch partners at once Sscive and passive, determining a determised (cl. Samual 1991} In any caue, cultural construction should be regarded as a problem father than an assumption, + problem deserving analjsis In more ‘exai, Hove does one constrict @ new conception of cats (9) OF tender! And who irone’? How can we account for dhe acceptance SF the innovation? Or, to turn the problem round, it possible to ‘pny eaonal concen encom ceva Ps Decentring Parallel co the conceen with destabilization, we init spatial equiv lent, displacement or "decentrng’. It is therefore no wonder that isographers have been making an important contribution £0 the Study of pestmoderity (Soja 1989; Harvey 1990; Amin and Thrift 2002), However, deceaing isnot confined to eeourapy. Ie affects tite, for example Scholats used to write fom a single point of| ‘View, but now they are making an effore to view the subjects they ‘dy ftom muliple viewpoints. Here as elewhere, Norbert Elias Was pioneer, arguing a generation ago that “sociology must take ccount of both the fest" and thitd-peson perspectives’, in other words the perspective of the people written. about as well ob the person writing (1970: 127). The philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer Inade a sinlar point ia the context of the interpretation of texts He suggested dilogical approach starting frm awareness of the hecewaty dsaprcement berween the orginal writer and the Iter imeerpreer. Gadamer (1960) suggested that the text should beallowed eo question the views ofthe interpreter as well the other vray round There ea sene in which hi approach deaws on traction. His: torians have long stempted to reconstruct the aitades characters be of the particular period they study, and anthropologists since Malinowsk have been concerned with what he slled the natives point of view. These atudes used to be rested ax part of the dt Utlied but aso override by she auhos, just as the classe nipe= teenth-century novel the voces of the characters were subordinate to that ofthe omniscient narator. ‘What is new i the decenring of this scholarly viewpoint in the sense of presenting if as simply one viewpoint among others. The people weten about, ling or dead are treated les as raw material fd more as partners, so thatthe hori oF anthropologist moves: backwards and forwards betveen past and present, the culture being studied and the culture of the student, comparing and contrasting their theories and interpretations and ous. Scholars are moce aware than they used to be of the point made by Kael Mannheim ia the 1920s, and again more secenty, tha knowledge ~ including their own, is socially situaed (1952: 134-90, Haraway 1988), Hence the ‘eurrent appeal aceoss the disciplines ofthe ideas on dialogue put Forward by Bakhtin (1981; ef, Morson and Emerson 1990: 231-68), 1m any case, he dual perspective advocated by Blas and Gadamer hasbeen replaced by a multiple one. The people inthe cltue being studied never speak with one voice. The movement to waite history “trom below, fo reconstruct the vision of the vanguished” of the point of view ofthe ‘subatern clases, made this poine very clear fabove, pp. 88, 164). The rise of women’ history added vo the vast of perpeive, involving asf dil attempts to write history from female points of view. “The attempt combine thes different perspectives has led some historians ad others to experiment with new forms of narrative nce rejected by scholars who wished to be analy naratve as regained prestige a a mode of understanding dhe world (Stone 1979, Ricoeur 1983-5; Burke 1991), For example, the anthropologist, Richaed Price (1990) has adapted the device of che maliple views point wed to great clfect sn novels and films such as’ Willam Faulkner’ The Sound and the Pury (1923) and Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950), to an account of eightenth-entury Surinam, Tostead of juxtaposing indivdval accounts, he present hesitation as ie was ten through the eyes of thveecollecve agents ~ the Back Slaves, the Dutch ofials and the Moravian missionaries. The author Tinks and comments on these thee perspectives, but presents his om Rane ane Cortimmeas on these Taree perspectives, Out Presents his com ‘graphic historian’ el, Berkhofer 1995; 170-201) In other words, he ‘exemplies the mulivoeal” or “polyphonic™ narrative that was both Aseribed and recommended by Bakhtin. ‘Ass result of the scholarly discoveries ofthe people, women and the colonized the last goneraion has seen the collapse ofthe so-called Grand Narrative le grand réci) of the human past, essentially the story of human emanepation tld in dhe Enlightenment, Doubs bout the plausibility of this story ate part ofthe postmodern com dition, athe French philosopher Jean-Frangos Lyotard described it “The Grand Narrative has lost fx ret” The context ia which {Lyotard made this remack was a discussion of the legitimation of knowledge, but the term he coined, and it ltemative formulations "Great Story, "Master Narrative’ and “Metanarative’, have boon taken up, and the centeal proposition debated ever since. (Magill (1995) dcinguishes between the "master narrate” ofa sepment of the par, the “grand narrative’ ofthe whole pase and the "meta- faretie” that juts the grand narrative.) There isan obviows fe between Lyorarts theory and the work of micro historians sich as {Le Roy Laduri, which also goes back tothe 1970s (Lyotard 1979: 37; cf Betkhofer 1995; Cox and Stromquit 1998), The idea ofa grand narrative is often associated withthe cise of western Civilization, the name for what used eo be a compulsory ‘ou in some leading North American universities. "The Renal Sancs, the Reformation, the European discovery of and expansion imo other contineats, the Scientihe Revolution, che Enlightenment fd the French Revolution were traditionally presented a8 $0 any chapters ina story of triumph, and che history of India, for example, ‘was either incorporated ino the story or ff di not the model} “Wisqualified from serious atention (Cox and Stromaust 1998: 95180) As Wolf sume up the story in deliberate carature, ancient ‘Geeece begat Rome, Rome begat Chistian Europe, Christan Europe begat the Renaissance, the Renaissance the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment political democracy and the Indostial Revolution’ (9823), “Today, however, all these stories within the Great Story have been detentrd by some scholars, For example, awarenst of the contribution of other cultures, especialy the Muslim world, to the Renaissance has tesuledin the “elraming” of our image of tht move rent (Farago 1995; Burke. 2004a). The story of the Scientific Revolsion ofthe seventeenth century bas been rewritten in similar fashion. oncally enough, the rie of the texm ‘Scientific Revolution’ owed a great deal to Herbert Butefld, che scholar most famous for his ee eee he his” on nenseacnsinded sneetpeceation af history{above p. 113). Allthe same, Budi old a presentsminded story ofthe “origins of moder scence’ aba revolution asociated with he Fise of objectivity an freedom of thought. Even Joseph Needham, the great historian of Chinese science, believed that "modern science was born in Europe and only ia Butope', and wrote his history of Seience and civilization in China inorder to explain why, aswell as to deaw attention to many Chinese achievement, By contiast, Thomas Kuo, a we have seen, used the term reve: luvin’ in the plural and stesed the cegular replacement of pe digins, Today, some historians ate telinga stl move plurals srry, Srguing that science is simpy one way of knowing among ther 2 Sipe of thought that has somedmes achieved an incllectal hege ‘mony, but only in certain places and certain dines (Buttered 1949; J. Necdhaen 1963; Cunningham and Wiliams 1993). Beyond Eurocentrism? (One ofthe grandest of grand nareaivs that hiscorians have told i the story ofthe rise of the West. The challenge isto explain no only how {and when) the Europeans drow ahead of thir economic and rileary competitors, but also what consequences for the rest of the world followed from the establishment of European hegemony. Needless to sayin the age of postolonalsm (above, p. 104) this ory has become an increasingly controversial one Th the last 100 years there hat een 2 sucesion of atempes by ‘Western scholars 20 break fre of Burocentrism and adopt com parative perspective, only to be critized in their turn forthe very Fault they were trying to avoid for dating the rite of the West too carly, for assuming the sspenrty of Wester clare, for viewing the est ofthe word through etude stereotypes (ofthe Kind analysed by [Edward Sailor for treating the history ofthe West asthe norm from ‘which other cultres diverge and asking why, for example, (China had no scientific o industrial revolution. ‘Max Weber, for example, war surely one ofthe last Eurocentric scholars of his ime, He pent mach of his working life inthe attempt to define the dininctve characteristics of Western civiaton {ootably what be calle ts institionalied rationality’, by means ‘of systematic comparisons betwen Europe and Asan the economic, political and religous spheres and even that of musi, He paid p= Fieular attention tothe ise of Protestantism, capitalism and brea racy inthe West arguing thatthe three phenomena were at once retmooennir ano rostHooennsn 183 similar and connected, and contrasting them with phenomena chewher. “This as not prevened Weber from being accused of Burocentrism. [feral he accepted che rational Western theory of Oren des- potiem. He belived in a hierarchy of races with Caucasians atthe top, Te assumed the superior of Western culture. In these respects Weber's views resembled those ofthe majority of Westen intellect als of his slay. What was unusual in Weber was his systematic and ‘unrelenting attempe to explain the Western lead in ters of rational (cale-cbserving) form of organization suchas law, bureaucracy and aptalitm. His famous essay on the Protestant ethic and the spe of ‘aptaliom was 4 contribution to this grander enterprise (laut 2000: 13-30). ‘One of the fw historian to be as widely tead in word history was Amold Toynbee, whose Study of Histor has already been i ‘uss, Whatever ts faults and erie have pointed to many ~ this ‘massive work was a major attempt to decentre history. Again Uke ‘Weber and Toynbee (whose biogsaphy he has written), Wiliam McNeill is one ofthe esse Eurventic scholars of his generation, 2 crusade for world history and the author of one af the most fuccesful books on the abject, The Rize ofthe West (1963) In this book McNeil argued that for 2000 years (500 nc 1500 Gi there was a“slanee’ of four major civilizations in Eurasia: the Chinese, the Indian, the Middle Eastern and. the. Westen "Wiesterers are so much accustomed to puting their own istry in the foreground’ he wrote, "ha perhaps well to underie the ‘marginal character of Roman and. European istoryberween the fourth and sccond centuries iC. Tt was only around 1500 that, Western Europe began to. draw ahead of ts eompetors, for a mixture of reasons ranging from naval technology and elaive immu ty to dacae eo wilingnes 0 learn from other culture, and only ‘round 1850 thatthe cllaseof the Chinese, Mughal and Oxtoman pire ended the cultural Balance in Ears In his turn, McNeil (1963) has been criticized as Eurocentric, for ivng vet litle space to the history of Arca south ofthe Sahara or {o the Antericas Before Columbus, and for operating with binary ‘opposition Between ‘barbarism’ snd svizatin’ tha scholars today would wish to qualify, if not to avoid altogether (ti now half a ‘etry since MeN egan writing his book). Even his concern with the increasing intensity of cultural interaction over the millennia hat been criticized. In an age of decenting, any atempt wo write the history ofthe word witha clea storyine i bound tobe ercized (ch eleman 1995: 41-2