How the west came to rule : the geopolitical origins of capitalism / Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancıoğlu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Anievas, Alexander.

Nişancıoğlu, Kerem, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Capitalism--History.

Capitalism.

History.

Geopolitics--Economic aspects.

Geopolitics.

Physical Description:

xiii, 386 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

London : Pluto Press, 2015.

Summary:

Mainstream historical accounts of the development of capitalism describe a process which is fundamentally European - a system that was born in the mills and factories of England or under the guillotines of the French Revolution. This groundbreaking book tells a very different story. How the West Came to Rule offers a unique interdisciplinary account which argues that capitalism's origins should be understood as the outcome of global processes in which non-European societies played a decisive role. Through an analysis of Mongolian expansion, New World discoveries, Ottoman Habsburg rivalry, the development of the Asian colonies and bourgeois revolutions, Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu explain how these diverse events and processes came together to produce capitalism. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The Transition Debate: Theories and Critique 13

Introduction 13

The 'Commercialisation Model' Revisited: World-Systems Analysis and the Transition to Capitalism 14

The Making of the Modern World-System: The Wallerstein Thesis 14

The Problem of Eurocentrism 16

The Problem of Historical Specificity 19

The Spatiotemporal Limits of Political Marxism 22

The Brenner Thesis: Explanation and Critique 22

The Geopolitical in the Making of Capitalism 27

The Political Marxist Conception of Capitalism 29

The Problematic of Sociohistorical Difference: Postcolonial Studies Engaging Capital 32

The Eurocentrism of Historicism 33

The Violence of Abstraction 36

The Lacuna of Postcolonial Theory 39

Conclusion 41

2 Rethinking the Origins of Capitalism: The Theory of Uneven and Combined Development 43

Introduction 43

The Theory of Uneven and Combined Development: Exposition and Critiques 44

Unevenness 44

Combination 48

Seeing Through a Prism Darkly? Uneven and Combined Development beyond the Eurocentric Gaze 54

Trotsky beyond Trotsky? Uneven and Combined Development before Capitalism 57

More Questions than Answers: Method, Abstraction and Historicity in Marx's Thought 58

Modes of Production Versus Uneven and Combined Development? A False Antithesis 61

Conclusion: Towards an 'Internationalist Historiography' of Capitalism 63

3 The Long Thirteenth Century: Structural Crisis, Conjunctural Catastrophe 64

Introduction 64

Pax Mongolica as a Vector of Uneven and Combined Development 67

The Nomadic Mode of Production and Uneven and Combined Development 67

The World-Historical Significance of the Mongol Empire 71

Trade, Commerce, and Socio-Economic Development under the Pax Mongolica 73

Apocalypse Then: The Black Death and the Crisis of Feudalism 77

Class Struggle and the Changing Balance of Class Forces in Europe 79

Peasant Differentiation in the Age of the Black Death 81

Development of the Productive Forces 85

Conclusion 87

4 The Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry over the Long Sixteenth Century 91

Introduction 91

Unevenness: A Clash of Social Reproduction 94

Ottoman-European Relations 94

The Tributary and Feudal Modes of Production: Unevenness Combined 96

Ottoman 'Penalties of Progressiveness' - European 'Privileges of Backwardness' 104

Combination: Pax Ottomana and European Trade 106

The Ottoman 'Whip of External Necessity' 107

The Breakdown of Christendom 111

The Ottoman Blockade and the Emergence of the Atlantic 115

The Ottoman Buffer and English Primitive Accumulation 116

Conclusion: The Ottoman Empire as a Vector of Uneven and Combined Development 119

5 The Atlantic Sources of European Capitalism, Territorial Sovereignty and the Modern Self 121

Introduction 121

Imagining Europe in the Atlantic Mirror: Rethinking the Territorialised Sovereign, Self and Other 123

Tearing Down the Ideological Walls of Christendom: From Sacred to Secular Universalism in the Construction of the European Self and Non-European Other 123

Legitimising Colonialism: The Historical Sociological Foundations of Eurocentrism 126

Culture Wars in the Americas 129

The Colonial Origins of the Modern Territorialised States System 134

1492 in the History of Uneven and Combined Development 141

The Smithian Moment: American Treasures and So-Called Primitive Accumulation 142

Sublating the Smithian Moment: From Smith to Marx via 'the International' 146

Primitive Accumulation Proper: From 'Simple' to 'Expanded' Reproduction 148

The Uneven and Combined Development of Plantation Slavery 152

The Sociological Unevenness of the Atlantic 153

Sociological Combination in the Plantation System 158

New World Slavery and the Rise of Industrial Capitalism 162

Contributions to the Sphere of Circulation 163

Contributions to the Sphere of Production 166

Conclusion: Colonies, Merchants and the Transition to Capitalism 168

6 The 'Classical' Bourgeois Revolutions in the History of Uneven and Combined Development 174

Introduction 174

The Concept of Bourgeois Revolution 177

Reconceptualising Bourgeois Revolutions: A Consequentialist Approach 177

Reconstructing Consequentialism through Uneven and Combined Development 179

The Origins of Capitalism and the Bourgeois Revolution in the Low Countries 180

The Rise of Dutch Capitalism: An International Perspective 180

The Making of the Dutch Revolt 185

The English Revolution in the History of Uneven and Combined Development 190

Rediscovering the English Revolution 190

Social Forces in the Making of the British Revolution 193

1789 in the History of Uneven and Combined Development 198

Peculiarities of the French Revolution? 198

Capitalism and the Absolutist State in France 199

The Origins of the Capitalist Revolution in France 205

Capitalist Consequences of the French Revolution 210

Conclusion 213

7 Combined Encounters: Dutch Colonisation in Southeast Asia and the Contradictions of 'Free Labour' 215

Introduction 215

The Specificity and Limits of Dutch Capitalism 222

Dutch Institutional Innovations 222

The Limits of Dutch 'Domestic' Capitalism 225

Unevenness and Combination in the Pre-Colonial Indian Ocean Littoral 228

The Intersocietal System of the Indian Ocean 228

South Asia beyond the Eurocentric Gaze 230

The Dutch Encounter: A Policy of Combination 231

The Specificities and 'Success' of Dutch Strategies of Integration and Domination in Southeast Asia 231

The Moluccas 235

The Banda Islands 238

Indian Textiles 240

Conclusion 242

8 Origins of the Great Divergence over the Longue Durée'. Rethinking the 'Rise of the West' 245

Introduction 245

Rethinking the 'Rise of the West': Advances and Impasses in the Revisionist Challenge 247

Points of Agreement: European 'Backwardness' and the Role of the Colonies 247

Late and Lucky: Contingences, the Eurasian Homogeneity Thesis, and the Great Divergence 248

Structure and Conjuncture in the 'Rise of the West' 251

The Geopolitical Competition Model and Its Limits 251

Feudalism, Merchants, and the European States System in the Transition to Capitalism 254

Unevenness Combined: North-South Interactions in the 'Rise of the West' 258

The Conjunctural Moment of 'Overtaking': Britain's Colonisation of India 261

The Significance of India's Colonisation to the 'Rise of the West' 261

The Mughal Empire and the Tributary Mode of Production 263

The Imperial Revenue System and Agricultural Decline in the Mughal Empire 265

European Trade and Colonial Conquest: Towards 1757 269

Conclusion 272.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-369) and index.

ISBN:

9780745336152

0745336159

OCLC:

892455082