Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Georgios Varouxakis is professor of the history of political thought in the School of History at Queen Mary University of London and Codirector of the Centre for the Study of the History of Political Thought. He is the author of Mill on Nationality, Victorian Political Thought on France and the French, and Liberty Abroad: J. S. Mill on International Relations and the coauthor of Contemporary France.
"A Financial Times Best Book of the Year"
"A Spectator Book of the Year"
"A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year"
"A Tablet Book of the Year"
"In <i>The West: The History of an Idea</i>, Georgios Varouxakis tells this story with wit, insight, and erudition. It is our great fortune that the first comprehensive history of the idea of the West is also, for the foreseeable future, the best. Anyone with ideas on the subject will be well advised to read it closely and keep it within reach."<b>---Yuri Slezkine, <i>New York Review of Books</i></b>
"Illuminating. . . . As talk of the West is once again resurgent, Varouxakis’s book offers the best guide to understanding the meaning of this deeply elusive idea."
Jacobin
"<i>The West</i> is a monumental achievement of scholarship. Its chief contribution is its decentering of imperial and racial paradigms, which have become politicized and turned into stale orthodoxies that have led to distortions in historical understanding."<b>---Max Skjönsberg, <i>Law & Liberty</i></b>
"A seriously impressive piece of intellectual history."<b>---Nick Spencer, <i>The Spectator</i></b>
"This book will serve as a salutary reminder of how recent our ideas about the ancient past can really be and how deceptively complex are the ties that bind us with it."<b>---Mark Mazower, <i>Financial Times</i></b>
"[A] masterful study."<b>---G. John Ikenberry, <i>Foreign Affairs</i></b>
"Much of the story Varouxakis tells will be new, even to other historians. His book …. is not only deeply researched and clearly written, but also highly original. [A] deeply erudite yet highly readable work that lays many myths to rest. . . .Varouxakis may have written the most original history book of the year"<b>---Daniel Johnson, <i>The Critic</i></b>
"A monumental endeavour that sets an incredible example for what rigorous scholarship can still manage to achieve."<b>---Huzaifa Omair Siddiqi, <i>The Wire India</i></b>
"Georgios Varouxakis’s history of the idea of the West. . . is enormously illuminating."<b>---Hans Kundnani, <i>Times Literary Supplement</i></b>
"[A] massive scholarly accomplishment."<b>---Ferenc Laczo, <i>Modern Intellectual History</i></b>
"Georgios Varouxakis’s <i>The West: The History of an Idea </i>is a genealogy of this elusive concept. . . . What makes Varouxakis's study so timely is that he carries this story forward to the present. . . . By situating ‘the West’ as a historical invention rather than a civilizational given, Varouxakis's book provides both a corrective and a warning."<b>---Etan Nechin, <i>Haaretz</i></b>
"Meticulously researched, engaging, and sometimes bewildering."<b>---Andrew Kaufmann, <i>Mere Orthodoxy</i></b>
"Georgios Varouxakis has written a much-needed book: <i>The West: The History of an Idea</i>. . . . The kaleidoscope of quotations in his book testifies to a Herculean scholarly effort."<b>---Jaroslaw Kuisz, <i>Foreign Policy</i></b>
"Georgios Varouxakis’ <i>The West </i>is a model of intellectual history, tracing the idea of the West from its surprising origins, through two centuries of shifting sands, to the current (but hardly unique) crisis, without ever unduly praising or burying the phenomenon. A cool intellectual breeze for an overheated debate."<b>---Nick Spencer, <i>The Tablet</i></b>
"Reader[s] will be fascinated by [Varouxakis’] account of how the definition and membership of the “West” has changed over time."<b>---Matthew Partridge, <i>Money Week</i></b>
"Georgios Varouxakis’s rigorously analytical <i>The West. . . </i>offers an antidote to unnuanced, polarised geopolitical thinking."<b>---Lucasta Miller, <i>The Spectator</i></b>
"<i>The West: The History of an Idea</i> brilliantly sums up the twists and turns of how Europe has defined itself and others over two thousand years. … this very erudite book … this brilliant book … should be compulsory reading for Arab bankers and diplomats. … written in very elegant and clear English."<b>---Francis Ghiles, <i>The Arab Weekly</i></b>
"A Brilliant, Illuminating Discussion on the Concept of ‘the West. …an impressive work…. It’s a timely work about the future of a most important heritage."<b>---Dustin Bass, <i>The Epoch Times</i></b>
"’I feel you!’ was my first thought on reading of Varouxakis’ uncertainties about his own borderline East-West identity. … Varouxakis’s survey is born of an urge to escape geographical determinism, and to instill, accordingly, a suspicion of terms (not only ‘the West’, but also the ‘Global South’) that might imply such determinism. … Though he is implicitly in favor of what he describes as ‘so-called “Western values”’…he argues against such values ‘being in any way owned by “Western” peoples.’… One can only agree."<b>---Oksana Forostyna, <i>European Review of Books</i></b>
"In contrast to the often classic-heavy literature in the field of ‘history of international thought’, Georgios Varouxakis shows a knowledgeable affection for second-tier authors. …who would have thought of impressive intellectuals such as the Greek philosopher of history Markos Renieris, the founding father of US political science Francis (Franz) Lieber and the African-American philosopher Alain LeRoy Locke, or the convert to Islam René Guénon, who was equally appreciated by Steve Bannon and Aleksandr Dugin? … the book deserves broad attention."<b>---Jürgen Osterhammel, <i>Sehepunkte: Rezensionsjournal für die Geschichtswissenschaften</i></b>
"It is … valuable that Varouxakis shows that the concept of ‘West’ in modern times did not grow out of colonial or imperialist notions, but exactly the opposite…. It is not only interesting as a historical curiosity but as a potential compass for a future understanding of the concept. …Varouxakis nuances the concept by skilfully mixing impressions and ideas about the West from non-Western thinkers."<b>---Martin Gelin, <i>Dagens Nyheter</i></b>
A comprehensive intellectual history of the idea of the West
How did “the West” come to be used as a collective self-designation signaling political and cultural commonality? When did “Westerners” begin to refer to themselves in this way? Was the idea handed down from the ancient Greeks, or coined by nineteenth-century imperialists? Neither, writes Georgios Varouxakis in The West, his ambitious and fascinating genealogy of the idea. “The West” was not used by Plato, Cicero, Locke, Mill, or other canonized figures of what we today call the Western tradition. It was not first wielded by empire-builders. It gradually emerged as of the 1820s and was then, Varouxakis shows, decisively promoted in the 1840s by the French philosopher Auguste Comte (whose political project, incidentally, was passionately anti-imperialist). The need for the use of the term “the West” emerged to avoid the confusing or unwanted consequences of the use of “Europe.” The two overlapped, but were not identical, with the West used to differentiate from certain “others” within Europe as well as to include the Americas.
After examining the origins, Varouxakis traces the many and often astonishingly surprising changes in the ways in which the West has been understood, and the different intentions and consequences related to a series of these contested definitions. While other theories of the West consider only particular aspects of the concept and its history (if only in order to take aim at its reputation), Varouxakis’s analysis offers a comprehensive account that reaches to the present day, exploring the multiplicity of current, and not least, prospective future meanings. He concludes with an examination of how, since 2022, definitions and membership of the West have been reworked to consider Ukraine, as the evolution and redefinitions continue.
“Georgios Varouxakis’s fascinating study is a brilliant intervention into an urgent debate. With subtlety, eloquence and historical rigour, the author recovers the meaning and value of ‘the West,’ spanning the period from the 1820s to the present. Written with passion and authority, it is a field-defining piece of scholarship.”—Richard Bourke, author of Hegel’s World Revolutions
“Georgios Varouxakis has written a formidable book on a politically significant and an emotionally charged idea. In writing, as he rightfully claims, the full intellectual history of the idea of the West, he has produced a classic that will be difficult to match, replicate or surpass.”—Jyotirmaya Sharma, author of Elusive Nonviolence: The Making and Unmaking of Gandhi's Religion of Ahimsa
“Think ‘the West’ was invented to defend empire or whiteness? That it came from Britain or the wider Anglosphere in the 1890s? Think again. With erudition and originality, Georgios Varouxakis’s revisionist conceptual genealogy of ‘the West’ surprises and persuades in equal measure.”—David Armitage, author of Civil Wars: A History in Ideas
"A Financial Times Best Book of the Year"
"A Spectator Book of the Year"
"A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year"
"A Tablet Book of the Year"
"In <i>The West: The History of an Idea</i>, Georgios Varouxakis tells this story with wit, insight, and erudition. It is our great fortune that the first comprehensive history of the idea of the West is also, for the foreseeable future, the best. Anyone with ideas on the subject will be well advised to read it closely and keep it within reach."<b>---Yuri Slezkine, <i>New York Review of Books</i></b>
"Illuminating. . . . As talk of the West is once again resurgent, Varouxakis’s book offers the best guide to understanding the meaning of this deeply elusive idea."
Jacobin
"<i>The West</i> is a monumental achievement of scholarship. Its chief contribution is its decentering of imperial and racial paradigms, which have become politicized and turned into stale orthodoxies that have led to distortions in historical understanding."<b>---Max Skjönsberg, <i>Law & Liberty</i></b>
"A seriously impressive piece of intellectual history."<b>---Nick Spencer, <i>The Spectator</i></b>
"This book will serve as a salutary reminder of how recent our ideas about the ancient past can really be and how deceptively complex are the ties that bind us with it."<b>---Mark Mazower, <i>Financial Times</i></b>
"[A] masterful study."<b>---G. John Ikenberry, <i>Foreign Affairs</i></b>
"Much of the story Varouxakis tells will be new, even to other historians. His book …. is not only deeply researched and clearly written, but also highly original. [A] deeply erudite yet highly readable work that lays many myths to rest. . . .Varouxakis may have written the most original history book of the year"<b>---Daniel Johnson, <i>The Critic</i></b>
"A monumental endeavour that sets an incredible example for what rigorous scholarship can still manage to achieve."<b>---Huzaifa Omair Siddiqi, <i>The Wire India</i></b>
"Georgios Varouxakis’s history of the idea of the West. . . is enormously illuminating."<b>---Hans Kundnani, <i>Times Literary Supplement</i></b>
"[A] massive scholarly accomplishment."<b>---Ferenc Laczo, <i>Modern Intellectual History</i></b>
"Georgios Varouxakis’s <i>The West: The History of an Idea </i>is a genealogy of this elusive concept. . . . What makes Varouxakis's study so timely is that he carries this story forward to the present. . . . By situating ‘the West’ as a historical invention rather than a civilizational given, Varouxakis's book provides both a corrective and a warning."<b>---Etan Nechin, <i>Haaretz</i></b>
"Meticulously researched, engaging, and sometimes bewildering."<b>---Andrew Kaufmann, <i>Mere Orthodoxy</i></b>
"Georgios Varouxakis has written a much-needed book: <i>The West: The History of an Idea</i>. . . . The kaleidoscope of quotations in his book testifies to a Herculean scholarly effort."<b>---Jaroslaw Kuisz, <i>Foreign Policy</i></b>
"Georgios Varouxakis’ <i>The West </i>is a model of intellectual history, tracing the idea of the West from its surprising origins, through two centuries of shifting sands, to the current (but hardly unique) crisis, without ever unduly praising or burying the phenomenon. A cool intellectual breeze for an overheated debate."<b>---Nick Spencer, <i>The Tablet</i></b>
"Reader[s] will be fascinated by [Varouxakis’] account of how the definition and membership of the “West” has changed over time."<b>---Matthew Partridge, <i>Money Week</i></b>
"Georgios Varouxakis’s rigorously analytical <i>The West. . . </i>offers an antidote to unnuanced, polarised geopolitical thinking."<b>---Lucasta Miller, <i>The Spectator</i></b>
"<i>The West: The History of an Idea</i> brilliantly sums up the twists and turns of how Europe has defined itself and others over two thousand years. … this very erudite book … this brilliant book … should be compulsory reading for Arab bankers and diplomats. … written in very elegant and clear English."<b>---Francis Ghiles, <i>The Arab Weekly</i></b>
"A Brilliant, Illuminating Discussion on the Concept of ‘the West. …an impressive work…. It’s a timely work about the future of a most important heritage."<b>---Dustin Bass, <i>The Epoch Times</i></b>
"’I feel you!’ was my first thought on reading of Varouxakis’ uncertainties about his own borderline East-West identity. … Varouxakis’s survey is born of an urge to escape geographical determinism, and to instill, accordingly, a suspicion of terms (not only ‘the West’, but also the ‘Global South’) that might imply such determinism. … Though he is implicitly in favor of what he describes as ‘so-called “Western values”’…he argues against such values ‘being in any way owned by “Western” peoples.’… One can only agree."<b>---Oksana Forostyna, <i>European Review of Books</i></b>
"In contrast to the often classic-heavy literature in the field of ‘history of international thought’, Georgios Varouxakis shows a knowledgeable affection for second-tier authors. …who would have thought of impressive intellectuals such as the Greek philosopher of history Markos Renieris, the founding father of US political science Francis (Franz) Lieber and the African-American philosopher Alain LeRoy Locke, or the convert to Islam René Guénon, who was equally appreciated by Steve Bannon and Aleksandr Dugin? … the book deserves broad attention."<b>---Jürgen Osterhammel, <i>Sehepunkte: Rezensionsjournal für die Geschichtswissenschaften</i></b>
"It is … valuable that Varouxakis shows that the concept of ‘West’ in modern times did not grow out of colonial or imperialist notions, but exactly the opposite…. It is not only interesting as a historical curiosity but as a potential compass for a future understanding of the concept. …Varouxakis nuances the concept by skilfully mixing impressions and ideas about the West from non-Western thinkers."<b>---Martin Gelin, <i>Dagens Nyheter</i></b>
A comprehensive intellectual history of the idea of the West
How did “the West” come to be used as a collective self-designation signaling political and cultural commonality? When did “Westerners” begin to refer to themselves in this way? Was the idea handed down from the ancient Greeks, or coined by nineteenth-century imperialists? Neither, writes Georgios Varouxakis in The West, his ambitious and fascinating genealogy of the idea. “The West” was not used by Plato, Cicero, Locke, Mill, or other canonized figures of what we today call the Western tradition. It was not first wielded by empire-builders. It gradually emerged as of the 1820s and was then, Varouxakis shows, decisively promoted in the 1840s by the French philosopher Auguste Comte (whose political project, incidentally, was passionately anti-imperialist). The need for the use of the term “the West” emerged to avoid the confusing or unwanted consequences of the use of “Europe.” The two overlapped, but were not identical, with the West used to differentiate from certain “others” within Europe as well as to include the Americas.
After examining the origins, Varouxakis traces the many and often astonishingly surprising changes in the ways in which the West has been understood, and the different intentions and consequences related to a series of these contested definitions. While other theories of the West consider only particular aspects of the concept and its history (if only in order to take aim at its reputation), Varouxakis’s analysis offers a comprehensive account that reaches to the present day, exploring the multiplicity of current, and not least, prospective future meanings. He concludes with an examination of how, since 2022, definitions and membership of the West have been reworked to consider Ukraine, as the evolution and redefinitions continue.
“Georgios Varouxakis’s fascinating study is a brilliant intervention into an urgent debate. With subtlety, eloquence and historical rigour, the author recovers the meaning and value of ‘the West,’ spanning the period from the 1820s to the present. Written with passion and authority, it is a field-defining piece of scholarship.”—Richard Bourke, author of Hegel’s World Revolutions
“Georgios Varouxakis has written a formidable book on a politically significant and an emotionally charged idea. In writing, as he rightfully claims, the full intellectual history of the idea of the West, he has produced a classic that will be difficult to match, replicate or surpass.”—Jyotirmaya Sharma, author of Elusive Nonviolence: The Making and Unmaking of Gandhi's Religion of Ahimsa
“Think ‘the West’ was invented to defend empire or whiteness? That it came from Britain or the wider Anglosphere in the 1890s? Think again. With erudition and originality, Georgios Varouxakis’s revisionist conceptual genealogy of ‘the West’ surprises and persuades in equal measure.”—David Armitage, author of Civil Wars: A History in Ideas