European hegemony resulted from economic and imperial factors, not inherent Western superiority

Evidence

There was nothing inevitable about this. Historian Albert Hourani notes that from the eighth to the eighteenth centuries, powerful Muslim empires stretched across the globe “from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with Arabic as its lingua franca, the most universal language which had ever existed.” Up until 1500 or so, Western Europe with its various feudal kingdoms was a marginal player on the world stage relative to other great powers (such as the Ottomans, Chinese, and Indians). In Before European Hegemony, sociologist Janet Abu-Lughod demonstrated that their “relatively primitive development” in the medieval era meant that Europeans were economically backward relative to Middle Eastern and Far Eastern systems of production and exchange. They overcame their backwardness in the context of the rise of mercantile imperialism and capitalism. Abu-Lughod argues that these factors explain European hegemony from the sixteenth century on; it is not the case that “only the institutions and culture of the West could have succeeded” [emphasis in original]. Yet, this is precisely what Orientalism, as a body of thought and a practical means of colonial domination, set out to establish. Building on late eighteenth and early nineteenth century European conceptions of history, Orientalists divided human societies into civilizations that have a core set of values that drive their progress (or lack thereof). The people who inhabit these civilizations were said to have a cultural “essence” that explains who they are across time. Essentialism of this sort is one of the pillars of race making. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 103

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism and to the civilizational-essence argument familiar from analyses of the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis. Also echoes Abu-Lughod’s world-systems revisionism. — connects to: Europe achieved hegemony only through mercantile imperialism and capitalism, not inherent superiority — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 103; European global hegemony resulted from economic advantage, not cultural superiority.; European hegemony resulted from mercantile capitalism, not inherent cultural superiority (+3 more)
• QUESTION: The claim that the West ‘overcame backwardness’ through mercantile capitalism is worth probing — what specific mechanism does Abu-Lughod identify for that transition?

Broader Connections

• European global hegemony resulted from economic advantage, not cultural superiority. #corroborates (0.95)
• European hegemony resulted from mercantile capitalism, not inherent cultural superiority #expands (0.90)
• European economic and cultural backwardness, not superiority, preceded its hegemony #expands (0.75)