European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power

Synopsis

How ideas such as civilization and progress have been used as a smoke screen for western dominance, by the world-renowned sociologist. Ever since the enlightenment, western intervention around the world has been justified by appeals to notions of civilization, development, and progress. The assumption has been that such ideas are universal, encrusted in natural law. But, as immanuel wallerstein argues in this short and elegant philippic, these concepts are, in fact, not global.