Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 21:43:30 -0700 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: Albert Bergesen Subject: David Landes/Gunder Frank debate >Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 09:13:42 +0000 >From: Jeffrey Sommers >Reply-To: jsommers@lynx.dac.neu.edu >Organization: World History Center >To: macewan@umbsky.cc.umb.edu, albert@U.Arizona.EDU, denemark@strauss.udel.edu, > CHEWS@axe.humboldt.edu, lhnelson@raven.cc.ukans.edu, > paulo.frank@wanadoo.fr, lynniew@gte.net, > avi chomsky , > Andre Gunder Frank , > Boris Kagarlitsky , dmk@world.std.com, > parker james , > J B Owens , > prasannan parthasarathi , > jagoldstone@ucdavis.edu, platttm@hhsserver.hhs.csus.edu, > kpomeran@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu, conlon@u.washington.edu, > mlevine@lcsc.edu, schoeber@fas.harvard.edu, tmciolek@coombs.anu.edu.au, > chomsky@mit.edu, CHRISCD@JHUVM.HCF.JHU.EDU, davebuck@csd.uwm.edu, > chriscd@jhu.edu, James Blaut <70671.2032@compuserve.com>, > wilsondk@bc.edu, seckstei@bu.edu, j-grigera@usa.net, pcperdue@mit.edu, > manning@neu.edu, lrsimon@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU, jmcarr@facstaff.wm.edu, > ditmans1@fas.harvard.edu, michael@ecst.csuchico.edu, > gimenez@spot.Colorado.EDU, lsgonick@csupomona.edu, arrom@brandeis.edu, > coatswor@fas.harvard.edu, dlandes@harvard.edu, roupp@csn.net, > whowarth@lynx.dac.neu.edu, Emartin@lynx.dac.neu.edu >Subject: David Landes/Gunder Frank debate > > David Landes and Andre Gunder Frank > debate >"ReOrient" vs. >"The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" >-- Two views of the World Economy in History (University of Amsterdam, >emeritus) Wednesday, Dec. 2nd >3:00-4:30 p.m. >450 Dodge Hall >Northeastern University Event is free and open to the public. >Teachers are encouraged to bring their students. or >see our web page http://www.whc.neu.edu > HISTORY, THEORY AND POLICY? >DEBATING THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF LANDES AND FRANK No question that this >will establish David Landes as preeminent in his field and in his time." >ALBERT BERGESEN contends that Gunder Frank's ReOrient is "absolutely >essential to understanding world history." > maintains that Max Weber was right about the RISE OF THE WEST’ > and >Harvard colleague SAMUEL HUNTINGTON is right about the coming CLASH OF > between THE WEST AND THE REST’. For Landes and them, > exceptionalism of its >values and institutions, that were and still are lacking in the Rest. >Thus, Landes refers to China as a culturally and intellectually >homeostatic society that had indifference to technology, lacked >institutions for finding and learning, abhorred mercantile success, >showed deliberate introversion, isolationism, risk aversion, >irrationality, xenophobia, arrogance, haughtiness, stunned >submissiveness, self-defeating escapism and so on. FRANK retorts that Weber >got it all wrong, and Marx, Polanyi, Parsons, > Landes himself > in his 1969 book UNBOUND PROMETHIUS > the intervening 30 years of > social theory, > other >historians, economists and social scientists is vitiated by the ingrained > historiography and social theory that concentrate their > which blacks out the >evidence from the rest of the world and distorts that of the West itself. >This triumphalist not to mention racist ideology masquerading as history > holistic historical > that not > instead Asia, and particularly Middle Kingdom China, remained > The subsequent Decline of the > the West were more >globally than locally determined temporary processes that have run their >historical course and are already coming full circle with the contemporary >renewed rise of East Asia and >particularly of China. Therefore, it is high time to ReORIENT our >historiography, social theory and political policy as well, all the > in view of the reiteration of and accolades for the poverty of > history’ and theoretically unfounded > with the equally unfounded and > propaganda about End of History” >and Clash of Civilizations”. fundamental rethinking by the iconoclast > who challenges virtually all other significant scholarship about the >historical origins of the > absolutely essential for understanding >world history. LANDES retorts that Frank and his echoes are a magnet for >fallacies and >fantasies [and] the invention of folklore. Bad history. Albert Bergesen Dept. of Sociology Univ. of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 E-MAIL: albert@u.arizona.edu PHONE: (520)621-3303 FAX: (520)621-9875