Modern historiography’s hegemony rests on destroying history-poor societies.

Evidence

Chakrabarty’s argument for his position against Davis remains defensive, poignantly pointing to the fact that history’s “success as a hegemonic knowledge-form … depends on the destruction of the society that made some humans history-poor to begin with” (249). Chakrabarty does not go down the philosophical path to argue that the inescapable metaphysics that modern historiography cannot but assume (knowingly or not) as constitutive of its own foundations is no less mythical precisely because it rests on a particular conception of metaphysics, not least of which are the linear, singular, progress-based dogmas. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 1017

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the argument that modern historiography’s foundational assumptions (linearity, singularity, progress) are themselves a metaphysical—and therefore mythological—commitment, not neutral method.
• XREF: Connects to subaltern studies debates (Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe) and the epistemicide critique of colonial historiography—resonates with the reader’s postcolonial theory interests. — connects to: Heidegger blamed America and the USSR for a centuries-long planetary destruction. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 571
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the claim that mainstream historical method smuggles in a ‘progress-based’ metaphysics—does it hold against microhistory or genealogical approaches within the discipline?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 1017