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Civilization and Enlightenment by Albert M. Craig Pdf
The Scottish enlightenment and the stages of civilization -- American geography textbooks -- John Hill Burton's Political economy -- Invention, the engine of progress -- An outline of theories of civilization -- Reflections.
Colonial Canada changed enormously between the 1760s and the 1860s, the Conquest and Confederation, but the idea of civilization seen to guide those transformations changed still more. A cosmopolitan and optimistic theory of history was written into the founding Canadian constitution as a check on state violence, only to be reversed and undone over the next century. Civilization was hegemony, a contradictory theory of unrestrained power and restraints on that power. Occupying a middle ground between British and American hegemonies, all the different peoples living in Canada felt those contradictions very sharply. Both Britain and America came to despair of bending Canada violently to their will, and new forms of hegemony, a greater reckoning with soft power, emerged in the wake of those failures. E.A. Heaman shows that the view from colonial Canada matters for intellectual and political history. Canada posed serious challenges to the Scottish Enlightenment, the Pax Britannica, American manifest destiny, and the emerging model of the nation-state. David Hume’s theory of history shaped the Canadian imaginary in constitutional documents, much-thumbed histories, and a certain liberal-conservative political and financial orientation. But as settlers flooded across the continent, cosmopolitanism became chauvinism, and the idea of civilization was put to accomplishing plunder and predation on a transcontinental scale. Case studies show crucial moments of conceptual reversal, some broadly representative and some unique to Canada. Dissecting the Seven Years’ War, domestic relations, the fiscal military state, liberal reform, social statistics, democracy, constitutionalism, and scholarly history, Heaman shows how key British and Canadian public figures grappled with the growing gap between theory and practice. By historicizing the concept of civilization, this book connects Enlightenment ideals and anti-colonialism, shown in contest with colonialism in Canada before Confederation.
An Outline of a Theory of Civilization by Yukichi Fukuzawa Pdf
Yukichi Fukuzawa rose from low samurai origins to become one of the finest intellectuals and social thinkers of modern Japan. Through his best-selling works, he helped transform an isolated feudal nation into a full-fledged international force. In Outline of a Theory of Civilization, the author's most sustained philosophical text, Fukuzawa translates and adapts a range of Western works for a Japanese audience, establishing the social, cultural, and political avenues through which Japan could connect with other countries. Echoing the ideas of Western contemporaries such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, Fukuzawa encouraged a grassroots elevation of the individual and national spirit, as well as free initiative in the private domain. Fukuzawa's bold project articulated thoughts that, for him, bolstered the material evidence of Western civilization. He argued that the essential difference separating Western countries from Japan and Asia was the extent to which citizens acted like free and responsible individuals. This careful new translation, accompanied by a comprehensive critical introduction, highlights the truly transnational aspects of Outline of a Theory of Civilization and its status as a foundational text of modern Japanese civilization. Approaching Fukuzawa's progressive thought with a fresh eye, these scholars elucidate the monumental and peerless quality of his work.
Technology and the Culture of Progress in Meiji Japan by David G. Wittner Pdf
Introduction : Meiji modernization revisited -- Tradition and modernization -- Iron machines and brick buildings : the material culture of silk reeling -- Smelting for civilization : technical choice and the modernization of the Iron industry -- Bunmei kaika to gijutsu : technology's role in 'civilization and enlightenment' -- Conclusion : from technological determinism to techno-imperialism.
Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949 by Thomas Fröhlich,Axel Schneider Pdf
Chinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949 offers a panoramic study of Chinese reflections on “progress,” its multifaceted expressions, contesting interpretations, highly optimistic implications, but also the criticism it encountered.
This book further qualifies the postcolonial thesis and shows its limits. To reach these goals, it links text analysis and political history on a global comparative scale. Focusing on imperial agents, their narratives of progress, and their political aims and strategies, it asks whether Enlightenment gave birth to a new colonialism between 1760 and 1820. Has Enlightenment provided the cultural and intellectual origins of modern colonialism? For decades, historians of political thought, philosophy, and literature have debated this question. On one side, many postcolonial authors believe that enlightened rationalism helped delegitimize non-European cultures. On the other side, some historians of ideas and literature are willing to defend at least some eighteenth-century philosophers whom they consider to have been “anti-colonialists”. Surprisingly enough, both sides have focused on literary and philosophical texts, but have rarely taken political and social practice into account.
The forgotten story of Central Asia's enlightenment—its rise, fall, and enduring legacy In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds—remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia—drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China. Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects. They gave algebra its name, calculated the earth's diameter with unprecedented precision, wrote the books that later defined European medicine, and penned some of the world's greatest poetry. One scholar, working in Afghanistan, even predicted the existence of North and South America—five centuries before Columbus. Rarely in history has a more impressive group of polymaths appeared at one place and time. No wonder that their writings influenced European culture from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas down to the scientific revolution, and had a similarly deep impact in India and much of Asia. Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. Informed by the latest scholarship yet written in a lively and accessible style, this is a book that will surprise general readers and specialists alike.
Discusses the representation/role of the supernatural or the "fantastic" in the construction of Japanese modernism in late 19th and early 20th century Japan.
Astronomy and Civilization in the New Enlightenment by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka,Attila Grandpierre Pdf
This volume represents the first which interfaces with astronomy as the fulcrum of the sciences. It gives full expression to the human passion for the skies. Advancing human civilization has unfolded and matured this passion into the comprehensive science of astronomy. Advancing science’s quest for the first principles of existence meets the ontopoietic generative logos of life, the focal point of the New Enlightenment. It presents numerous perspectives illustrating how the interplay between human beings and the celestial realm has informed civilizational trends. Scholars and philosophers debate in physics and biology, the findings of which are opening a more inclusive, wider picture of the universe. The different models of the universal order and of life here presented, all aiming at the first principles of existence—accord with the phenomenology/ontopoiesis of life within the logos-prompted primogenital stream of becoming and action, which points to a future of progressing culture.
Western Civilization in a Global Context: Prehistory to the Enlightenment by Kenneth L. Campbell Pdf
Western Civilization in a Global Context is a source collection that introduces a comparative element to the study of Western civilization, offering students an opportunity to explore non-Western perspectives. An interesting and provocative set of readings are included, from a range of primary sources, including official documents, historical writings, literary sources, letters, speeches, interviews as well as visual sources. These different sources are carefully selected with a view to generating class discussion and providing students with a sense of the different approaches historians might take to understanding the past. Volume I covers prehistory to the Enlightenment, including sources that offer insight into the political, social, religious, cultural and intellectual history of this period. Topics covered include: - The Rise of Rome - Byzantine Civilization - The Renaissance in Europe and China - Religious Reformation - European Expansion - The Scientific Revolution To aid student engagement and understanding, the book begins with a guide to using primary sources and includes questions for discussion throughout. Western Civilization in a Global Context is the ideal companion for students who want to explore the contribution of non-Western cultures, and gain a more thorough understanding of the complex history of the world as a result.
John Gray argues that all the intellectual traditions of modernity are applications of the Enlightenment project, which has proved to be self-undermining. This effect was due to the project's extension of rational self-criticism and demystification to its own foundational commitments which ultimately dissolved them. From this position Gray argues that both the desire of fundamentalist liberalism to salvage the Enlightenment, and the traditionalist or reactionary desire to reverse it, are doomed to failure. The central problem of contemporary political thought and practice, the author contends, is that of securing peaceful co-existence for incommensurable world-views in an intellectual and cultural context that is at once post-rational and post-traditional. While it is crucial to resist the re-enchantment of the world by new forms of fundamentalism, neither the Left nor the Right in any of their traditional forms are able, according to Gray, to offer a viable alternative.
