The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation

John M. Hobson is a Senior Lecturer in Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He is the author of The State and International Relations (2000), The Wealth of States: A Comparative Sociology of International Economic and Political Change (1997), and co-author (with Linda Weiss) of States and Economic Development: A Comparative Historical Analysis (1995).

'Evidence that Asia's primacy was crucial to the Rise of the West has been accumulating for twenty years. Dr Hobson has now pulled the pieces together in a compellingly written and most challenging scheme. His grand conception will open a whole new order of debate.' Eric Jones, author of The European Miracle and Growth Recurring

• 1. Countering the Eurocentric myth of the West: discovering the Oriental West; Part I. The East as an Early Developer; 2. Islamic and African pioneers: building the global economy in the Afro-Asian Age of Discovery, 500–1500; 3. Chinese pioneers: the first industrial miracle and the myth of Chinese isolationism, 1000–1800; 4. The East remains dominant: India, Japan and Southeast Asia, 1400–1800; Part II. The West was Last: 5. Inventing Christendom and the Eastern origins of European feudalism; 6. The myth of the Italian pioneer; 7. The myth of the Vasco de Gama epoch, 1498–1800; Part III. The West as a Late-Developer: 8. The myth of 1492 and the impossibility of America: the Afro-Asian contribution to the catch-up of the West, 1492–1700; 9. The Chinese origins of British industrialisation; 10. Constructing European racist identity and the invention of the world, 1700–1850; 11. War, racist imperialism and the Afro-Asian origins of British industrialisation; Part IV. Conclusion: The Oriental West versus the Eurocentric Myth of the West: 12. The twin myths of the Western liberal state and the civilisational divide between East and West, 1500–1900; 13. The rise of the Oriental West.