A welcome antidote to Eurocentrist social science

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	• The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation John M. Hobson Cambridge University Press, 2004 - 392 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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Did the Chinese Invent Everything?

A great title for a book on a great subject, but simply horrible execution. Cambridge University Press must have forgotten to put this book through the normal refereeing and editing process, and thus it reads like a second-rate dissertation written by an angry Ph.D. student who constantly appeals to the oracular statements of his fellow-travelers rather than presents his own convincing arguments. Simply stated, Hobson's thesis is that nothing good or original ever came from the West; all that is positive and original came from the East. He rests his case on his presentation of an encyclopedia of "preemptions' (Doesn't he must mean "antecedents"?). The heat of his diatribe obscures the depth and true complexity of the (non)?-problem he allegedly studies: "The Rise of the West." By the way, his answer to this issue is as follows: It did not rise (At least until 1800 or so). To Hobson's credit, he constantly emphasizes the growth of a World System, yet overstatement mars his argument. Hobson persistently juxtaposes the most derogatory and pejorative picture of Western society against an uncritical and idealized version of Eastern society. Hobson lacks all subtly and therefore is not to be believed. History is not so simple.

As all historians know, true originality in culture, in ideas, or in technology is rare indeed. Thus agriculture was independently invented only handful of times, written language even fewer times, and almost all technologies have antecedents. However, this fact does not diminish the accomplishments of any society that takes a procedure or thing from elsewhere and "runs with it." This ability to borrow or to be stimulated and to utilize something from elsewhere is surely not a sign of weakness or decadence but of strength. Finding the antecedents to things or ideas is not proof that these were "stolen"--not grounds for the kinds of admonishment regularly meted out by Hobson. Moreover, inter-societal or inter-cultural transmission is much more complicated than Hobson would ever admit and must even allow for independent invention in the face of common circumstances.

Illustrations of Hobson's misunderstandings and mistaken approach can be found on nearly every page of the book. It is true that Su Sung's water driven clock of 1086 in China was a marvelous invention, but precisely where did it lead? Was it replicated widely in market and church towers as the European mechanical clock was a few centuries later? Did it create a new sense of time necessary for new governing ideologies. And is the "good circumstantial evidence" (p. 131) about the influence of the Chinese on the European clock grounds for any historical argument at all? What about gunpowder and the cannon? It is not true as Hobson writes that "Eurocentric scholars often attribute the discovery of gunpowder to the European scientist Roger Bacon in 1267." (p. 186). Actually, they simply state that Bacon was the first one to mention this explosive mixture in Latin manuscripts. Everyone knows that gunpowder was first employed by the Chinese. As for the cannon, its early design and the terminology that described it is really too confusing to determine where the first true cannon was invented (When does some tube-like thing filled with explosive mixture become a cannon? Anyway, wasn't it developed rather than "invented"?). The first drawing in Europe of a cannon dates from 1326. It rapidly evolved into a weapon that revolutionized warfare and gave Europe the means to dominate the seas and coasts of the world.

Furthermore, Hobson writes over and over about the superiority of Chinese junks over contemporary European vessels. Junks were magnificent ships and much much larger than European caravels, but maybe bigger is not always better. After all, the tiny caravel did its job quite well. For Hobson Henry the Navigator "had begun to fumble" (p. 138) his was down the coast of Africa while people from the East heroically explored the world. Hobson never abstains from using pejorative language when referring to Westerners while he always stand in awe of the feats of other cultures.. Chinese agriculture was much more productive than Western agriculture according to Hobson. Well guess what: hydraulically controlled paddy agriculture does yield more per acre than natural-rainfall wheat agriculture, but yield per acre is only one measure of agriculture productivity. The more relevant point is that European agriculture and distribution networks began to liberate the continent from famine mortality at a time when killing starvation still swept periodically through the great kingdom of China. Hobson writes that the Egyptian physician Ibn al-Nafis "fully pre-empted the much heralded work of the Englishman, William Harvey, by no less than three and a half centuries" (p. 179). My little encyclopedia says that Ibn-al-Nafis argued for the pulmonary circulation. Harvey is known not for his discovery of the pulmonary circulation, which had already been proved by Renaldus Columbus at Padua in the sixteenth century, but for the systemic circulation, which he rigorously demonstrated with brilliant and repeatable experiments. Hobson writes that the fourteenth century astronomer Ibn al-Shatir "developed a series of mathematical models which were almost exactly the same as those developed about 150 years later by Copernicus in his heliocentric theory." (p. 180) It is certain that Islamic astronomy was well developed in the Middle Ages and at a time when Western astronomy was scarcely able to replicate the mathematical precision of the ancient Ptolemy, it is noteworthy that an Islamic scholar succeeded in "saving the phenomena" so accurately and with so much simple elegance. But Copernicus's achievement with it heliocentrism ultimately led to a paradigm shift. This is what is important. And Ibn al-Shatir was a geocentrist.

The most disturbing aspect of Hobson's book is not in the multitude of mistakes that he makes and his disregard for conventional historical methodologies but simply his ill humor and name calling. Great historians like Lynn White who pioneered the field of medieval technology a half century ago are dismissed out of hand. Other historians, like David Landes, are characterized not as "the distinguished historian of technology" (which he is) but as "the avowed Eurocentric scholar" (p. 130). (Hobson's book is in part a response to Landes's The Wealth and Poverty of Nations). For Hobson, there is a litmus test to which all scholars must be subjected: Eurocentric or non-Eurocentric?. No matter the quality of the historian's work, the elegance of the presentation, the force of the conclusions. If a historian is not politically correct in this matter, he/she is to be dismissed out of hand and even excoriated. Thank god that Hobson's book is unlikely to exercise much influence on historical discourse. The real story of the East's influence on the West must continue to be told by other scholars of a more level-headed temperament employing more acceptable methodologies.

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A welcome antidote to Eurocentrist social science

John Hobson has written a cracker of a book, full of intellectual fireworks and explosive departures from historical and sociological orthodoxy. The book marks a complete break with the Eurocentric approach to economic and political history, and lays out the elements of an approach to the social sciences that can start to take Eurasian history as a starting point, rather than a biased supremacist account of selected facets of the Western rise to global leadership.

Hobson's aim, apart from nailing Eurocentrism once and for all, is to oppose the `immanent' and `supremacist' account of the rise of the West as a phenomenon driven by inner virtues - institutional, moral, scientific, military and technological - as opposed to external circumstances. In its place he seeks to provide an account that is historically accurate, picturing Europe as a marginal backwater that was able to progress as a `latecomer' by assimilating technological and institutional innovations from the East. These innovations, starting with those from the Islamic world (mathematics, the astrolabe) and then from Chinese civilization (printing, the compass, gunpowder, cannon), were then adopted and adapted with an emphasis on the European development of the military and navigational elements of this heritage to facilitate the conquest of parts of Eurasia (such as Malaka) and the Americas. By sheer good luck the pendulum then started to swing to Europe through its capacity to exploit the peoples and resources of these regions using these innovations. His account of the `proto-capitalist' revolutions in Europe - starting in Italy then moving through the Iberian peninsula, to the Netherlands and culminating in Britain and its `industrial revolution' is a lively summary of how agency and identity fused with openness and assimilationist capacity to carry the marginalized `latecomer' to arrive at a fully industrialized economy first. In particular, his chapter on the real origins of the industrial revolution in Britain, leaving behind naïve and idealist accounts based on liberalism, free markets and laissez-faire, and putting in their place an empirically verifiable account based on militarism, warmongering and regressive taxation, is a convincing piece of work.

Hobson can be credited with taking the various `pro-Eastern' and anti-Eurocentric interventions of the past decade - by Frank, by Abu-Lughod, Bin Wong, Pomeranz and others -- and placing them at the very center of the narrative that makes sense of the modern world. While `re-orienting' social science to the East (to use Andre Gunder Frank's inspired expression) he also grounds the narrative of historical sociology in an understanding of the role that Europe itself played in its own rise to world leadership - and how it constructed a role for itself as conveying a `civilizing mission' that acted as cover for racist and imperialist designs and outright exploitation. His discussion of how China could have engaged in such imperialist world hegemony at any point from 1500 to 1800 had it chosen to, but refrained for reasons that had to do with its self-construction and sense of its own identity, is one of the most original and arresting features of this work.

My criticisms cover the contributions of two writers - one over-emphasized and one under-emphasized. Hobson attaches far too much weight, it seems to me, to Edward Said and his notion of Orientalism. I understand the appeal of the term for Hobson's argument, and his goal of creating a kind of anti-Occidentalism in his account. But Said is a poor master of this approach, and repeatedly indulges in `West-bashing' as opposed to the careful reconstruction engaged in by Hobson. It is sad to see Said getting one of the first scholarly mentions in the book (on p. 7) and the last (on p. 322) - thus topping and tailing this work with his own twisted form of social commentary. If there is a second edition of this book, I would recommend dropping Said, or relegating him to a footnote.

More serious is the complete failure to mention by name Alexander Gerschenkron, whose `latecomer' thesis is clearly one of Hobson's perpetual reference points, albeit one that is refashioned to depict Europe not as `early mover' towards capitalism and industrialism, but as a `latecomer' absorbing and assimilating the innovations of the East. There are two reasons for lamenting this failure to explicitly acknowledge the work of Gerschenkron. The first is that Hobson is clearly making repeated use of the latecomer thesis, and in inverting it as he does, he owes the reader an acknowledgment of the source of this idea. But Gerschenkron actually went further, and elevated the idea of the latecomer to a kind of `philosophy of history' that Hobson could well have used to great profit. Gerschenkron, whose studies were confined to European 19th century history (such as Germany's catch=up with and overtaking of Britain), could well be used to spread a larger net that encompasses Europe's catch-up with and overtaking of the advanced Orient. In this intellectual exercise, the idea would be to identify the `institutional innovations' engaged in by the latecomer (in this case Europe) that facilitated the successful catch-up process. This might be a foundation for discussing Europe's rapid assumption of leadership in military and naval technology as its bid for Atlantic and then global influence evolved. Or in complementary fashion it might provide a means of discussing Europe's genuine institutional innovations - such as large banks that lent to sovereign states, and parliaments created as a means of legitimizing royal taxation initiatives - as precisely those kinds of Gerschenkronian innovations that facilitated catch-up efforts.

The second debt that Hobson owes to Gerschenkron but nowhere acknowledges is in Gerschenkron's generalization of the famous Weberian thesis of the Protestant ethic and the rise of capitalism. Hobson makes very effective play of this Weberian notion, hypothesizing an Islamic sociologist writing in the University of Baghdad in the year 1000AD on the rise of the Islamic ethic and the spirit of capitalism, depicting Europe as a backwater by comparison, or likewise a Chinese sociologist writing in the University of Hangzhou in 1200 AD, after the rise of the Sung dynasty industrial revolution, on the Confucian ethic and the rise of capitalism, again depicting Europe as a backwater that could never be expected to develop. But Gerschenkron's generalization of the Weberian thesis is actually more interesting than these vignettes would indicate. In his wonderful book, Russia in the European Mirror, Gerschenkron discusses Russia's failed catch-up efforts of the 19th century, and in the process he identifies a marginalized sect (the `Old Believers') that carried the burden of introducing capitalist commercial calculations into Russia's still-feudal and state-driven system. This sect, an offshoot of the Russian Orthodox Church, was sufficiently excluded and suppressed to have a clear sense of its own identity and reason for self-preservation but not so much so that it could not engage in serious investment and the creation of large personal fortunes. This of course is an exact counterpart to the role played by Weber's Protestant Calvinist sects in Northern Europe - sufficiently oppressed and marginalized to build their own self-sufficiency but not so much so that they could not lend and invest in a way that allowed them to create fortunes and reconcile these fortunes with their belief in God and his Commandments. In this way, Gerschenkron's generalization of the Weber thesis is a stimulating one, and inspires a search for similar marginalized but financially influential groups in other Eastern societies that might have been expected to act as agents or vehicles for a capitalist financial revolution. This would indeed be an interesting extension of Hobson's arguments in the final chapter, which while emphasizing the role played by European self-identity and agency, actually steers clear of any detailed account of just which social group carried the capitalist innovations and why they were able, or driven, to do so.

With these reservations, this is a stimulating work that deserves wide discussions and follow-up studies by specialists in world history as well as in the various techniques and technologies that underpinned the rise of the West.

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Excellent book

Accusations of "sino-centrism" or "one-sidedness" reveal simply that the accuser has not actually read the book (which one would hope to be a necessary pre-cursor to such evaluations). In fact, Hobson specifically argues not only against sino-centrism, but also offers philosophical and empirical arguments against ALL such "centrisms" where history is concerned. In this way, he distinguishes himself as a theoretical and empirical historian of the highest order.
Furthermore, Hobson--all of us--are under no obligation to be "balanced"--only to be honest and to present the evidence--which he has most eloquently done.
I highly recommend this book; it would be especially appropriate for a graduate-level seminar, as it is both rigorously researched and highly accessible.

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Excellent polemic

Looking through the reviews above I can imagine the bewilderment of the potential reader. Some of the reviewers hated it, some loved it. So is this book any good? I would answer 'yes': but the book has to be seen for what it is. It is NOT a 'fair' and 'balanced' academic treatise. It is, as someone pointed out, a polemic. What they failed to point out is that it is an excellent polemic, that has to be seen in context. The context is the literally thousands of books that have been published which unthinkingly take a 'Eurocentric' view of world history, asking loaded questions that are carefully chosen to permit only the 'right' answers to be given (E.g. Why did democracy arise only in the West? Why did science arise only in the West? Why is the West so much more 'advanced' than the Muslim world/Africa/South America etc. etc. etc.). Of course no one accuses them of being polemics: if you take the orthodox view, that's simply 'common sense'.

It should also point out that like most polemics (and unlike most academic texts) this book is well written and a pleasure to read. Certainly if one was carrying out an academic study on this subject I would read other books on the subject from more 'orthodox' historians to get the other side of the coin. In other words, not every word of Hobson's book might be the Gospel Truth. He ignores ambiguity and nuance: if something can be related back to China or the Muslim World it is. But on the other hand, it states an important position, which from now on economic and cultural historians are going to have to take note of.

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reviews: page 1, 2

John Hobson challenges the ethnocentric bias of mainstream accounts of the "Rise of the West" that assume that Europeans have pioneered their own development, and that the East has been a passive by-stander. Describing the rise of what he calls the "Oriental West", Hobson argues that Europe first assimilated many Eastern inventions, and then appropriated Eastern resources through imperialism. Hobson's book thus propels the hitherto marginalized Eastern peoples to the forefront of the story of progressive world history.