Eurocentrism, Sinocentrism and World History: A Symposium

摘要

Ricardo Duchesne's "Between Sinocentrism and Eurocentrism: Debating Andre Gunder Frank's Re-Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age" (S&S, Winter 2001-2002) joins a number of essays that have commented upon the challenges to conventional views of global patterns of change and stasis between 1500 and 1800 represented by recent scholarship. Some of the more positive assessments of these challenges can be found in articles published in the American Historical Review, Lingua Franca, Journal of World History, and Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (Stokes, 2001a; Stokes, 2001b; Buck, 1999; Perdue, 1998). Duchesne's evaluation differs not so much in having reservations about Andre Gunder Frank's Re-Orient, as it does in narrowing broad and varied challenges to received wisdom by asserting that a critique of Frank's work is an appropriate vehicle for making a choice between "Sinocentrism" and "Eurocentrism." This move doesn't promise much insight because the choices offered by Duchesne fail to encourage us to transcend simplistic, loose and holistic comparisons.