Saïd Amir Arjomand, ed. Social Theory and Regional Studies in the Global Age. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014. 482 pp. $105.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4384-5159-6; $29.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4384-5160-2.
Reviewed by Ralf Hugger (Central Michigan University)
Published on H-USA (March, 2015)
Commissioned by Donna Sinclair (Central Michigan University)
Social Theory and Regional Studies in the Global Age is part of the SUNY Press series Pangaea II: Global and Local Studies, inspired by the Brookings Institute. The book is a major addition to scholarship that explores the Arab revolution, Islam, and the rule of law as well as the social theoretical boundaries of global, regional, and local studies. The international scholars who produced essays for this volume, too many to mention individually, set out to offer new understandings and insights regarding diversity in the social sciences and their applied fields. Each contributes to a new comparative and sociological paradigm with perspectives that move away from the reliance on traditional Western thought and Eurocentric articulation of historical experiences.
The essays depart from ideas that have thus far ruled social theory, sociology, and comparative analysis. They leave behind past generations of comparative scholars, such as Max Weber, Emil Durkheim, and Robert Redfield, and build on their ideas and methods. Said Amir Arjomand and his colleagues successfully apply and offer alternative theories, in cultural and civilizational contexts, and produce insights into historical experiences that had been ignored thus far. Arjomand argues in the beginning of the book that the current third generation of comparative sociologists are “opening the way to rectifying the erasure of the historical experience of a very sizable portion of human kind from the foundation of social theory” (p. 51). In other words, social theory and comparative analysis have been dominated by discourses that were initially conceived in the West and tainted by colonialism. Following in the footsteps of such scholars as Edward Said, the authors build new bridges between social theory, regional studies, and new historical paths to modernity conceived in theoretically sound and methodical fashion. Surely to be a giant leap for social theory, this work invites scholars to think outside the box when it comes to perceiving history only in a national context. Furthermore, it challenges scholars to expand their notions of collective and national identities, the rule of law, and modernity in a post-European and post-Enlightenment context.
Social Theory and Regional Studies in the Global Age consists of three main parts: “Comparative Sociology, Civilizational Analysis, and Regional Studies,” “Historicizing Axial Shifts and Patterns of Evolution and Modernization,” and “World Regions, Colonial and Subaltern Modernities in the Global Periphery.” The entire work encompasses sixteen chapters characterized by diverse efforts to connect social theory, regional studies, and globalization, applying it to areas of study that have been notoriously neglected by Western scholars. Topics range from civilizational reconfigurations, power among nation-states, and the crystallization of the developmental patterns within Islam. The authors help to build a new foundation of a global comparative analysis. Fundamentally, they often use discussions of civilization processes as well as cultural developmental patterns to highlight how Western influence on social theory was too small in scope because of its focus on people’s differences rather than their commonality. Shifting the analysis in social theory away from the usual Western subjects of inquiry, Arjomand and his fellow scholars, including Babak Rahimi, Thomas Kern, and Sujata Patel, write about the construction of regional identities, the development of sociology in India, subaltern modernities in Iran, and sociological issues of Ethiopia.
The result is a volume that envisions a multitude of historical roads to modernity and in doing so highlights the fact that non-European countries have been underrepresented in academia thus far. This collection is the capstone to a foundation of social theory, regional studies, and globalization that will include the portion of humanity that has largely been excluded from historical analysis and comparison. This book is a long-needed bridge between the increased transnational, regionalized, and interconnected world. It offers a sound foundation on which future scholars, particularly those with interests in comparative analysis, will be able to draw.
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Citation:
Ralf Hugger. Review of Arjomand, Saïd Amir, ed., Social Theory and Regional Studies in the Global Age.
H-USA, H-Net Reviews.
March, 2015.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=42455
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