Synopses & Reviews
As a way of improvising on the study of civilizations in world politics, the volume focuses on those social and political practices through which notions of civilizational identity are reproduced in a variety of contexts ranging from the global credit regime to theological debates about modernity to the 'war on terrorism'. The contributors to the volume explore the ways in which practices of civilizational identity give rise to the effect of a solid object called a 'civilization,' even though this object is itself nothing more than an ensemble of social practices.
Review
"Here is the research front on relations between civilizations: A thoroughly dialogical immersion in debates on how these cultures writ large hybridize and shape contemporary global life."
-- Iver B. Neumann, Professor of Russian Studies, Oslo University and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Norway
"This volume represents a very timely and profound engagement with the concept of civilization, indispensable to anyone who has tried to think critically and constructively about this concept in international relations."
-- Jens Bartelson, Professor of International Relations, University of Copenhagen
"Hall and Jackson's edited volume exposes the long and troubled history of one of the most frequently used and abused concepts in international relations - the concept of ‘civilization. This erudite, sophisticated collection of essays represents a must-read for any scholar of international relations, both as an exploration of the conceptual basis for the West's troubled relation with the rest of the world, and as a theoretical blue print for future critical engagements with the foundations of our discipline."
--Aida A. Hozic, Professor of International Relations, University of Florida
Synopsis
This volume focuses on the constitutive politics of civilizational identity, examining the practices through which notions of civilizational identity are produced and reproduced in different contexts, including the global credit regime, modernity debates, and the "war on terrorism."
About the Author
Martin Hall is a Researcher at Lund University. His main research interests concern the intersection of International Relations theory and historical sociology. He is currently working on a book project entitled The West: An Essentially Contested Concept. He is the co-author (with Christer Jonsson) of Essence of Diplomacy (2005). Patrick Thaddeus Jackson is Associate Professor of International Relations in the School of International Service at the American University in Washingon, DC. In 2003-4, he served as President of the International Studies Association-Northeast. He is the author of Civilizing the Enemy: German Reconstruction and the Invention of the West and is presently working on a book about superhighways and subjectivity.
Table of Contents
Introduction--Martin Hall & Patrick Thaddeus Jackson *
PART I: CIVILIZATION(S) AND IR THEORY * Discourses of Civilizational Identity--Jacinta O'Hagan * Civilizations as Actors: A Transactional Account--Patrick Thaddeus Jackson * Discussion--Hayward Alker *
PART II: CIVILIZATION(S), RELIGION, AND PSYCHOLOGY * Civilizations, Postorientalism, and Islam--Mustapha Kemal Pasha * Not Waiting for the Barbarians--Mark B. Salter * Civilizations, Neo-Ghandianism, and the Hindu Self--Catarina Kinnvall * Discussion--Daniel H. Nexon *
PART III: INTER-CIVILIZATIONAL ENCOUNTERS * Marketing Global Standards of Civilization--Leonard Seabrooke & Brett Bowden * The Heterarchic Umma--Peter Mandaville * The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Making of World Order--John Hobson * The Status of Women and the Ordering of Human Societies Along the Stages of Civilization--Ann Towns * Discussion--Jacqueline Best *
PART IV: CONCLUSIONS AND PROSPECTS * Pathways to Civilization--Yale Ferguson * Toward a Fourth Generation of Civilizational Scholarship--Martin Hall