Beyond binary histories
Subtitle: re-imagining Eurasia to c.1830
By: Victor Lieberman, editor.
Contributors: Lieberman, Victor B., 1945-
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Ann Arbor
Language: eng
Number of pages: 325
Subjects: Southeast Asia -- History -- Congresses; Eurasia -- History -- Congresses
Genres: Congresses.
Description: "Seeking to transcend the hoary insistence on East-West dichotomies, this collection looks at transformations in cultural and political organization across Eurasia that were both more general and more psychologically significant to pre-1830 actors themselves than the problem that has obsessed twentieth-century comparativists, namely, the origins of a unique European industrialism.

Nine coordinated essays explore the proposition that the integration of isolated units to form more cohesive systems in France, Russia, and other European countries c. 1000-1830 correspond in important respects to integrative processes that were occurring at the same time in parts of Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Japan.".

"Insofar as similarities between some European and Asian areas exceeded those between different sectors of Asia, this collection invites historians to reject Eurocentric perspectives in favor of more thematic, contextually-specific categories. At the same time it raises the possibility of a broad "early modern" period for Eurasia at large."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: All but one were papers originally presented at a workshop entitled The Eurasian context of the early modern history of mainland South East Asia, 1400-1800, held June 22-24, 1995, University of London.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Transcending East-West dichotomies : state and culture formation in six ostensibly disparate areas / Victor Lieberman; title: Was early modern Japan culturally integrated? / Mary Elizabeth Berry; title: The birth of Europe as a Eurasian phenomenon / R.I. Moore; title: State building in early modern Europe : the case of France / James B. Collins; title: Merciful father, impersonal state : Russian autocracy in comparative perspective / Valerie Kivelson; title: Literati culture and integration in Dai Viet, c.1430-c.1840 / John K. Whitmore; title: Southeast Asia "inside out," 1300-1800 / David K. Wyatt; title: Civilization on loan : the making of an upstart polity : Mataram and its successors, 1600-1830 / Peter Carey; title: Connected histories : notes towards a reconfiguration of early modern Eurasia / Sanjay Subrahmanyan.