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The source of a cultural tradition can be seen in the balance of emphasis given to various thinkers and ideas in discussing a subject. In the 1960 s a reaction against the priority given to a Canon of " Dead White European Males " provided a slogan which neatly sums up the charge of eurocentrism (alongside other important -centrisms).

Alternatively, eurocentric and '''eurocentrist''' are occasionally used in British political discourse to describe supporters of European Integration and the European Union , in other words as an Antonym of Eurosceptic .


ORIGINS

Early Eurocentrism can be traced to the European Renaissance , in which the revival of learning based on classical sources were focussed narrowly on the ancient Greek civilisations, while advancements in science were seen as superior advances unique to the civilised areas of Europe, despite their reliance on the Arab, Persian, and Asian cultures.

The effects of these assumptions of European Superiority increased during the period of European Imperialism , which started slowly in the 15th Century , accelerated in the 16th , 17th and 18th centuries, and reached its zenith in the 19th Century . The progressively mechanized character of European culture was contrasted with traditional hunting, farming and herding societies in many of the areas of the world being newly conquered & colonized by Europeans, such as The Americas , most of Africa , and later the Pacific and Australasia . Even the complex civilizations of Arabia , Persia , India , China and Japan were counted as underdeveloped whence compared to Europe, and were often characterised as static. Many European writers of this time construed the history of Europe as paradigmatic for the rest of the world. Other cultures were identified as having reached a stage through which Europe itself had already passed – primitive Hunter-gatherer ; Farming ; early Civilization ; Feudalism ; modern liberal-capitalism. Only Europe had achieved the last stage. It was thus thought to be uniquely responsible for the scientific, technological and cultural achievements that constitute the Modern World . Furthermore, scientific models for understanding the world were deemed to have replaced religious or speculative accounts. The extent to which science itself can be considered to be specifically "European" is still debated.

For some writers, such as , Genocide , colonisation and other forms of political and economic exploitation.

The colonising period involved the widespread settlement of parts of the Americas and Australasia with European people, and the establishment of outposts and colonial administrations in parts of Asia and Africa . As a result, the majority populations of the Americas, Australia and New Zealand typically trace their ancestry to Europe. For this reason a Eurocentric history is taught in such countries, despite geographic isolation from Europe, with many European cultural traditions.


EXAMPLES OF EUROCENTRISM

  • The division of the landmass of Eurasia into the separate continents of Asia and Europe is an anomaly with no basis in physical geography. An alternative view is that Eurasia is a single continent, one of six continents in total. This view is held by some geographers and is preferred in Russia (which spans Asia and Europe).The separation is maintained for historical and cultural reasons, with those in the West of the landmass historically choosing to distance themselves culturally from those in the East.


  • Cartesian Map s have been designed throughout history to centre the area most important to the mapmakers, be they European, Chinese or North American to name a few. Arno Peters highlighted the political implications of map design by promoting the Gall- Peters Projection , as a contrasting world map to the Mercator Projection , a commonly used world map projection at the time. The Mercator projection distorts areas further from the equator, making Europe and North America appear disproportionately large compared to similar sized areas closer to the equator, such as Africa, Central America and Australia. Alaska, for example, is presented as being similar or even slightly larger in size than Brazil, when Brazil's area is actually almost 5 times that of Alaska.


  • The longitude meridians of world maps have also evolved from a Eurocentric worldview, with the original definition of the Prime Meridian , placing Greenwich, London in the centre. While this has the advantage that it places the International Date Line in the Pacific , inconveniencing the smallest number of people, the residual effect of these Eurocentric origins are that, in a purely geographic sense, mainly in Cartography , all places in the world not on this meridian are said to be either 'east' or 'west', and hence in either the Eastern Hemisphere or Western Hemisphere . Regional names around the world are named in orientation of a Eurocentric world view- ' Middle East ' describes an area slightly east of Europe, and the Orient is described as the ' Far East '. The Western World , or 'Western civilization' are terms that have grown to include not only central and Westen Europe, but the former European colonies of North America, Australia and New Zealand.


Although many of these terms are not intentionally designed to relegate other groups to a subordinate role to the people of Europe, the effects of Eurocentricism create a self-sustaining belief, that Europe and Europeans are central and most important to all meaningful aspects of the world's social values, and cultural heritage. This is further reflected in the presumed centrality of Europe in the study and development of the world in the following examples.


:Eurocentric study of the History Of Philosophy covers Aristotle , Aquinas , Kant and Marx , but neglects Confucius , Buddha , the Upanishads or Avicenna .
:Western accounts of the History Of Mathematics do not acknowledge major contributions of mathematics from other regions of the world, such as Indian Mathematics , Chinese Mathematics , and Islamic Mathematics , despite Islamic mathematics, as well as some contributions from India (such as Trigonometry and the Indian-Arabic Decimal System ), having an important influence on Renaissance European mathematics.