Race, Empire, and the Idea of Human Development

Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-521-51971-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 584 g

In an exciting study of ideas accompanying the rise of the West, Thomas McCarthy analyzes the ideologies of race and empire that were integral to European-American expansion. He highlights the central role that conceptions of human development (civilization, progress, modernization, and the like) played in answering challenges to legitimacy through a hierarchical ordering of difference. Focusing on Kant and natural history in the eighteenth century, Mill and social Darwinism in the nineteenth, and theories of development and modernization in the twentieth, he proposes a critical theory of development which can counter contemporary neoracism and neoimperialism, and can accommodate the multiple modernities now taking shape. Offering an unusual perspective on the past and present of our globalizing world, this book will appeal to scholars and advanced students of philosophy, political theory, the history of ideas, racial and ethnic studies, social theory, and cultural studies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mccarthy, Thomas

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Methodenlehre

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; Part I: 1. Political philosophy and racial injustice: a preliminary note on methodology; 2. Kant on race and development; 3. Social Darwinism and white supremacy; 4. Coming to terms with the past: on the politics of the memory of slavery; Part II: 5. What may we hope? Reflections on the idea of universal history in the wake of Kant; 6. Liberal imperialism and the dilemma of development; 7. From modernism to messianism: reflections on the state of 'development'; Conclusion: the presence of the past.

Über Autor(innen)

Mccarthy, Thomas
Thomas McCarthy is William H. Orrick Visiting Professor at Yale University and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Northwestern University.