Historical Sociology and World History: Uneven and Combined Development over the Longue Durée

Description

This book is the first to offer a full exploration of the theory of uneven and combined development. The concept of 'uneven and combined development' was originally coined by Leon Trotsky to theorise Tsarist Russia's distinctive experience of modernity and revolution. But it has re-emerged over the last decade or so as a burgeoning research programme within International Relations (IR) and historical sociology. It has been critically and creatively deployed in two main areas: the provision of a sociological foundation to international theory overcoming the chronic schism between ‘sociological’ and ‘geopolitical’ modes of enquiry; and, relatedly, in superseding prevailing Eurocentric approaches in the social sciences. This volume is the first to provide a sustained reflection on the idea of uneven and combined development as the intellectual basis for a non-Eurocentric social theory of ‘the international’. It does so through a series of empirically rich and theoretically informed analyses of socio-historical change, political transformation, and intersocietal conflict over the longue durée. The volume thereby aims to demonstrate the unique potentials of uneven and combined development in overcoming IR and historical sociology’s shared inability to theorize the interactive and multilinear character of development. Acknowledgements 1. Introduction, Alexander Anievas and Kamran Matin 2. Uneven and Combined Development: ‘The International’ in Theory and History, Justin Rosenberg 3. The Conditions for the Emergence of Uneven and Combined Development, Neil Davidson 4. The Uneven, Combined, and Intersocietal Dimensions of Korean State Formation and Consolidation over the Longue Durée: 300–1900 CE, Owen Miller 5. Combination as ‘Foreign Policy’: The Inter-Societal Origins of the Ottoman Empire, Kerem Nişancıoğlu 6. Revisiting the Transformation of the 19th Century and the 'Eastern Question': Uneven and Combined Development and the Ottoman Steppe, Jamie Allinson 7. Asian Sources of British Imperial Power: The Role of the Mysorean Rocket in the Opium War, Luke Cooper 8. Rejecting the ‘Staples’ Thesis and Re-centering Migration: A Comparative Analysis of ‘Late Development’ in Canada and Argentina, Jessica Evans 9. Navigating Uneven and Combined Development: Britain’s Africa Policy in Historical Perspective, William Brown 10. The Impact of the ‘Global Transformation’ on Uneven and Combined Development, Barry Buzan and George Lawson 11. The Ethiopian Revolutions in World-Historical Perspective, Fouad Makki 12. Uneven and Combined Development in the Sociocultural Evolution of World-Systems, Christopher Chase-Dunn and Marilyn Grell-Brisk 13. Navigating non-Eurocentrism and Trotskyist Integrity in the New Trotskyist IR of World History, John M. Hobson 14. The Stakes of Uneven and Combined Development, David L. Blaney and Naeem Inayatullah 15. Conclusion: Rethinking Historical Sociology and World History: Beyond the Eurocentric Gaze, Alexander Anievas and Kamran Matin Bibliography Index List of Contributors