Page 119 - Encyclopedia Of World History

culture 469

This Japanese print from the mid-1800s
shows the mix of cultures as an Englishman
dances to music supplied by a Japanese
woman playing a shamisen.

Operating on many levels and over many time periods,
these scholars tried to map the economic connections
that linked vast regions of the globe.The emphasis once
again was on the role of political, social, and economic
factors in the formation of global patterns of economic
exchange. In Wallersteinian world-system studies, it is the
nature of the world system that shapes culture, which
usually leaves culture as the ideological by-product of cap-
italism (see Immanuel Wallerstein’s 1991 Geopolitics
and Geoculture: Essays on the Changing World System).
Another focus of world-history studies has been cross-
cultural encounters. These writings examine processes
that transcend geographical and political boundaries to
connect societies or cultures spread over vast distances
and times. Some of the most interesting writing on cul-
to explain the rise of the West and the continued mod- ture in contemporary world history has its roots in this
ernization (or lack thereof) of the world’s nations through influential body of work. These writers convincingly
economic development.The treatment of culture in such argue that cross-cultural connections have been one of
accounts was uneven. In some writings culture became a the principal agents of change, with far-reaching conse-
residual category, where activities pertaining to the arts, quences for our planet’s history. Over millennia, such
literature, and the intellect, were deposited. In others, the cross-cultural flows have resulted in the movement of peo-
role of culture was subordinated to the study of political ples, ideas, objects, and even microbes over vast regions
and economic forces. Once again, there was an excessive of the planet, connecting and transforming diverse soci-
focus on Europe. eties. Studies have examined ecological exchanges, tech-
Over the past decade or so the terms of this debate nology transfer, trade networks, migrations, religious
have changed considerably as scholars began to write conversions, circuits of pilgrimage, processes of imperi-
more sophisticated and non-Eurocentric studies examin- alism and globalization, and frontiers as zones of ex-
ing why Europe’s history diverged so drastically from that change.The works have moved from simple explanations
of the rest of the world. Greater economic agency and of one-sided diffusion to two-way processes of mutual
centrality have been given to other parts of the world, exchange and transformation.Yet while the phrase cross-
especially Asia. These historians have usually given pri- cultural interactions finds frequent expression in world
macy to political and economic factors when explaining historical writings, there is little discussion about what is
the great divergence in the development of European and cultural about these interactions. In many writings culture
non-European societies since the eighteenth century. Few becomes a synonym for society. In others, the term cul-
writers give preeminence to culture as an important ture may be used to refer to human activities, such as
determinant of the great divergence between Europe and migration and conquest, through which ideas, objects,
the rest of the world (but see David Landes’s 1998 The and peoples are exchanged. However, while the interac-
Wealth and Poverty of Nations). In this genre of writings tions between cultures are mapped in detail, most world
culture has come to stand for attitudes, ideologies, and historians have hesitated to provide conceptual clarifica-
values that distinguish one society from another. tions for the term culture that take into account wider
In the 1970s another genre of world-historical writings debates in other fields (though there are exceptions).
began to emerge that focused on world-systems analysis. This is not to say that engagements between disciplines