Eurocentrism » (2nd Edition)

Samir Amin was born in Egypt in 1931 and received his Ph.D. in economics in Paris in 1957. He is currently the director of UNITAR, a United Nations research institute in Dakar, Senegal. An economic consultant to many Third World countries, he is the author of numerous
books, including Accumulation on a World Scale, Unequal Development, Neo-Colonialism in West Africa, Empire of Chaos, and Re-Reading the Postwar Period (all published by Monthly Review Press).

Since its first publication twenty years ago, Eurocentrism has become a classic of radical thought. Written by one of the world's foremost political economists, this original and provocative essay takes on one of the great "ideological deformations" of our time: Eurocentrism. Rejecting the dominant Eurocentric view of world history, which narrowly and incorrectly posits a progression from the Greek and Roman classical world to Christian feudalism and the European capitalist system, Amin presents a sweeping reinterpretation that emphasizes the crucial historical role played by the Arab Islamic world. Throughout the work, Amin addressesa broad set of concerns, ranging from the ideological nature of scholastic metaphysics to the meanings and shortcomingsof contemporary Islamic fundamentalism. This second edition contains a new introduction and concluding chapter, both of which make the author's arguments even more compelling.

Preface 7

1 Modernity and Religious Interpretations 11

I Modernity 13

II Modernity and Religious Interpretations 25

III Political Islam 57

2 Central and Peripheral Tributary Cultures 93

I Introduction 95

II The Formation of Tributary Ideology in the Mediterranean Region 105

III Tributary Culture in Other Regions of the Pre-Capitalist World 141

3 The Culture of Capitalism 149

I Introduction 151

II The Decline of Metaphysics and the Reinterpretation of Religion 157

III The Construction of Eurocentric Culture 165

IV Marxism and the Challenge of Actually Existing Capitalism 189

V The Culturalist Evasion: Provincialism and Fundamentalism 195

VI For a Truly Universal Culture 205

4 Towards a Non-Eurocentric View of History and a Non-Eurocentric Social Theory 217

I The Tributary Mode of Production: The Universal Form of Advanced Pre-Capitalist Societies 221

II European Feudalism: Peripheral Tributary Mode 233

III Mercantilism and the Transition to Capitalism: Unequal Development, Key to the Miracle of European Particularity 239

IV Eurocentrism and the Debate over Slavery 249

V Eurocentrism in the Theory of the Nation 255

VI Actually Existing Capitalism and the Globalization of Value 259

Notes 280

Index 283