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. Rather, their genesis is firmly rooted in European thought and their primary function has been to provide justification for powerful states to impose their will against the weak under the smoke screen of what is supposed to be both beneficial to humankind and historically inevitable. With great acuity Wallerstein draws together discussions of the idea of orientalism, the right to intervene, and the triumph...
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