page_title: Eurocentrism
section_title: Terminology
hierarchical_section_title: Eurocentrism / Terminology
caption_attribution_description: English: Egyptian economist Samir Amin on the the current Eurocrisis at this years Subversive Festival in Zagreb.
context_page_description: Eurocentrism is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-western civilizations. The exact scope of centrism varies from the entire Western world to just the continent of Europe or even more narrowly, to Western Europe. When the term is applied to history, it may be used in reference to an apologetic stance towards European colonialism and other forms of imperialism.
  The term Eurocentrism dates back to the late 1970s but it did not become prevalent until the 1990s, when it was frequently applied in the context of decolonization and development and humanitarian aid that industrialised countries offered to developing countries.
context_section_description: The adjective Eurocentric, or Europe-centric, has been in use in various contexts since at least the 1920s. The term was popularised (in French as européocentrique) in the context of decolonization and internationalism in the mid-20th century. English usage of Eurocentric  as an ideological term in identity politics was current by the mid-1980s.
  The abstract noun Eurocentrism (French eurocentrisme, earlier europocentrisme) as the term for an ideology was coined in the 1970s by the Egyptian Marxian economist Samir Amin, then director of the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Amin used the term in the context of a global, core-periphery or dependency model of capitalist development. English usage of Eurocentrism is recorded by 1979.
  The coinage of Western-centrism is younger, attested in the late 1990s, and specific to English.
caption: Eurocentrism as the term for an ideology was coined by Samir Amin in the 1970s
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