A01=Brett Bowden
art
Author_Brett Bowden
Category=JBCC9
Category=NHTQ
Category=NHW
civilization
colonialism
colonization
commerce
conformity
cosmopolitanism
empire
enlightenment
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
expansion
finance
globalization
history
imperialism
international relations
military interventions
modernity
monetary fund
nation building
nonfiction
otherness
philosophy
progress
race
religion
science
spain
territory
trade
uniformity
war on terror
white mans burden
whiteness
Product details
- ISBN 9780226142401
- Weight: 510g
- Dimensions: 17 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 25 Mar 2014
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The term "civilization" comes with considerable baggage, setting up a dichotomy wherein people, cultures, and histories are "civilized" - or not. While the idea of civilization has been deployed throughout history to justify all manner of interventions and socio political engineering, relatively few scholars have stopped to consider what the concept actually means. Here, Brett Bowden examines how the idea of civilization has informed our thinking about international relations over the course of ten centuries. From the Crusades to the colonial era to the global war on terror, this sweeping volume exposes civilization as a stage-managed account of history that legitimizes imperialism, uniformity, and conformity to Western standards, culminating in a liberal-democratic global order. Along the way, Bowden explores the variety of confrontations and conquests - as well as those peoples and places excluded or swept aside - undertaken in the name of civilization.
Concluding that "the West and the rest" have more commonalities than differences, this provocative and engaging book ultimately points the way toward an authentic inter civilizational dialogue that emphasizes cooperation over clashes.
Brett Bowden is associate professor of history and political thought at the University of Western Sydney. He is the author of Civilization and War.
