Global History: A View from the South

by Samir Amin

Responding to the need to take a fresh look at world history, hitherto dominated by Eurocentric ideologues and historians in their attempt to justify the nature and character of modern capitalism, Samir Amin looks in this book at the ancient world system and how it has influenced the development of the modern world. He analyses the origin and nature of modern globalization and the challenges it presents in achieving socialism and examines the role played by Central Asia in determining the course of world history as well as the different roads taken by Europe and China. The book looks closely at a theme that has been primordial to his contribution to political and economic thought: the question of unequal development.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, World History, Economics, Ancient History, Geography

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Samir Amin (Arabic: سمير أمين) (3 September 1931 – 12 August 2018) was an Egyptian-French Marxian economist, political scientist and world-systems analyst. He is noted for his introduction of the term Eurocentrism in 1988 and considered a pioneer of Dependency Theory.

Reviews

[Sense of History]

The Egyptian economist Samir Amin makes no secret that he is inspired by marxism. Since the end of the 1950s he produced a continuous stream of studies that are an ongoing reflection on how the 19th century Marxist methodology and view can still remain relevant to the world today. Amin has specifically focused on what since the 1970s is called the theory of the world system. This is best known in the variant of Immanuel Wallerstein, an American Marxist historian who argued that since the 16th century a comprehensive world capitalist system has developed, according to the center-periphery-principle. Since Wallerstein there have been numerous corrections and variants of this theory. It is in this tradition that we must situate Amin.

This booklet contains several articles of Amin from the 1980s and 1990s (re-edited for this edition), and it summarizes his thinking very well: according to Amin there existed between about 500/300 BC and the year 1500 only regional systems which he describes as tributary (political power dominates all sectors of life, eminently visible by the tribute, tax or service, which must be paid to the rulers, political power is also legitimized by an ideological-religious compendium). From 1500 on gradually a capitalist world system came into place, where the economy dominates politics and ideology, as reflected in social alienation and extreme polarization at all levels. For Amin this is not just a continuation and natural evolution of the former tributary systems but a fundamental, qualitative break. It's partly a coincidence that capitalism reached maturity in Europe, and it is also why Europe (and not for intrinsic reasons) has dominated the world in the last two centuries. This is Amin's "view from the south", but sadly this is not really further developed in this book, the title is a bit misleading.

I find it very refreshing to look at the history of the world on this very general level. Amin dares to develop large schemes about the balance of power between the various regional areas (China-India-Middle East- Europe- Sub-Saharan Africa), but he does so without giving much evidence (it looks like it’s more based on his intuition). Obviously I have an issue with his a priori marxist approach and his rather theoretical discourse. But enriching it is, without doubt. (rating 2.5 stars)

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading this book is like being blasted with a space rocket into earth orbit: the Egyptian economist Samir Amin juggles with geographical-cultural regions and with eras that last from 3 to 20 centuries as if it were child's play; he is a true exponent of the world systems theory. Yet his name does not appear so often in the reviews on that current. Maybe that's because Amin over the years managed to fight with just about all heavyweights of this current of studies, and then especially with the Marxist-inspired representatives, such as Immanuel Wallerstein and Andre Gunder Frank. However, Amin himself also is a marxist, - as is noticeable from the very theoretical content of this booklet -; it is another confirmation that in each faith the co-believers are the most fearsome contested. Don't get me wrong: what Amin has to say is quite the interesting, especially his "look from up high" on the history of the world, and then especially his exposé on the relationships between regions in a particular era is breathtaking and at the same time challenging. Because as a historian you always keep on wondering where his bold assertions exactly are based upon. It still is a striking constation: just about all pronounced exponents of the world systems theories are not historians, Amin is an economist, Wallerstein a sociologist, Frank a economist and sociologist, etc. Perhaps too much sense of nuance and proportion is fatal for the invention of large theories?!

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Samir Amin is one of those authors I regret I don’t read more when I finally get to piece by him. He is an unsettling Marxist theorist/economist/analyst whose rigorously non-Eurocentric view of the world and compelling sense of the long dureé is something we need a lot more of. His sense of ‘Global History’ as a way to make sense of the current global condition starts about 5-300 BCE, and he is prepared to talk of 2000 years as a single period in global history. What’s more, it is both compelling and convincing. The case here (in a book that is mainly an edited and updated set of previously published pieces, not that I complaining, most previously published in French in which I have enough trouble with menus, let along theoretically sophisticated historical analyses).

He does several things in this collection that I really like. First, taking account of his 2500 year span, Europe is an economic and social periphery, and in being so evidence of his case that systemic change tends to begin in the periphery – his model of uneven development. Second, he makes the case that the change from tributary state structures (including feudalism) saw a qualitative change in political power from wealth as a product of power to power as a product of wealth. Third, he argues that developed and undeveloped economies are two sides of the same capitalist coin so attempts to ‘develop’ peripheral economies are doomed to failure because capitalism is polarising and requires ‘underdevelopment’ (not a lot in that point that is new, but it well made and invoked here). Fourth, global power is maintained by dominant states monopolising control over finance, technology, the earth’s resources, the media, and weapons of mass destruction. Fifth, he ferociously denies culturalist arguments for development, underdevelopment, or any other cultural condition – that is, he rejects the case that there is something inherent about the culture, form or politics of any group that makes them as they are, looking always to a fundamental systemic (materialist) case, after all, he remains unapologetically Marxist.

It is not an easy read, but then the sense of a disruption of the taken for granted assumptions of much of the contemporary world view means that it should not be. But for those of us who need, from time to time, to step back and look at the really big picture, it is a marvellous book (even when I disagree).

[Carlos Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Samir Amin is always interesting and always worth reading. This particular volume devoted too much space to what I felt was a relatively obscure argument with Andre Gunder Frank; furthermore the organisation of the book is a bit unwieldy, with repetition of certain concepts and insufficient explanation of others. Still, I learned a few things, and was inspired to think more seriously about the origins of capitalism.

[mike osman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amin presents a convincing theory that classifies precapitalist societies as variations of a "tributary" type society. He spends a lot of time critiquing other Marxist authors and Eurocentrism and referencing his other book "Class and Nations." His index numbers seem arbitrary, but are good for illustration. The chapters seem a bit random and intended as separate articles which don't obviously belong together, and the writing style is uncareful and repetitive. Still, there are a lot of good ideas in his book.

[Andrew Feist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disappointed to find out it was a series of editted essays, not a coherent book. so seems a bit disjunct at times. Also refers to his other works constantly, which makes tedious reading.
But otherwise, packed with insights and solid analysis.
Amin is always brilliant.