1 - Who stole what? Time and space

Summary

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the construction of world history has been dominated by western Europe, following their presence in the rest of the world as the result of colonial conquest and the Industrial Revolution. There have been partial world histories (all are partial in some degree) in other civilizations, Arab, Indian, and Chinese; indeed few cultures lack a notion of their own past in relation to that of others, however simple, though many observers would place these accounts under the rubric of myth rather than of history. What has characterized European efforts, as in much simpler societies, has been the propensity to impose their own story on the wider world, following an ethnocentric tendency that emerges as an extension of the egocentric impulse at the basis of much human perception, and the capacity to do so is due to its de facto domination in many parts of the world. I necessarily see the world with my eyes, not with those of another. As I have already said in the introduction, I am well aware that contrary trends regarding world history have emerged in recent times. But in my view that movement has not been pursued far enough in a theoretical direction, especially with regard to the broad phases in which world history is conceived.

A more critical stance is necessary to counter the inevitably ethnocentric character of any attempt to describe the world, past or present. That means firstly being sceptical about the west’s claim, indeed about any claim coming from Europe (or indeed Asia), to have invented activities and values such as democracy or freedom. Secondly it means looking at history from the bottom up rather than from the top (or from the present) down. Thirdly it means giving adequate weight to the non-European past. Fourthly, it requires an awareness of the fact that even the backbone of historiography, the location of events in time and space, is variable, subject to social construction, and hence to change.