Asian Values’ and Southeast Asian Histories

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8958477
AutoresT N Harper (autor de correspondencia)
Año1997
Volumen40
Número2
Páginas507-517
Fecha de publicación1997-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Historical Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0018246x97007267
OpenAlexW1972105571
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11

At the close of five hundred years of European expansion in Asia, a new Zeitgeist has arisen: ‘Asian values’. The idea has been given wide international exposure, especially by intellectuals in the United States. It has formed the basis of a grand historical narrative in which they can locate themselves in the aftermath of the cold war. The rise of the west, it is argued, was marked by a succession of conflicts: the wars of princes, the wars of nations and, in the twentieth century, the wars of ideas. In the great struggle of our age, liberal democracy vanquished communism. However, it has not triumphed in the extra-European world. To explain this, the new meta-histories turn to the cultures that define civilizations. Old arguments about the cultural conditions for democracy have been given new focus. The great struggles of the twenty-first century will not be about ideology, but culture. The old cold warrior, Samuel Huntington, calls the new cold war ‘the clash of civilizations’. Huntington has a number of civilizations in mind, but he is quite clear where the most deadly challenge lies. ‘Islam’, he writes, ‘has bloody borders.’

Ancient history · Art · Cold war · Communism · Democracy · Economic history · Ideology · Islam · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Asian Studies and History · History · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies