This essay examines how Western social theory from Marx and Weber to Wallerstein and Frank has been based on a Eurocentric version of history. The latter not only denies real world history, but also neglects most of the human reality, especially in Asia, even during the early modern period. In doing so, this Eurocentric history and historiography, as well as the social theory derived from the same substantially distorts the experience of the West. Therefore, as Asia is now re-emerging as the centre of world history, it is high time to re-orient our historiography and social theor y and that of the nineteenth century as well, during which the West and Asia traded places in the world.

How Western Perceptions of the East Changed

Until about 1800, the predominant Western perception of the East was favourable. Europeans were attracted to and sought to learn from many parts of the Orient that were seen as civilizationally, culturally, politically, socially, economically and technologically more advanced than any part or all of Europe. Indeed, ‘Orient’, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, whose first edition dates to 1911, meant the following: ‘ORIENT: The East; lustrous, sparkling, precious; radiant, rising, nascent; place or exactly determine position, settle or find bearings; bring into clearly understood relations; direct towards; determine how one stands in relation to one's surroundings.’