Civilization as a Political Concept

* Book: Readings in B. Bowden (ed.) (2009) Civilization: Critical Concepts in Political Science, London & New York: Routledge

URL = https://www.routledge.com/Civilization/Bowden/p/book/9780415469654

"the four-volume collection of key readings on ‘civilisation’" ($900)

Description

From the publisher:

"Especially since the end of the Cold War, the concept of ‘civilization’ has been frequently deployed by those who seek to describe and explain the world in which we live. The events of 11 September 2001, and the subsequent ‘war on terror’, have further elevated the concept's use in the discourse of politics and international relations. There has, for instance, been feverish speculation and increasingly heated rhetoric about struggles ‘for civilization’ or a possible ‘clash of civilizations’, particularly between the West and the Islamic world. The term is used both to describe—and to cast value-laden judgements about—people, places, and events. It is often misinterpreted and misapplied, with sometimes dangerous consequences.

In response to the revival and misuse of ‘civilization’, this new four-volume collection from Routledge Major Works meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of a vast and growing scholarly literature. It brings together canonical and the best cutting-edge research to provide a comprehensive overview of the origins, contested meanings, contextual applications, and general history of this critical concept."

Contents

"Volume I (‘The Origins and Meaning of Civilization’) is made up of the best work from a distinguished line-up of political scientists, philosophers, historians, sociologists, and linguists. It outlines the origins of the concept and its many and disputed meanings. This first volume establishes the foundations on which much of the analysis included in the three subsequent volumes is based.

Volume II (‘Civilization, Civilizations, Progress, and History’) includes a range of materials that intimately outline the relationship between the ideal of civilization and the idea of progress, including progress in the social, cultural, moral, scientific, and political realms. Research gathered here further examines how the concepts of civilization and progress in turn relate to the more general passage of history, particularly the idea of history with a purpose.

Volume III (‘Civilization and its Others’) brings together the best scholarship to explore what civilization is not. The scholarship collected here comes from some of history’s most distinguished political scientists, leading international lawyers, anthropologists, and controversial ethnologists. Can one, for example, usefully draw a distinction between civilized, savage, and barbarian peoples?

The final volume (‘Civilizational Relations: Past, Present, and Future’) enables researchers and students to navigate through the equally sensitive field of historical and contemporary relations between the world’s major civilizations or religio-cultural groups. It includes the catalysts of debates such as ‘the clash-of-civilizations thesis’ and the responses it has provoked."

(https://www.routledge.com/Civilization/Bowden/p/book/9780415469654)

ToC

Miscellaneous selection of items in the collection:

- Bierstedt, R., ‘Indices of civilization’, Vol.1: 330-340

- Carneiro, R.L., ‘A reappraisal of the roles of technology and organization in the origin of civilization’, Vol.2: 271-281

- Elias, N. ‘Technization and civilization’, Vol.2: 220-249

- Elias, N. ‘The social constraint towards self-constraint’, Vol.2: 202-219

- Blatt, J. ‘“To bring out the best that is in their blood”: race, reform, and civilization in the Journal of Race Development (1910-1919)’, Vol.3: 242-259. [DT note: the JRD is the forerunner of the leading and arguably most influential international relations periodical, Foreign Affairs, which has featured, amongst many others, Huntington’s original essay on the ‘clash of civilizations’.]

- Buchan, B. ‘The empire of political thought: civilisation, savagery and perceptions of Indigenous government’, Vol.3: 82-103

- Francis, M. ‘The “civilizing’ of indigenous people in 19th-century Canada’, Vol.3: 28-61

- Huntington, S.P. ‘If not civilizations, what? Paradigms of the post-Cold War world’, Vol.3: 130-139.

- Kraynak, R.P. ‘Hobbes on barbarism and civilization’, Vol.1: 219-241

- Mazlish, B. ‘Civilization in a historical and global perspective’, Vol.3: 1-7

- Pagden, A. ‘The “defence of civilization” in 18th-century social theory’, Vol. 1: 242-254

- Dabashi, H. ‘For the last time: civilizations’, Vol.3: 419-425.

- Goudsblom, J. ‘Civilization: the career of a controversial concept’, Vol.1: 378-388

- Iggers, G.G., ‘The idea of progress in historiography and social thought since the Enlightenment’, Vol.2: 1-25

- Schiller, F. von, ‘The nature and value of universal history: an inaugural lecture [1789]’, Vol.2: 26-39

- Toynbee, A., ‘The shape of history’, Vol.2: 96-132

- Toynbee, A., ‘My view of history’ and ‘Civilization on trial’, Vol.2: 133-148

- Spengler, O., ‘Introduction’, Vol.2: 149-178

- Farrenkopf, J. ,‘Spengler’s theory of civilization’, Vol.2: 179-194

- Barraclough, G., ‘Is there a European civilization’, Vol.2: 195-201.