Why the West?

[Dave Monroe]

Just one of those things that seems that it might be of interest to some
to several here, is all.  From Gail Stokes, "Why the West? The Unsettled
Question of Europe's Ascendancy," Lingua Franca, Vol. 8, No. 11
(November 2001) ...

   "The issue that has occupied macrohistorians over the past generation
can be stated quite succinctly: Why Europe? Why did a relatively small
and backward periphery on the western fringes of the Eurasian continent
burst onto the world scene in the sixteenth century and by the
nineteenth century become a dominant force in almost all corners of the
earth? Until recently, two responses have dominated. The first is that
something unique in the European past lay behind its eventual economic
development and power. This something unique is often seen as a
universal good—such as reason, freedom, or individualism—that first
developed in Europe but ultimately relates, or should relate, to all
human beings....
   "The second response is that there was nothing particularly special
about Europe until at least 1500, and probably not until 1800. In this
view, Europe's rise to dominance was due not to any exceptional
qualities but to its ability to seize vast amounts of gold and silver in
the New World and create other forms of wealth through colonial trade.
Proponents of this idea tend to see the last thousand years as dominated
primarily by the cultures and economies of Asia, especially China, with
a relatively brief and probably transient burst of European power in the
last quarter of the millennium....

[...]

"In discussing these and other issues, historians engage in
conversations initiated more than a generation ago. Arguments for
European uniqueness grow out of the practice of teaching Western
Civilization courses at universities, which dates to at least the 1920s;
the arguments of their opponents grow out of a Marxist style of
criticism that became particularly salient in the 1960s. Both sides are
concerned with questions related to origins and hegemony. Why did Europe
break out as it did? Why didn't China (or India)? When did Europe become
hegemonic in the world system of capitalism? Was China hegemonic for
most of the last millennium? Questions of this sort were part and parcel
of a way of thinking that identified East and West as somehow opposed.
But practitioners of the new field of world history have begun to
sidestep or ignore questions such as these in favor of what Kenneth
Pomeranz calls 'reciprocal comparisons.' This approach—less polemical
and less focused on origins—is on the verge of entering the mainstream
of the American historical profession...."

http://www.linguafranca.com/print/0111/cover.html

Well worth reading, not to mention following up on ...