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‘Civilization’ and its subalterns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2017

Julian Go
Julian Go*
Affiliation:
Professor, Sociology, Boston University
*
* Correspondence to: Julian Go, Department of Sociology, 96 Cummington Mall, Boston, MA 02215, US. Author’s email: juliango@bu.edu
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Abstract

This article reviews Andrew Linklater’s Violence and Civilization in the Western States-Systems. Focusing upon the book’s explanation of the ‘European civilizing process’ in the modern era, it suggests that the account is limited by ‘civilizational isolationism’ and ‘metrocentric diffusion’. These analytic operations serve to minimise the agency and contributions of non-Western, colonial, and postcolonial actors to the global civilizing process. The occlusion of such agency and contributions, however, are not specific to this work, but reflect broader limitations in historical sociology writ large.

Keywords

CivilizationsNorbert EliasHistorical International RelationsHistorical SociologyEmpireHarm Conventions
Type
Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 612 - 620
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 

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References

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