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The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History

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It is difficult to critique Blaut's book without falling into the trap of expounding the `Eurocentric diffusion' theory oneself. If he was making the point that many historical thinkers at many points in time were guilty of over-estimating the uniqueness and impact of any `European miracle', then I would have some sympathy with his argument. However, his aims are much grander. He wishes to prove that the success of `Western' civilisation was a geographical happenstance, and that the whole canon of European historiography is built on the basis of `Eurocentric diffusion', and he, of course, is the only person to have spotted this.

Of course, Edward Said's Orientalism of 1979 had preceded Blaut's work by some 14 years, but despite the similarity of tone and approach, Blaut disregards Said's work in one sentence with a quick nod of approval - colonial activity in the Orient obviously being unimportant to his central thesis of the importance of the Americas in European growth. This is typical of Blaut's lack of interest in Asian, African or Middle-Eastern colonialism - for example, colonial India does not figure in his exposition at all. Blaut may not have been aware of the historical academic community's attacks on Said's thesis - these seem to me even more apparent in Blaut's thesis than in Said's. John MacKenzie's incisive critique of Said's Orientalism resonates with flaws I perceive in Blaut's book.

Firstly Blaut does not provide any evidence of linkage between `representation' of the `outside' world, as he calls it, in the `Colonizer's Model of the World' and the application of that `representation' in the colonialisation `project'. So what philosophical and historical texts existed in the critical 16th and 17th centuries that exhibited this Euro-chauvinism, and how were they harnessed by the colonisers in their supposed domination of the world? He only provides a brief survey of books from 1850 onwards in an extended footnote. Secondly, he creates a form of Euro-centrism himself in his argument painting a caricature of "the imperial mugger and unresisting victim" Thirdly, he essentialises `european intellectual history' as if it is one body of consistent opinion. An example of his writing shows this: "All scholarship is diffusionist insofar as it axiomatically accepts the Inside-Outside world". Also, he is highly selective about the examples he cites, and those that he cites as examples of `current thinking' are often archaic. An example can be seen in his argument against the `Malthusian Theory' of overcrowding "being propagated today", where he attacks books by Lawrence Stone and Robert Brenner, both published in 1977. He only admits in a footnote that an extensive exegesis criticising these works was penned in the 1980s. His selectivity also extends to his bold statement that all world regions were using the sea as effectively as each other prior to 1492. However, he cannot ignore the evidence of the prowess of the Portuguese in sailing techniques, but he hides this in another footnote. What of Bartolomeu Dias's rounding of the Cape of Good Hope which predated Columbus's voyage by four years? Surely the epic voyage of Da Gama's to Kenya and India in 1497/8 shows that Columbus's route was not a one-off freak happenstance?

John Thornton's book published the previous year gives a much more convincing historical and geographic explanation of European maritime Atlantic successes over the riverine African sailors, arguing that Europe (and the Middle-East) did have world-beating technical advantages in sailing technology and know-how by the mid 15th century.

The final `Saidian' streak in the book is its ahistoricism. Like Said, Blaut is not a historian. He is a geography professor. But how is this book ahistorical? Firstly, it ignores specific causality. What exactly was the flow of precious metals when they arrived back in Europe? Many historians believe that much of the bullion was respent on purchasing china, silk and tea. Surely this would have enriched Asia not Europe, and especially encouraged Asian industrialisation? Also, the countries which reaped the bullion rewards of South America (Spain and Portugal) patently did not defeudalise at the same rate as Britain and the Low Countries. And some areas, such as Italy and Germany did not gain directly from such colonies - and yet they lie within Blaut's uniform definition of `Europe'.

To conclude, Blaut fails to harness his idea of a `Coloniser's Model' to any practical instances of colonialist hegemony, or instances of underdevelopment in the colonies. William Coffey describes Blaut's approach as "spending a great deal of effort constructing a `straw man' which he heroically topples...but his approach may be more properly likened to an attack of (German) panzer divisions." He fails to convince that there is one unitary Europe with one Colonial Model of exploitation for capitalist development. Some analysis of the divisions within Europe is surely required to understand how capitalism developed, and where it found nourishment. The book argues against Weber's ideas of the `oriental despot', the cyclical rather than modernising nature of Asian societies and Weber's racist undertones. But it fails to address Weber's ideas on the famous `Protestant Work Ethic' and the Marx's and Weber's `spirit of the true man'. One year after the publication of Blaut's book. Francis Fukuyama published the highly successful and controversial End of History and the Last Man which investigated these issues - coming to very different conclusions from Blaut.

It is worth noting that Blaut's final book, entitled Eight Eurocentric historians was published in 2000, in the year of his death. It may be that this new edition may address some of the criticisms I level at his 1993 work.

James Blaut, a geographer at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is particularly known for his excellent refutations and polemics against Eurocentrism in economic history. This book, "The Colonizer's Model of the World", is the pinnacle of that oeuvre, together with its companion work Eight Eurocentric Historians.

The first and largest part of the book is devoted to refuting the mythology and mistakes of Eurocentric diffusionism, a body of theories and statements which purport to show that Europe or Europeans were in some way, whether mentally or physically or economically or environmentally or culturally, superior to Asians, Africans and other non-Europeans before the 'discovery' of America. Blaut does this by analyzing systematically the works of many recent and past popularizers of these theories, from the 'hydraulic societies' of Karl Wittfogel to the contemporary racist historiography of Eric L. Jones, and subjecting them to an unsparing criticism for their erroneous assumptions and ignorance of the non-European world. As Blaut shows, China, India, Southeast Asia and even Africa were not lagging behind Europe in any respect before 1492, including but not limited to technology, individual freedom (or lack thereof), and demographics. He also makes many essential geographic points, such as refuting the theories that tropical conditions are inherently unsuited for working or thinking, or that tropical soil is necessarily less fertile, or that Europe relied on rainfall agriculture unlike Asia. The book "Eight Eurocentric Historians" builds upon this part and goes into more detail about it.

The second part of the book is a discussion of the state of feudalism in Europe and elsewhere (about the same level of development except for the Americas, as Blaut shows) before 1492, and the immensely rapid growth, change, and development Western and Southern Europe underwent in the period roughly from 1492 to 1700. Blaut persuasively argues that only the colonization of the Americas, with the enormous influx of wealth and capitalistic production relations resulting from gold and silver mining and plantation work (particularly sugar), can adequately explain this phenomenon. He also explains why it was Europe that conquered America rather than the opposite, the answer being disease, and why it was Europe as opposed to Asia or Africa that did this, the answer being geographical location and advantageous wind patterns for sailing.

Blaut is unsparing and polemic in his writing, occasionally getting preachy, but his case is strong and aims home. He even criticizes otherwise radical authors for their failing in this regard, often legitimately, such as Marx and to a lesser extent Engels, Robert Brenner, Perry Anderson, and others. I do not endorse or support all his critiques on this field, as Blaut occasionally goes overboard, and his endorsement of Martin Bernal's "Black Athena" theory, now discredited, does not aid his case. (It must be noted that this book was written in 1993, and the refutation of this theory in "Black Athena Revisited" (Black Athena Revisited) was published in 1996.) Blaut nonetheless gives good cause also for the radical historians to revise and change the substance of some of the classic Marxist historical view - his book is yet more confirmation that the concept of the "Asiatic mode of production" is untenable and must be discarded, and it also gives more argument for introducting "protocapitalism" as a separate mode of production in between feudalism and Industrial Revolution capitalism, although Blaut himself is not yet willing to do so.

What is most important about this book however is not its historiographical import, but the essential corrective it is to much of the still popular view of world history and the development of Europe and its superior position. From Tarzan to Tintin and from Kipling to the popular view of American Indians, the entire picture of the interactions between Europe and the rest of the world are for many people still unwittingly based on completely incorrect Victorian prejudices and assumptions. This goes not just for the average guy, but even for intellectuals, in fact even for professional historians. And if Blaut's book could make a dent in this vision, it will have made a major contribution to international understanding and historical sense.

In this book, the late James Blaut attempted to demonstrate the existence of a theory of Eurocentric diffusionism among mainstream scholars and the general public, as well as reasons for its falsity and the veracity of a competing theory.

Eurocentric diffusionism is defined as the concept that the internal qualities of Europe led to the modernization of non-European countries after colonialism, rather than utilization of the resources of those continents themselves, which is the idea that Blaut supports. The concept of an "Inside" versus an "Outside" is repeatedly mentioned, with Europe or "Greater Europe" said to be conceptualized as a focal point that gradually spreads its inventions and discoveries outward to the non-producers of the world in other continents.

Colonialism is legitimized by depicting non-European regions of the world as empty both physically and culturally. The exploitation of non-Europeans through dispossession, slavery, and theft of their mineral wealth is therefore justified because Europe contributed cultural wealth to those regions. While the importation of material products from non-Europe to Europe is regarded as acceptable, the importation of cultural or intellectual products is not, since non-Europeans are regarded as primitive and backwards.

While the author accurately describes a historic academic model that is likely still accepted in part by segments of the public, he provides rather limited evidence that this framework was still widely adopted by scholars in 1993, the year of this book's publication.

His own selected definitions of Europe and non-Europe are problematic. Blaut states that, "In this book, the word 'Europe' refers to the continent of Europe and to regions dominated by European culture elsewhere, regions like the United States and "Canada." He does not mention Latin America, dominated primarily by European culture from Iberia, likely because Americans have been conditioned to regard Latin Americans as non-white or non-European, despite the fact that several countries (such as Argentina) are predominantly ethnically European and all are predominantly culturally European, though those with higher traditionalist Indian populations (i.e. Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia) have important Native influences.

More significantly, the most persistent and critical error is likely the author's tendency to essentially promise more than he actually delivers in terms of demonstrating that the alleged disparities between Europe and non-Europe were nonexistent before the Age of Exploration, or to establish that there were parities between selected parts of non-Europe and Europe, but not the universal equality (or even the lesser standard of equity), that his wording implies existed.

In the beginning of chapter 2, Blaut states, "My task in this chapter and in Chapter 3 ('Before 1492') is to show that Europeans had no superiority over non-Europeans at any time prior to 1492: they were not more advanced, not more modern, not more progressive." However, in the beginning of chapter 3, he modifies his purpose somewhat, stating, "Prior to 1492, the progress toward modernization and capitalism which was taking place in parts of Europe was also taking place in parts of Asia and Africa." This fails to address the disparities between Europe and America, Australia, and various islands that were colonized by Europeans. He thus states an intent to only partially support his claim of parity between Europe and non-Europe.

Yet he then goes on to only partially support this partial support. The general pattern that he follows is to first make a rather strong claim, such as, "The protocapitalist port cities of Europe were not more highly developed than those of Africa and Asia in the fifteenth century."

He then proceeds to provide evidence for only part of this claim: "This holds true regardless of the kinds of criteria chosen as measures. European cities, first, were not larger in absolute or relative population. In fact, urbanization in Europe was probably less advanced than urbanization in China, India, the Arab region, and no doubt many other non-European areas. The urban population in early Ming China was perhaps 10% of the total population. In the Vijayanagar Empire of southern India it must have been at least as high: the inland capital alone held about 3% of the population - comparable centers in Europe, such as Paris, may have had half that percentage - and the coastal port cities were both numerous and large."

The examples of Ming China and Vijayanagar Empire may serve to prove that there was Asian urbanization comparable or superior to European urbanization, but the author does not cite any specific examples of African urbanization, such as Timbuktu. While the "Arab region" includes substantial portions of North Africa, the most persistent Eurocentric criticism is typically directed at sub-Saharan Africa, by genetic determinists because of their beliefs about the inferiority of the population and by those he terms environmental determinists because of their beliefs about the Saharan desert blocking diffusion to the south. To reference the most recent advocacy of environmental determinism in a popular science book, Jared Diamond (who is addressed in Blaut's book Eight Eurocentric Historians), writes in Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies that, "my use of the term 'Eurasia' includes in several cases North Africa, which biogeographically and in many aspect of human culture is more closely related to Eurasia than to sub-Saharan Africa."

Worse than the partial argument is the bald assertion, such as that expressed in his discussion of military disparities between Europeans and Amerindians: "Moreover, the superiority of the Spaniards' primitive guns was not really very great when compared with the Americans' bows and arrows."

In comparison, in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, Matthew Restall explains that guns were of limited use to the earliest Europeans in America artillery pieces such as cannons and firearms such as harquebuses were in short supply and difficult to transport, tropical and sub-tropical humidity dampened powder, rendering guns inoperable, and that more effective weapons such as the musket and more effective battle techniques such as volley-firing had yet to be developed. In 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Charles Mann explains that the pistols owned by Jamestown colonists were inferior to arrows in range and penetration. In The Mystic Warriors of the Plains, Thomas E. Mails explains that quickly drawn and discharged arrows can be fired more rapidly than a historic revolver, and at short range can penetrate further than the ball of a historic Colt's navy pistol and that the bow and arrow was not abandoned to a very great extent by Plains warriors until they acquired repeaters such as the Winchester 66 and the Sharps .50 caliber carbines.

Blaut, by contrast, provides an (unsourced) assertion in a single sentence. There is evidence of this statement being true, in the form of the arguments provided by the aforementioned authors, but Blaut does not summarize these arguments himself or even reference these sources in an endnote.

Returning to the issue of disparities between continents, of particular significance was the complete absence of any discussion of Australia from the book, and (according to the index), only one brief mention of the smallest continent, in an endnotes section. The likely reason is that Australian history strongly evidences the fact that there were technological disparities between continents based on the presence or absence of domesticable flora and fauna, and Blaut insistently rejects this as an explanation. In pre-colonial Australia, both domesticated plants and animals were fundamentally absent, and the consequence was that the indigenous population were nomadic hunter-gatherers.

To this day, the principal rural productive activity in Australia is not crop cultivation but livestock ranching (mainly of sheep and cattle), with wheat, sugar cane, and cotton. Cultivation is primarily practiced in relatively small pockets in the southern and eastern regions of the continent (with the highest human populations concentrated in Melbourne and Sydney) that enjoy the combined benefits of moderate to high soil fertility, annual precipitation, and temperate climate. Even twenty-first century technology cannot produce an irrigation system that converts the massive interior deserts into fertile regions, demonstrating the extent of environmental influence that the author repeatedly denies.

If we can accept the fact that there is a correlation between domesticated flora and fauna and technological sophistication, and it is sufficiently evident that a continent without the former also lacked the latter that the author omits it from his book, can we not also accept that high levels of such flora and fauna are present in certain regions of the world, low or nonexistent levels are present elsewhere, and intermediate levels in still others, with technology approximately commensurate to these levels? The author apparently cannot.

Yet remarkably, after much criticism of environmental determinism (which he describes as "the theory that the natural environment strongly influences human affairs and human history"), Blaut emerges as a reluctant partial advocate of it in his explanation as to why America was colonized by Europeans rather than Africans or Asians, arguing that it was due to lesser distance and better sailing conditions.

As a response to expected charges of environmental determinism, he writes, "Is this environmental determinism? There is no more environmentalism here than there is in, say, some statement about the effect of oilfields on societies of the Middle East. I am asserting only the environmental conditions that support and hinder long-distance oceanic travel. In any case, if the choice were between an environmentalistic explanation and one that claimed superiority of one group over all others, as Eurocentric diffusionism does, we would certainly settle for environmentalism."

The effects of distance and sailing conditions and the effects of oilfields both illustrate the same axiom, expressed by Diamond: "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments." Blaut adheres to this axiom mainly when differences between peoples are more clearly involuntary Moreover, his wording in the concluding sentence implies that selection between competing theories is merely a matter of personal preference rather than following the evidence to a logical conclusion.

Blaut states that the role of disease was, "of paramount importance and probably constitutes a sufficient cause in and of itself." Diamond concurs, writing that, "Throughout the Americas, diseases introduced with Europeans spread from tribe to tribe far in advance of the Europeans themselves, killing an estimated 95 percent of the pre-Columbian Native American population."

The two authors also agree on the origin of major infectious diseases. Blaut writes that, "Many diseases originated or became epidemiologically significant during or after the Agricultural Revolution, and have ecological connections to agriculture, to urbanization, to zoological and botanical changes in he ecosystems strongly modified by human land use, and so on." Diamond echoes him, writing, "That [disease] buildup began with the rise of agriculture starting about 10,000 years ago and then accelerated with the rise of cities starting several thousand years ago."

Far from being a consistent opponent of so-called environmental determinism (which, again, he describes as "the theory that the natural environment strongly influences human affairs and human history"), Blaut finds himself in agreement with its most prominent recent advocate on determining the most significant cause of success for permanent European colonialism in America. Since he argues that the divergence between Europe and non-Europe occurred, "because of Europe's location near America and because of the immense wealth obtained by Europeans in America and later in Asia and Africa," it would certainly stand to reason that the natural environment strongly influenced human affairs and human history if this theory is correct.

His partial environmental determinism ironically produces a self-condemnation, through his statement that, "One finds each Eurocentric historian adding one or a number of environmentalist arguments or factors to the mix, which, as a whole, explains the superiority of Europe."

Ultimately, though the crux of Blaut's argument seems logical and persuasive, these cited instances are unfortunately characteristic of his general approach, which can be broadly described as prone to assertions without sufficient evidence, substantial inconsistency in the specific case of environmental determinism, and repetitive pontification of some points and overly brief mention of others, regardless of their respective significance.

While this book may serve as a supplement to Guns, Germs, and Steel (which provides little explanation for the Great Divergence), much of the same information is provided in the far more succinct book In the Wake of Columbus: The Impact of the New World on Europe, 1492-1650 (European History Series), or The Columbian Exchange, Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, both of which also expand beyond discussion of the effects of precious metals on Europe's economy to focus on the advantages provided by the exchange of cultivated crops from both continents and domesticated animals from Europe. Better yet, a synthesis of the main ideas of both Guns, Germs, and Steel and A Colonizer's Model of the World is provided in A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present.

A book is a book. As the description said it had some underlining and stuff but it served it's function well and saved some money :)

The author contends that prior to 1492 most of the sea-faring cultures of the "Old World" (Europe, Africa & Asia) were, for the most part, equal in technological, political and economic status. It was only geographic proximity (and luck) that allowed the Europeans to "discover" America, which had advanced cultures, too. This "discovery" allowed the Europeans to be the first to exploit the natural and human resources of America and therefore position itself as the world powerhouse, that still exists today. Colonization and capitalism followed from the silver trade, then eventually the fur, rum and slave trades. The rest is history. Along the way, Mr. Blaut easily dismisses the notion that it was European culture or character (either good or evil) that led to their "advancements." But it is that main point that really opened my eyes: that other cultures, in all hemispheres, were equally advanced as Europe in 1492, and that Europe's colonization of America was just luck and their "advancement" truly sprung from just that. It is a good complement to "Indian Givers," by Jack Weatherford.

James Blaut's book "The Colonizer's Model of the World" attacks most of the common assumptions and beliefs about why the West "rose" to dominate much of the globe by the 19th century. Blaut systematically dismantles idea after idea, many of which have been taken for granted by historians and laymen alike for years. For example, the idea that Europe's climate and soils are inherently better suited for agriculture than elsewhere. In the end, however, Blaut still has to explain Europe's rise, so his answer is that since Europe was geographically closer to the Americas and had the benefit of favorable winds and currents, these factors made the "discovery" of America possible. The resulting flood of bullion from America into Europe allowed the Europeans to eventually pull ahead of the rest of the world. Blaut is surely on to something, but his explanation is a little thin. Why didn't Africans discover Brazil? Nonetheless, this is an excellent book that will challenge your thinking and shake your Eurocentrism (if you suffer from it) to the foundations. If you want a more detailed critique of individual historians such as Jared Diamond and David Landes, check out Blaut's "Eight Eurocentric Historians."

This is a good critique of the assumptions made by Eurocentric historians over the years about the superiority of Europe as compared to the inferiority of the rest of the world. Blaut effectively examines and explodes each theory dispassionately but thoroughly. Finally he comes up with his own explanation for European success since 1492: America. Europe's "discovery" of and exploitation of North and South America gave it the wherewithall it needed to overtake and surpass the rest of the world. A well written, well documented assessment which deserves a place beside The Great Divergence and ReOrient, among others.

Anyone familiar with academic professor-style writing will understand the structural weakness of this book. There are four very long chapters related to Blaut's theoretical argument, and they almost certainly originated as separate research projects written at different times for different audiences. Blaut has tied things together with occasional transitional paragraphs, surrounded by a shell of a general argument. Some knowledgeable reviewers here have found problems with Blaut's general history, and that's legitimate, but the fundamental problem with this book's construction makes such matters of detail a moot point.

Blaut's major contention is very strong, if not exactly groundbreaking. He wishes to debunk the body of historical theory called diffusionism – the dubious Eurocentric view that all the advancements of civilization, from agriculture to cities to capitalism, originated amongst genius Europeans and then were disseminated to ignorant peoples around the world. At the start of the book, Blaut promises to explore the intellectual processes that make mainstream and elite historians continue to believe such theories even after they have long since been disproved. That would have made this book a winner, but the promise never comes to fruition, leaving us instead with a tedious exercise in theorization.

After an exasperating opening chapter in which Blaut keeps telling us what he's going to cover later, this book collapses in the disastrous second chapter. Here he ceaselessly nitpicks the arguments of selected history books. This includes dozens of pages obsessing over the works of some historian named Eric L. Jones, which reeks of professional sour grapes. Unfortunately for Blaut, simply finding errors in other theories does not prove your own theory by default. Chapters 3 and 4 incomprehensibly descend into reductionist historical research on the development of feudalism outside of Europe and the influence of colonial riches on England's Glorious Revolution of 1688. Now what do these have to do with the attempted high-level theoretical insights of the rest of the book? Extremely little – although Blaut throws in occasional reminders that he's still leading up to great findings about his initial thesis. Well, he never does give us any real insights into why historians still believe in Eurocentric diffusionism. We only learn that Blaut really disagrees with it. Most would say he's correct given the realities of history, if only he could say it in a way that makes sense. [~doomsdayer520~]

To call this book a hammerblow is to fall for a weak, almost emotional rather than academic analysis. While Blaut makes some excellent arguments about Europe's lack of credit to other cultures, especially during it's early expansion, in the end the facts don't stand up to his argument.

He overlooks that overwhelming riches did little to stop Spain's rapid decline as a power (it may have even accelerated it to some extent). Blaut seems to have discounted the fall of Constantinople and the subsequent fleeing of teachers and artists to the West as a factor.

What subsequent events does Blaut either overlook or underevaluate? For starters there are the beginnings of the scientific method in the West. Then there are things that muck up his argument like the advancement of western medicine (so much that even the Chinese would ask for western doctors in the 16th century, military improvements and numerous advancements in technology.

And so on and so on. I'm all for the remembering of contributions and influences from non-european societies, civilizations and cultures, but this "mea culpa" Western guilt has reached a bit of a height in Blaut's work. It also seems to reflect an emotional analysis rather than any unbiased academic approach.

In addition to technical, scientific, medical, and management advancement, he leaves out the social/philisophical advancement of the West.

The basic concept of the freedom and dignity of the individual, while not perfectly practised were almost unique in being applied to Western society. In fact the West is the first to look at itself and realize to this day it's failings vis a vis slavery, sexism, etc., in a sustained and critical way that other societies have yet to approach...Read this, but keep your wits about you as you do.

... and I believe I am a seeker of engrossing, intellectual reading!

With strong, stimulating, engrossing, logical and brilliantly vivid arguments, this book deserves to be a recommended study at all schools wishing to nurture a socially analytical intellect. (But you do not have to go to school to read it... I didn't!)

The book does not assume prior social studies from the reader, in fact one of the main plus points of the book is that it takes pains to explain (in an extremely engrossing style) any complex concepts that are required for the analyses the author presents. The book is worth many times the money/ time spent on it just for the social science concepts illustrated.

One of the rare books that helps you broaden your vision and understanding of this world via a huge, well directed beam of light.

Though the book is an argument against a belief system (of European superiority and "priority"), Blaut takes care not to make it an argument against people holding those beliefs. Instead he delves deep into social and psychological theories to explain how the beliefs came about. It illustrates human-nature more than argue against the views held by a section.

I could go on trying to express the plus points of the book, but indeed, the material, handling and subject of the book are so well dealt with that I prefer to just suggest that you go out and read it. Trust me, the first few pages will hook you ...