What’s at Stake in the Neo-Trotskyist Debate? Towards a Non-Eurocentric Historical Sociology of Uneven and Combined Development

Abstract

This article seeks to appraise the direction that historical sociology has undertaken within Millennium in the last four decades while simultaneously laying out the groundwork for a ‘thirdwave’ historical sociology of international relations. In particular, I intervene in the current neo-Trotskyist debate concerning whether the concept of uneven and combined development (U&CD) should be historically generalised or merely confined to the modern capitalist-industrial era that emerged as late as the 19th century. My aim is to support the former position. I argue that failure to historically generalise the concept — at least to a certain extent — leads ultimately into a Eurocentric cul-de-sac. To advance my third-wave non-Eurocentric historical sociological approach, I apply U&CD to the rise of the West in general and to British industrialisation in particular. By extending U&CD back to at least 800 CE, I argue that the West was a late developer that enjoyed the advantages of backwardness. That is, only by borrowing from, and assimilating the technologies, ideas and institutions of, the key early developers — China, India and the Islamic Middle East/North Africa — could Europe rise up from its tiny promontory on the far western edge of the vast Afro-Asian economy to eventually overtake its Eastern predecessors some time during the 19th century.