Eurocentrism

{{Short description|Worldview centred on or biased towards Western civilization}} {{EngvarB|date=August 2021}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}}

[[File:Adams Synchronological Chart, 1881 (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|300px|A map of the Eastern Hemisphere from ''Adams Synchronological Chart or Map of History''. "The bright colors denote those countries that are the Subjects of history, previous to the discovery of America".]]

'''Eurocentrism''' (also '''Eurocentricity''' or '''Western-centrism''')<ref name=hobson>{{cite book | last = Hobson | first = John | title = The Eurocentric conception of world politics : western international theory, 1760–2010 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = New York | year = 2012 | page = 185 | isbn = 978-1107020207}} </ref> refers to viewing the West as the center of world events or superior to other cultures. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world to just the continent of Europe or even more narrowly, to Western Europe (especially during the Cold War). When the term is applied historically, it may be used in reference to the presentation of the European perspective on history as objective or absolute, or to an apologetic stance toward European colonialism and other forms of imperialism.<ref>[https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2001/eurocentrism-and-its-discontents Eurocentrism and its discontents], ''American Historical Association''</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Hoskins |first=Linus |title=Eurocentrism Vs. Afrocentrism. A Geopolitical Linkage Analysis |journal=Journal of Black Studies|volume=23 |issue=2 |year=1992 |pages=247–257 |publisher=SAGE Publishing |doi=10.1177/002193479202300208 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002193479202300208|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Schipper |first=Mineke |title=Eurocentrism and criticism: Reflections on the study of literature in past and present |journal=Journal of Postcolonial Writing|volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=16–27 |year=2008 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.1080/17449858408588866 |hdl=1887/7778 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17449858408588866|hdl-access=free }}</ref>

The term "Eurocentrism" dates back to the late 1970s but it did not become prevalent until the 1990s, when it was frequently applied in the context of decolonization and development and humanitarian aid that industrialised countries offered to developing countries. The term has since been used to critique Western narratives of progress, Western scholars who have downplayed and ignored non-Western contributions, and to contrast Western epistemologies with indigenous epistemologies.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":122">{{Cite book|last=Youngblood Henderson|first=James (Sákéj)|title=Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision|publisher=UBC Press|year=2011|isbn=9780774842471|editor-last=Battiste|editor-first=Marie|pages=259–261|chapter=Ayukpachi: Empowering Aboriginal Thought}}</ref>

== Terminology == [[File:Samir Amin.jpg|thumb|''Eurocentrism'' as the term for an ideology was coined by Samir Amin in the 1970s.]] The adjective ''Eurocentric'', or ''Europe-centric'', has been in use in various contexts since at least the 1920s.<ref>The German adjective ''europa-zentrisch'' ("Europe-centric") is attested in the 1920s, unrelated to the Marxist context of Amin's usage. Karl Haushofer, ''Geopolitik des pazifischen Ozeans'' (pp. 11–23, 110–113, ''passim''). The context is Haushofer's comparison of the "Pacific space" in terms of global politics vs. "Europe-centric" politics.</ref> The term was popularised (in French as ''européocentrique'') in the context of decolonization and internationalism in the mid-20th century.<ref>A. Rey (ed.) ''Dictionnaire Historique de la langue française'' (2010): "À partir du radical de européen ont été composés (mil. XXe s.) ''européocentrique'' adj. (de ''centrique'') « qui fait référence à l'Europe » et ''européocentrisme'' n.m. (variante ''europocentrisme'' n.m. 1974) « fait de considérer (un problème général, mondial) d'un point de vue européen »"</ref> English usage of ''Eurocentric'' as an ideological term in identity politics was current by the mid-1980s.<ref>Hussein Abdilahi Bulhan, ''Frantz Fanon and the Psychology of Oppression'' (1985), [https://books.google.com/books?id=z55WPkZpyoYC&pg=PA63 63ff]: "Fanon and Eurocentric Psychology", where "Eurocentric psychology" refers to "a psychology derived from a white, middle-class male minority, which is generalized to humanity everywhere".</ref>

The abstract noun ''Eurocentrism'' (French ''eurocentrisme'', earlier ''europocentrisme'') as the term for an ideology was coined in the 1970s by the Egyptian Marxian economist Samir Amin, then director of the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.<ref>[http://www.uneca.org/fr/pages/anciens-directeurs "Anciens directeurs"], uneca.org {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180806090809/https://www.uneca.org/fr/pages/anciens-directeurs |date=6 August 2018 }} ("Samir Amin (Egypte) 1970–1980").</ref> Amin used the term in the context of a global, core–periphery or dependency model of capitalist development. English usage of ''Eurocentrism'' is recorded by 1979.<ref>Alexandre A. Bennigsen, S. Enders Wimbush, ''Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World'' (1979), [https://books.google.com/books?id=uKr2O2GBDsQC&pg=PA19 p. 19].</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Beyond Eurocentrism {{!}} Aeon Essays |url=https://aeon.co/essays/if-you-want-decolonisation-go-to-the-economics-of-samir-amin |website=Aeon}}</ref> According to Amin, Eurocentrism dates back to the Renaissance, and did not flourish until the 19th century.<ref name="d432">{{cite book | last=Amin | first=S. | title=Eurocentrism | publisher=Monthly Review Press | year=1989 | isbn=978-0-85345-785-5 | url=https://archive.org/details/eurocentrism0000amin/page/58 | access-date=2024-05-21 | page=58 |quote=Eurocentrism is a specifically modern phenomenon, the roots of which go back only to the Renaissance, a phenomenon that did not flourish until the nineteenth century. In this sense, it constitutes one dimension of the culture and ideology of the modern capitalist world.}}</ref>

The coinage of Western-centrism is younger, attested in the late 1990s, and specific to English.<ref>"pluralistic cultural coexistence as opposed to Western centrism and Asian centrism" (unhyphenated) in: Mabel Lee, Meng Hua, ''Cultural dialogue & misreading'' (1997), p. 53. "our incomplete perception of Chinese behavior, which tends to be 'Western-centric{{'"}} (using scare-quotes) in: Houman A. Sadri, ''Revolutionary States, Leaders, and Foreign Relations: A Comparative Study of China, Cuba, and Iran'' (1997), [https://books.google.com/books?id=6IaY-b1BR3AC&pg=PA35 p. 35]. "Euro- or western-centrism" in the context of the "traditional discourse on minority languages" in: Jonathan Owens (ed.), ''Arabic as a Minority Language'' (2000), [https://books.google.com/books?id=dVUiAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 p. 1]. Use of Latinate ''occido-centrism'' remains rare (e.g. Alexander Lukin, ''Political Culture of the Russian 'Democrats' '' (2000), p. 47).</ref>

==History== According to historian Enrique Dussel, Eurocentrism has its roots in Hellenocentrism.<ref>Dussel, Enrique (2011) ''Politics of Liberation: A Critical World History'' London: SCM Press p. 11 {{ISBN| 9780334041818}}</ref> Art historian and critic Christopher Allen points out that since antiquity, the outward-looking spirit of Western civilization has been more curious about other peoples and more open about learning about them than any other: Herodotus and Strabo travelled through Ancient Egypt and wrote about it in detail; Western explorers mapped the whole surface of the globe; Western scholars carried out fundamental research into all the languages of the world and established the sciences of archaeology and anthropology.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/national-museums-fine-contribution-to-our-fascination-with-ancient-egypt/news-story/ec750477d537a4102bf7ced24e59327c|access-date=4 August 2024|url-access=subscription|title=National Museum's fine contribution to our fascination with ancient Egypt (print: Secrets of the past)|author=Christopher Allen|author-link=Christopher Allen (critic)|date=3–4 August 2024|newspaper=The Weekend Australian|pages=18–19}}</ref>{{relevance?|date=April 2025}}

===European exceptionalism=== {{Further|Great Divergence|The European Miracle|Middle Ages|Age of Discovery|Colonialism|Progressivism|Western world}} [[File:Colonisation 1914.png|thumb|330px|European colonial powers in 1914, before the start of World War I]] During the European colonial era, encyclopedias often sought to give a rationale for the predominance of European rule during the colonial period by referring to a special position taken by Europe compared to the other continents.

Thus Johann Heinrich Zedler, in 1741, wrote that "even though Europe is the smallest of the world's four continents, it has for various reasons a position that places it before all others.... Its inhabitants have excellent customs, they are courteous and erudite in both sciences and crafts".<ref>"<nowiki>[</nowiki>{{langx|de|link=no|Obwohl Europa das kleinste unter allen 4 Teilen der Welt ist, so ist es doch um verschiedener Ursachen willen allen übrigen vorzuziehen.... Die Einwohner sind von sehr guten Sitten, höflich und sinnreich in Wissenschaften und Handwerken.}}] [http://www.zedler-lexikon.de/blaettern/zedlerband.html?bandnummer=8&seitenzahl=1127 "Europa". In: ''Zedlers Universal-Lexicon''] {{webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110911233435/http://www.zedler-lexikon.de/blaettern/zedlerband.html?bandnummer=8&seitenzahl=1127 |date= 11 September 2011 }}, Volume 8, Leipzig 1734, columns 2192–2196 (citation: column 2195).</ref>

The ''Brockhaus Enzyklopädie'' ({{lang|de|Conversations-Lexicon}}) of 1847 still expressed an ostensibly Eurocentric approach and claimed about Europe that "its geographical situation and its cultural and political significance is clearly the most important of the five continents, over which it has gained a most influential government both in material and even more so in cultural aspects".<ref>"<nowiki>[</nowiki>{{langx|de|link=no|[Europa ist seiner] terrestrischen Gliederung wie seiner kulturhistorischen und politischen Bedeutung nach unbedingt der wichtigste unter den fünf Erdtheilen, über die er in materieller, noch mehr aber in geistiger Beziehung eine höchst einflussreiche Oberherrschaft erlangt hat.}}] [https://books.google.com/books?id=fK9GAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA373 ''Das große Conversations-Lexicon für die gebildeten Stände''], 1847. Vol. 1, p. 373.</ref>

European exceptionalism thus grew out of the Great Divergence of the Early Modern period, due to the combined effects of the Scientific Revolution, the Commercial Revolution, and the rise of colonial empires, the Industrial Revolution and a Second European colonization wave.

The assumption of European exceptionalism is widely reflected in popular genres of literature, especially in literature for young adults (for example, Rudyard Kipling's 1901 novel ''Kim''<ref>{{cite web |last1=Jordison |first1=Sam |title=Reading beyond Rudyard Kipling's imperial crimes: the complexities of Kim |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/12/reading-beyond-rudyard-kiplings-imperial-crimes-kim |website=The Guardian |date=12 January 2016}}</ref>) and in adventure-literature in general. Portrayal of European colonialism in such literature has been analysed in terms of Eurocentrism in retrospect, such as presenting idealised and often exaggeratedly masculine Western heroes, who conquered "savage" peoples in the remaining "dark spaces" of the globe.<ref>Daniel Iwerks, "Ideology and Eurocentrism in ''Tarzan of the Apes''," in: ''Investigating the Unliterary: Six Readings of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes'', ed. Richard Utz (Regensburg: Martzinek, 1995), pp. 69–90.</ref>

The European miracle, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981,<ref>{{cite book| last =Jones | first =Eric | date =2003 | title =The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia | publisher =Cambridge University Press | isbn = 978-0-521-52783-5}}</ref> refers to the surprising rise of Europe during the Early Modern period. During the 15th to 18th centuries, a great divergence took place, comprising the European Renaissance, the European Age of Discovery, the formation of European colonial empires, the Age of Reason, and the associated leap forward in technology and the development of capitalism and early industrialization. As a result, by the 19th century European powers dominated world trade and world politics.

In ''Lectures on the Philosophy of History'', published in 1837, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel describes world history as starting in Asia but shifting to Greece and Italy, and then north of the Alps to France, Germany and England.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=de Boer|first=Karin|editor1-first= Dean |editor1-last= Moyar|date= 2017-06-06|title= Hegel's Lectures on the History of Modern Philosophy|journal= Oxford Handbooks Online|volume=1|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199355228.013.29}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=CuliwYNyvSUC&q=center+o+Europe+hegel&pg=PA8 | title=Properties of Modernity: Romantic Spain, Modern Europe, and the Legacies of Empire| isbn= 9780826515223| last1= Iarocci| first1= Michael P. | year=2006| publisher=Vanderbilt University Press}}</ref> Hegel interpreted India and China as stationary countries, lacking inner momentum. Hegel's China replaced the real historical development with a fixed, stable scenario, which made it the outsider of world history. Both India and China were waiting and anticipating a combination of certain factors from outside until they could acquire real progress in human civilization.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Farmer|first=Edward L.|date= 1985|title=Civilization as a Unit of World History: Eurasia and Europe's Place in It|journal=The History Teacher|volume= 18|issue= 3|pages= 345–363|doi= 10.2307/493055|jstor= 493055}}</ref> Hegel's ideas had a profound impact on western historiography and attitudes. Some scholars disagree with his ideas that the Oriental countries were outside of world history.<ref>{{Cite book |doi= 10.1057/9781137290007 |chapter=On the Origins of Modern Hospitality |title= Hospitality and World Politics |year= 2013 |isbn= 9781137290007 |last1= Baker |first1= Gideon |editor-first1=Gideon |editor-last1=Baker }}</ref> [[File:Berckheyde, Job Adriaensz.—Binnenplaats van de Oude Beurs te Amsterdam na 1668—c.1670—Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen—1043 (OK)—WD item Q19924911.jpg|thumb|Courtyard of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, circa 1670]] Max Weber (1864-1920) suggested that capitalism is the speciality of Europe, because Oriental countries such as India and China do not contain the factors which would enable them to develop capitalism in a sufficient manner.<ref>{{Cite book|title= Scholarship and Partisanship : Essays on Max Weber|last1= Bendix | first1 = Reinhard|date= 1980|publisher=University of California Press| last2 =Roth | first2 = Guenther|isbn=978-0520041714|series=California Library reprint series, vol. 110|location=Berkeley | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ottM0fiTnO8C |oclc= 220409196}}</ref>{{request quotation|date=March 2022}} Weber wrote and published many treatises in which he emphasized the distinctiveness of Europe. In ''The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism'' (1905), he wrote that the "rational" capitalism, manifested by its enterprises and mechanisms, only appeared in the Protestant western countries, and a series of generalised and universal cultural phenomena only appear in the west.<ref>{{Cite book|date= 2017-07-03|title= The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism|doi= 10.4324/9781912282708|isbn= 9781912282708|s2cid= 166670406}}{{page needed|date=December 2019}}</ref>

Even the state, with a written constitution and a government organised by trained administrators and constrained by rational law, only appears in the West, even though other regimes can also comprise states.<ref> {{Cite book |title= The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Environmental Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century |last1= Marks |first1= Robert |isbn= 9781442212398 |edition= 3rd |location= Lanham, Maryland|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|oclc= 902726566|year = 2015 }}{{page needed|date=December 2019}} </ref> ("Rationality" is a multi-layered term whose connotations are developed and escalated as with the social progress. Weber regarded rationality as a proprietary article for western capitalist society.)

===Anticolonialism=== Even in the 19th century, anticolonial movements had developed claims about national traditions and values that were set against those of Europe in Africa and India. In some cases, as China, where local ideology was even more exclusionist than the Eurocentric one, Westernization did not overwhelm longstanding Chinese attitudes to its own cultural centrality.<ref name="ReferenceA">Cambridge History of China, CUP,1988</ref>

Orientalism developed in the late 18th century as a disproportionate Western interest in and idealization of Eastern (i.e. Asian) cultures.

By the early 20th century, some historians, such as Arnold J. Toynbee, were attempting to construct multifocal models of world civilizations. Toynbee also drew attention in Europe to non-European historians, such as the medieval Tunisian scholar Ibn Khaldun. He also established links with Asian thinkers, such as through his dialogues with Daisaku Ikeda of Soka Gakkai International.<ref>{{cite book |last=McNeill |first=William |year=1989 |title=Arnold J. Toynbee: A Life |location=New York and Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/arnoldjtoynbeeli00will/page/272 272–273] |isbn=978-0-19-505863-5 |author-link=William H. McNeill (historian) |quote=From Toynbee's point of view, Soka Gakkai was exactly what his vision of the historical moment expected, for it was a new church, arising on the fringes of the 'post-Christian' world.... Convergence of East and West was, indeed, what Toynbee and Ikeda sought and thought they had found in their dialogue. In a preface, written in the third person, Toynbee emphasized and tried to explain this circumstance. 'They agree that a human being ought to be perpetually striving to overcome his innate propensity to try to exploit the rest of the universe and that he ought to be trying, instead, to put himself at the service of the universe so unreservedly that his ego will become identical with an ultimate reality, which for a Buddhist is the Buddha state. They agree in believing that this ultimate reality is not a humanlike divine personality.' He explained these and other agreements as reflecting the 'birth of a common worldwide civilization that has originated in a technological framework of Western origin but is now being enriched spiritually by contributions from all the historic regional civilizations.' ... [Ikeda's] dialogue with Toynbee is the longest and most serious text in which East and West—that is, Ikeda and a famous representative of the mission field that Ikeda sees before him—have agreed with each other. In the unlikely event that Soka Gakkai lives up to its leader's hopes and realizes Toynbee's expectations by flourishing in the Western world, this dialogue might, like the letters of St. Paul, achieve the status of sacred scripture and thus become by far the most important of all of Toynbee's works. |url=https://archive.org/details/arnoldjtoynbeeli00will/page/272 }}</ref>

===Recent usage=== Arab journalists detected Eurocentrism in western media coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when the depth and scope of coverage and concern contrasted with that devoted to longer-running contemporary wars outside Europe such as those in Syria and in Yemen.<ref> {{cite web |url= https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/ukraine-invasion-journalists-reject-bias-racist-coverage |title= Ukraine invasion: Arab journalists call out 'orientalist, racist' double standards on Ukraine coverage |website= The New Arab |date= 28 February 2022 |location= London |access-date= 1 March 2022 |quote= Arab journalists have called out the 'racist, orientalist' news coverage on the war in Ukraine, which they've accused of Eurocentric bias and ignoring the reality of conflict for many in the Middle East and North Africa. }} </ref>

In football, the term Eurocentrism is used to critique the economic dominance UEFA has over club football teams from the rest of the world and how it negatively impacts the sport.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rozo |first=Kevin Daniel |date=2024-08-17 |title=Eurocentric globalization of football. Coloniality, consumption, social distinction and identities of transnational fans in Latin America |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2024.2332087 |journal=Soccer & Society |volume=25 |issue=4–6 |pages=618–630 |doi=10.1080/14660970.2024.2332087 |issn=1466-0970}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Muhammed |first=Fazal |date=2023-09-10 |title=Football's Cultural Mosaic: A Critique of Eurocentrism - |url=https://footytimes.com/footballs-cultural-mosaic-a-critique-of-eurocentrism/ |access-date=2025-06-23 |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Ruehl |first=John P. |date=2023-09-15 |title=How to Break Europe's Hold on Football |url=https://www.laprogressive.com/foreign-policy/breaking-europes-hold-on-football |access-date=2025-06-23 |website=LA Progressive |language=en}}</ref>

==Debate and academic discourse== Eurocentrism has been a particularly important concept in development studies.<ref name=jstor3992977>{{cite journal |last1=Brohman |first1=John |title=Universalism, Eurocentrism, and Ideological Bias in Development Studies: From Modernisation to Neoliberalism |journal=Third World Quarterly|date=1995 |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=121–140 |jstor=3992977 }}</ref> Brohman (1995) argued that Eurocentrism "perpetuated intellectual dependence on a restricted group of prestigious Western academic institutions that determine the subject matter and methods of research".<ref name=jstor3992977/>

In treatises on historical or contemporary Eurocentrism that appeared since the 1990s, Eurocentrism is mostly cast in terms of dualisms such as civilised/barbaric or advanced/backward, developed/undeveloped, core/periphery, implying "evolutionary schemas through which societies inevitably progress", with a remnant of an "underlying presumption of a superior white Western self as referent of analysis."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sundberg |first1=Juanita |chapter=Eurocentrism |title=International Encyclopedia of Human Geography |year=2009 |pages=638–643 }}</ref> Eurocentrism and the dualistic properties that it labels on non-European countries, cultures and persons have often been criticised in the political discourse of the 1990s and 2000s, particularly in the greater context of political correctness, race in the United States and affirmative action.<ref>Green, John. Crashcourse "Eurocentrism" (2012){{full citation needed|date=August 2024|reason=Website? Book? Article?}}</ref><ref>Loewen, James "Lies My teacher told me" (1995){{full citation needed|date=August 2024|reason=Website? Book? Article?}}</ref>

In the 1990s, there was a trend of criticising various geographic terms current in the English language as Eurocentric, such as the traditional division of Eurasia into Europe and Asia<ref>Martin Lewis and Kären Wigen. ''The Myth of Continents'' (1997): "In physical, cultural and historical diversity, China and India are comparable to the entire European landmass, not to a single European country. A better (if still imperfect) analogy would compare France, not to India as a whole, but to a single Indian state, such as Uttar Pradesh." {{cite book |last=Lewis |first=Martin W. |author2=Kären E. Wigen |title=The Myth of Continents: a Critique of Metageography |year=1997 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |page={{page needed|date=August 2024}} |isbn=978-0-520-20742-4 }}</ref> or the term Middle East.<ref>{{cite web |last=Hanafi |first=Hassan |title=The Middle East, in whose world? (Primary Reflections) |url=http://www.smi.uib.no/pao/hanafi.html |publisher=Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies (The fourth Nordic conference on Middle Eastern Studies: The Middle East in globalizing world Oslo, 13–16 August 1998) |access-date=26 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131018151834/http://www.smi.uib.no/pao/hanafi.html |archive-date=18 October 2013 |url-status=dead }} ("unedited paper as given at the Oslo conference. An updated and edited version has been published in Utvik and Vikør, ''The Middle East in a Globalized World'', Bergen/London 2000, 1–9. Please quote or refer only to the published article") "The expression Middle East is an old British label based on a British Western perception of the East divided into middle or near and far".</ref>

Eric Sheppard, in 2005, argued that contemporary Marxism itself has Eurocentric traits (in spite of "Eurocentrism" originating in the vocabulary of Marxian economics), because it supposes that the third world must go through a stage of capitalism before "progressive social formations can be envisioned".<ref name=":5">{{cite journal |last1=Sheppard |first1=Eric |title=Jim Blaut's Model of the World |journal=Antipode|date=November 2005 |volume=37 |issue=5 |pages=956–962 |doi=10.1111/j.0066-4812.2005.00544.x |bibcode=2005Antip..37..956S }}</ref>

Andre Gunder Frank harshly criticised Eurocentrism. He believed that most scholars were the disciples of the social sciences and history guided by Eurocentrism.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book|chapter=Unequal Development |title=The Global Politics of Unequal Development |pages=231–247 |year=2005 |last1=Payne |first1=Anthony|publisher=Macmillan Education UK |isbn=978-0-333-74072-9 }}</ref> He criticised some Western scholars for their ideas that non-Western areas lack outstanding contributions in history, economy, ideology, politics and culture compared with the West.<ref>{{Cite book |title=ReOrient : global economy in the Asian Age |last1=Frank |first1=Andre Gunder |date=1998 |publisher=University of California |isbn=9780520921313 |location=Berkeley |oclc=42922426 }}{{page needed|date=December 2019}}</ref> These scholars believed that the same contribution made by the West gives Westerners an advantage of endo-genetic momentum which is pushed towards the rest of the world, but Frank believed that the Oriental countries also contributed to the human civilization in their own perspectives.

Arnold Toynbee in his ''A Study of History'', gave a critical remark on Eurocentrism. He believed that although western capitalism shrouded the world and achieved a political unity based on its economy, the Western countries cannot "westernize" other countries.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A study of history |last1=Toynbee |first1=Arnold |date=1987 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195050813|location=New York|oclc=16276526}}{{page needed|date=December 2019}}</ref> Toynbee concluded that Eurocentrism is characteristic of three misconceptions manifested by self-centerment, the fixed development of Oriental countries and linear progress.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lang |first1=Michael |title=Globalization and Global History in Toynbee |journal=Journal of World History|date=2011 |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=747–783 |doi=10.1353/jwh.2011.0118 |s2cid=142992220 }}</ref> [[File:Empress Shoken2 (cropped).jpg|thumb|200px|Japanese Empress Shōken in Western garb, a sign of the reform taken under the Meiji era (1868- 1912)]] There has been some debate on whether historical Eurocentrism qualifies as "just another ethnocentrism", as it is found in most of the world's cultures, especially in cultures with imperial aspirations, as in the Sinocentrism in China; in the Empire of Japan (c. 1868–1945), or during the American Century. James M. Blaut (2000) argued that Eurocentrism indeed went beyond other ethnocentrisms, as the scale of European colonial expansion was historically unprecedented and resulted in the formation of a "colonizer's model of the world".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hugill |first1=Peter J. |title=Review of The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History |date=1995 |pages=259–261 |jstor=216077}}</ref>

Indigenous philosophies have been noted to greatly contrast with Eurocentric thought. Indigenous scholar James (Sákéj) Youngblood Henderson states that Eurocentricism contrasts greatly with Indigenous worldviews: "the discord between Aboriginal and Eurocentric worldviews is dramatic. It is a conflict between natural and artificial contexts."<ref name=":122"/> Indigenous scholars Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Linco state that "in some ways, the epistemological critique initiated by Indigenous knowledge is more radical than other sociopolitical critiques of the West, for the Indigenous critique questions the very foundations of Western ways of knowing and being."<ref name=":11">{{Cite book|last1=Denzin|first1=Norman K.|title=Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies|last2=Lincoln|first2=Yvonna S.|publisher=SAGE Publishing|year=2008|isbn=9781412918039|editor-last=Tuhiwai Smith|editor-first=Linda|page=152|chapter=Critical Methodologies and Indigenous Inquiry: Locating the Field: Performing Theories of Decolonizing Inquiry}}</ref>

The terms Afrocentrism vs. Eurocentrism have come to play a role in the 2000s to 2010s in the context of the academic discourse on race in the United States and critical whiteness studies, aiming to expose white supremacism and white privilege.<ref name=Bailey>Alison Bailey, "Philosophy and Whiteness" in Tim Engles (ed.) ''Towards a Bibliography of Critical Whiteness Studies'', Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society (2006), p. 9.:

"Philosophical methods are well suited for unpacking the political, ontological, and epistemological conditions that foster racism and hold white supremacy in place. However, on the whole, philosophy as a discipline has remained relatively untouched by interdisciplinary work on race and whiteness. In its quest for certainty, Western philosophy continues to generate what it imagines to be colorless and genderless accounts of knowledge, reality, morality, and human nature".</ref> Molefi Kete Asante, the foremost theorist of Afrocentricity, have argued that there is a prevalence of Eurocentric thought in the processing of much of academia on African affairs.<ref>Molefi Kete Asante, "The Painful Demise of Eurocentrism", ''The World & I'', vol. 7, no. 4 (April 1992), pp. 305–317.</ref><ref>Molefi Kete Asante, "Afrocentricity: Toward a New Understanding of African Thought in the World," in Molefi Kete Asante, Yoshitaka Miike, and Jing Yin (Eds.), ''The Global Intercultural Communication Reader'' (2nd Ed.) (New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 101–110.</ref><ref>Molefi Kete Asante, "Afrocentricity," In Reiland Rabaka (Ed.), ''Routledge Handbook of Pan-Africanism'' (London: Routledge, 2020), pp. 147–158.</ref> He questions "Why Africans would want to see their own culture through the prism of Europe" and asserts that "African languages and cultures must be mined for valuable, positive, and creative ways of knowing, ritualizing, and developing human capacity."<ref>Molefi Kete Asante, "Afrocentricity: Opening the African Mouth and Mind," ''International Journal of Indigenous Language Media and Discourse'', Vol. 1, No. 1 (May 2025), p. 54. https://doi.org/10.36386/ijilmd.v1i1.621</ref> Similarly, Yoshitaka Miike, the founding theorist of Asiacentricity, has critiqued theoretical, methodological, and comparative Eurocentrism in knowledge production about Asian societies and cultures.<ref>Yoshitaka Miike, "Beyond Eurocentrism in the Intercultural Field: Searching for an Asiacentric Paradigm," in William J. Starosta and Guo-Ming Chen (Eds.), ''Ferment in the Intercultural Field: Axiology/Value/Praxis'' (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003), pp. 243–276.</ref><ref>Yoshitaka Miike, "An Anatomy of Eurocentrism in Communication Scholarship: The Role of Asiacentricity in De-Westernizing Theory and Research," in Wimal Dissanayake (Ed.), ''Communication Theory: The Asian Perspective'' (2nd Ed.) (Manila, Philippines: Asian Media Information and Communication Center, 2022), pp. 255–278.</ref><ref>Yoshitaka Miike, "What Makes Multicultural Dialogue Truly Multicultural? Rethinking Cultural Convergence, Theoretical Globalism, and Comparative Eurocentrism", ''Journal of Multicultural Discourses'', vol. 17, no. 1 (January 2022), pp. 34–43. {{doi|10.1080/17447143.2022.2033246}}</ref> He claims that "looking at Asia only with a Eurocentric ''critical'' eye and looking at the West only with a Eurocentric ''uncritical'' eye poses a serious problem in understanding and appreciating the fullest potentials of humanity and communication."<ref>Yoshitaka Miike, "Can Asian Communicators Think? Asiacentricity as a Paradigm for Decolonizing the Asian Mind", ''Bodhi: An Interdisciplinary Journal'', Vol. 10, No. 2 (April-June 2024), p. 10. https://doi.org/10.3126/bodhi.v10i2.69675</ref>

In an article, 'Eurocentrism and Academic Imperialism,' Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi at the University of Tehran states that Eurocentric thought exists in almost all aspects of academia in many parts of the world, especially in the humanities.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.zarcommedia.com/index.php/research-documents/6691.html |title=Eurocentrism and Academic Imperialism |publisher=ZarCom Media |date=2011-10-27 |access-date=2015-10-14 |archive-date=30 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830041419/http://www.zarcommedia.com/index.php/research-documents/6691.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Edgar Alfred Bowring states that in the West, self-regard, self-congratulation and denigration of the 'Other' run more deeply and those tendencies have infected more aspects of their thinking, laws and policy than anywhere else.<ref>E. C. Eze, Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader (Blackwell, 1997){{page needed|date=December 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Alam |first1=M. Shahid |title=Articulating Group Differences: A Variety of Autocentrisms |journal=Science & Society|date=2003 |volume=67 |issue=2 |pages=205–217 |doi=10.1521/siso.67.2.173.21185c |jstor=40404071 }}</ref> Luke Clossey and Nicholas Guyatt have measured the degree of Eurocentrism in the research programs of top history departments.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://smallworldhistory.org |title=It's a Small World After All |last1=Clossey |first1=Luke |last2=Guyatt |first2=Nicholas |date=2013 |website=Small World History |publisher=Simon Fraser University |access-date=24 December 2015 }}</ref>

Some authors have focused on how scholars who denounce Eurocentrism often inadvertently reproduce Eurocentrism through culturally biased norms.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kuru |first=Deniz |date=April 2016 |title=Historicising Eurocentrism and anti-Eurocentrism in IR: A revisionist account of disciplinary self-reflexivity |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-international-studies/article/abs/historicising-eurocentrism-and-antieurocentrism-in-ir-a-revisionist-account-of-disciplinary-selfreflexivity/C239F2085228DD3E92418586A2D089BA |journal=Review of International Studies|volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=351–376 |doi=10.1017/S0260210515000315 |s2cid=143069651 |issn=0260-2105|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Duzgun 285–307">{{Cite journal |last=Duzgun |first=Eren |date=2020-06-01 |title=Against Eurocentric Anti-Eurocentrism: International Relations, Historical Sociology and Political Marxism|journal=Journal of International Relations and Development|volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=285–307 |doi=10.1057/s41268-018-0146-0 |s2cid=149655538 |issn=1581-1980}}</ref>

==Africa== ===Colonial historiography=== {{Main article|African historiography#Colonial historiography}} {{Blockquote|text=[Africa] is no historical part of the World, it has no movement or development to exhibit. Historical movements in it- that is in the northern part- belong to the Atlantic or European World. Carthage displayed there an important transitionary phase of civilization; but, as a Phoenician colony, it belongs to Asia. Egypt will be considered in reference to the passage of the human mind from its Eastern to its Western phase, but it does not belong to the African Spirit. What we properly understand by Africa, is the Unhistorical, Underdeveloped spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature, and which have to be presented here only as on the threshold of the World’s History.|author=Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|title=''Lectures in the Philosophy of World History'' (1837)<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Africa in the World: History and Historiography |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedias: African History |last=Brizuela-Garcia |first=Esperanza |year=2018 |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.296 |isbn=978-0-19-027773-4 |url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-296}}</ref>}} Since most African societies used oral tradition to record their history, there was little written history of the continent prior to the colonial period. Colonial histories focussed on the exploits of soldiers, colonial administrators, and "colonial figures", using limited sources and written from an entirely European perspective, ignoring the viewpoint of the colonised under the pretence of white supremacism. Colonial historians considered Africans racially inferior, uncivilised, exotic, and historically static, viewing their colonial conquest as proof of Europe's claims to superiority.<ref name=":18">{{Cite book |last=Fage |first=John |url=https://archive.org/details/unesco_general_history_africa_i |title=General History of Africa: Volume 1 |date=1981 |publisher=UNESCO Publishing |chapter=The development of African historiography}}</ref>{{Rp|page=36}} The most widespread genre of colonial narrative involved the Hamitic hypothesis, which claimed the inherent superiority of light-skinned people over dark-skinned people. Colonisers considered only "Hamitic Africans" to be "civilisation", and by extension all major advances and innovations in Africa were thought to derive from them. Oral sources were deprecated and dismissed by most historians, who claimed that Africa had no history other than that of Europeans in Africa.<ref name=":02">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Historiography of Africa |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History |publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&pg=PA626 |date=2005 |editor-last1=Shillington |editor-first1=Kevin |pages=626–633 |isbn=1-57958-245-1 |last1=Afolayan |first1=Funso}}</ref>{{Rp|page=627}} Some colonisers took interest in the other viewpoint and attempted to produce a more detailed history of Africa using oral sources and archaeology, however they received little recognition at the time.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Colonial History and Historiography |encyclopedia=The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Historiography: Methods and Sources |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-303 |access-date=2025-03-31 |last=Suremain |first=Marie-Albane de SuremainMarie-Albane de |date=2019-04-18 |language=en |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.303 |isbn=978-0-19-069870-6|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

African historiography became organised at the academic level in the mid 20th century. Despite a movement towards utilising oral sources in a multidisciplinary approach and their growing legitimacy in historiography, contemporary historians are still tasked with decolonising African historiography, building the institutional frameworks incorporating African epistemologies, and representing an African perspective.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Tignor|first=Robert L.|date=1966|title=African History: The Contribution of the Social Sciences|journal=Journal of Modern African Studies|volume=4|issue=3|pages=349–357|issn=0022-278X|jstor=159205|doi=10.1017/S0022278X00013525|s2cid=143559797 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Clapham |first=Christopher |year=2020 |title=Decolonising African Studies? |journal=Journal of Modern African Studies|volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=137–153 |doi=10.1017/S0022278X19000612 |issn=0022-278X|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Falola |first=Toyin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9dgBEQAAQBAJ |title=Decolonizing African History |date=2024-04-05 |publisher=African Books Collective |isbn=978-3-906927-51-0 |language=en}}</ref>

== Latin America== Eurocentrism affected Latin America through colonial domination and expansion.<ref name="Quijano">{{cite journal |last1=Quijano |first1=Aníbal |title=Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America |journal=International Sociology|date=29 June 2016 |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=215–232 |doi=10.1177/0268580900015002005 |s2cid=144941229 }}</ref> This occurred through the application of new criteria meant to "impose a new social classification of the world population on a global scale".<ref name="Quijano"/> Based on this occurrence, a new social-historic identities were newly produced, although already produced in America. Some of these names include; 'Whites', 'Negroes', 'Blacks', 'Yellows', 'Olives', 'Indians', and 'Mestizos'.<ref name="Quijano"/> With the advantage of being located in the Atlantic basin, 'Whites' were in a privileged to control gold and silver production.<ref name="Quijano"/> The work which created the product was by 'Indians' and 'Negroes'.<ref name="Quijano"/> With the control of commercial capital from 'White' workers. And therefore, Europe or Western Europe emerged as the central place of new patterns and capitalist power.<ref name="Quijano"/>

== Islamic world == thumb|upright=1.1|Front page of Avicenna's ''Canon of Medicine'' In the history of Islamic–Persian civilization, scholars such as Muhammad Zakariyya Razi, Avicenna and Al-Biruni played a key role in the expansion of rationalism. All three were Persians, but wrote in Arabic; therefore, in later European tradition they were mistakenly identified as “Arabs”.<ref>{{cite book |last=Nasr |first=Seyyed Hossein |title=History of Islamic Philosophy |publisher=Routledge |year=1996 |page=214}}</ref> Their works had a profound impact on Europe: Avicenna's Canon of Medicine remained a medical textbook for centuries, Razi became authoritative in medicine and pharmacology, and Biruni, through measurement and observation, came close to a scientific method.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sarton |first=George |title=Science and Civilization in Islam |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1927 |page=148}}</ref>

Other thinkers were also part of this tradition: Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), who with his research on optics laid the foundation of the experimental method,<ref>{{cite book |last=Al-Khalili |first=Jim |title=The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance |publisher=Penguin |year=2011 |page=75}}</ref> al-Khwarizmi, whose name gave us algebra and the “algorithm”,<ref>{{cite book |last=Katz |first=Victor J. |author-link=Victor J. Katz |title=A History of Mathematics |publisher=Pearson |year=2009 |page=243}}</ref> Nasir al-Din al-Tusi with his innovations in astronomy that later influenced Copernicus,<ref>{{cite book |last=Heath |first=Thomas |title=A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler |publisher=Dover |year=1932 |page=312}}</ref> and Omar Khayyam, who reformed the Jalali calendar and solved cubic equations.<ref>{{cite book |last=Saliba |first=George |title=Science and Education in Medieval Islam |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2007 |page=201}}</ref>

Nevertheless, the European Church treated these works selectively. The Paris synod of 1210 prohibited teaching Aristotle's works on natural philosophy and their Arabic commentaries (including Avicenna). In 1215 this ban was confirmed in the statutes of the University of Paris, allowing only logic and ethics.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kretzmann |first=Norman |title=Medieval Philosophy |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1988 |page=65}}</ref> In 1270 and 1277, Bishop Étienne Tempier in Paris condemned 219 theses, some of which targeted Averroes and his followers.<ref>{{cite book |last=Copleston |first=Frederick |title=A History of Philosophy, Volume II: Medieval Philosophy |publisher=Doubleday |year=1950 |page=113}}</ref>

In Toledo in the 12th and 13th centuries, hundreds of Arabic texts were translated into Latin. Translators (such as Gerard of Cremona) often obscured or altered the identity of the authors, and in Europe they were generally referred to simply as “Arab philosophers”.<ref>{{cite book |last=Arberry |first=A. J. |title=The Legacy of Islam |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1931 |page=45}}</ref>

After the Fall of Granada, many Arabic libraries were destroyed. In 1499–1501, Archbishop Cisneros ordered the burning of thousands of Arabic books in the Bib-Rambla square in Granada; only a small portion of medical texts was preserved.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kamen |first=Henry |title=Spain: A History |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2005 |page=143}}</ref>

The result of such policies—bans, selective translations, anonymization of authors and the burning of books—was that in Renaissance European historiography a Eurocentric narrative took shape: “Ancient Greece to Dark Ages to Renaissance to Modern Europe”. In this way, the role of Muslim and Iranian thinkers was reduced to that of “transmitters”, not innovators.<ref>{{cite book |last=Huff |first=Toby E. |title=The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |page=88}}</ref>

This narrative was partially corrected in academic scholarship of the 20th and 21st centuries, but in school curricula in Europe and the United States the old model still dominates: Avicenna may be briefly mentioned, but names such as Biruni, Razi, Al-Khwarizmi or Al-Tusi are often absent. As a result, a one-sided view persists that modernity is purely a European product, while the real history of science was multilayered and international.<ref>{{cite book |last=Morgan |first=Michael Hamilton |title=Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists |publisher=National Geographic |year=2007 |page=9}}</ref>

[[File:Mustafa-resid-pasa-1.jpg|thumb|220px|Ottoman Turkish statesman and diplomat Mustafa Reşid Pasha, the principal architect of the Edict of Gülhane. The goal of the decree was to help modernize the Ottoman Empire militarily and socially so that it could compete with the Great Powers of Europe.]] Eurocentrism's effect on the Islamic world has predominantly come from a fundamental statement of preventing the account of lower-level explanation and account of Islamic cultures and their social evolution, mainly through eurocentrism's idealist construct.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=Eurocentrism|last=Amin|first=Samir|publisher=Monthly Review Press|year=1989|isbn=9781583672075|location=New York|pages=124–125}}</ref> This construct has gained power from the historians revolving their conclusions around the idea of a central point that favours the notion that the evolution of societies and their progress are dictated by general tendencies, leading to the Islamic world's evolution becoming more of a philosophical topic of history instead of historical fact.<ref name=":2" /> Along with this, eurocentrism extends to trivialise and marginalise the philosophies, scientific contributions, cultures, and other additional facets of the Islamic world.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Burney |first1=Shehla |title=Erasing Eurocentrism: 'Using the Other as the Supplement of Knowledge' |journal=Counterpoints |date=2012 |volume=417 |pages=143–172 |jstor=42981703 }}</ref>

Stemming from Eurocentrism's innate bias towards Western civilization came the creation of the concept of the "European Society," which favoured the components (mainly Christianity) of European civilization and allowed eurocentrists to brand diverging societies and cultures as "uncivilized".<ref name=Heraclides>{{Cite book|title=Humanitarian Intervention in the Long Nineteenth Century: Setting the Precedent|last=Heraclides|first=Alexis|author-link=Alexis Heraclides|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=2015|isbn=9781526133823|location=Manchester, United Kingdom|pages=31, 37}}</ref> Prevalent during the nineteenth century, the labelling of uncivilised in the eyes of eurocentrists enabled Western countries to classify non-European and non-white countries as inferior, and limit their inclusion and contribution in actions like international law. This exclusion was seen as acceptable by individuals like John Westlake, a professor of international law at the University of Cambridge at the time, who commented that countries with European civilizations should be those which comprise the international society, and that countries like Turkey and Persia should only be allowed a part of international law.<ref name=Heraclides />

=== Orientalism === Eurocentrism's reach has not only affected the perception of the cultures and civilizations of the Islamic world, but also the aspects and ideas of Orientalism, a cultural idea that distinguished the "Orient" of the East from the "Occidental" Western societies of Europe and North America, and which was originally created so that the social and cultural milestones of the Islamic and Oriental world would be recognised. This effect began to take place during the nineteenth century when the Orientalist ideals were distilled and shifted from topics of sensuality and deviating mentalities to what is described by Edward Said as "unchallenged coherence".<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|title=Orientalism|last=Said|first=Edward|publisher=New York University Press|year=2000|isbn=9780394740676|location=New York City|pages=111–112}}</ref> Along with this shift came the creation of two types of orientalism: latent, which covered the Orient's constant durability through history, and manifest, a more dynamic orientalism that changes with the new discovery of information.<ref name=":4" /> The eurocentric influence is shown in the latter, as the nature of manifest Orientalism is to be altered with new findings, which leaves it vulnerable to the warping of its refiner's ideals and principles. In this state, eurocentrism has used orientalism to portray the Orient as "backwards" and bolster the superiority of the Western world and continue the undermining of their cultures to further the agenda of racial inequality.<ref name=":4" />

With those wanting to represent the eurocentric ideals better by way of orientalism, there came a barrier of languages, being Arabic, Persian, and other similar languages. With more researchers wanting to study more of Orientalism, there was an assumption made about the languages of the Islamic world: that having the ability to transcribe the texts of the past Islamic world would give great knowledge and insight on oriental studies. In order to do this, many researchers underwent training in philology, believing that an understanding of the languages would be the only necessary training. This reasoning came as the belief at the time was that other studies like anthropology and sociology were deemed irrelevant as they did not believe it misleading to this portion of mankind.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Contending Visions of the Middle East: the History and Politics of Orientalism|last=Lockman|first=Zachary|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2009|isbn=9780521133074|location=Cambridge, United Kingdom|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521133074/page/68 68]|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521133074/page/68}}</ref>

== Distortions of world maps and Eurocentrism ==

Modern world maps are most commonly based on the Mercator projection, developed in 1569 by the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator. While the projection preserves angles and directions, making it useful for navigation, it significantly distorts relative sizes of landmasses. Regions near the poles, such as Europe and North America, appear far larger than they actually are, while equatorial regions, including the Middle East and Africa, are visually minimized.<ref>{{cite book |last=Snyder |first=John P. |title=Flattening the Earth: Two Thousand Years of Map Projections |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1993 |isbn=9780226767475 |page=65}}</ref>

For example, Greenland is shown as roughly comparable in size to Africa, when in reality Africa is about fourteen times larger.<ref>{{cite book |last=Monmonier |first=Mark |title=How to Lie with Maps |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1991 |isbn=9780226534213 |page=3}}</ref> This visual imbalance has been criticized as reinforcing a Eurocentric worldview, granting Europe and North America disproportionate symbolic weight on the map, while diminishing the apparent importance of Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Wood |first=Denis |title=The Power of Maps |journal=Cartographica |volume=23 |issue=3 |year=1986 |pages=54–62 |doi=10.3138/D56V-8253-7M20-1167 |doi-broken-date=20 October 2025 }}</ref>

Scholars of critical cartography argue that such projections exert a subtle psychological effect, encouraging what has been described as an implicit “self-aggrandizement” of the West.<ref>{{cite book |last=Harley |first=J. B. |title=The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2001 |isbn=9780801870903 |page=169}}</ref> As a result, calls have been made to employ alternative projections—such as the Gall–Peters projection—which more accurately represent land area, in order to counteract the Eurocentric bias embedded in traditional world maps.<ref>{{cite book |last=Peters |first=Arno |title=The New Cartography |publisher=Friends of the Earth |year=1983 |page=10}}</ref>

==See also== {{div col|colwidth=28em}} ===Pro-Eurocentrism=== * Colonial mentality * Discovery doctrine * Orientalism

===Anti-Eurocentrism=== * Anti-Western sentiment * ''The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics'' * ''The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation''

===Other centrisms=== * Afrocentrism * Anglocentrism * Asiacentrism * Americentrism * Ethnocentrism * Hellenocentrism * Indocentrism * Sinocentrism

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Further reading== {{div col|colwidth=45em}} *{{cite journal |last1=Akmal |first1=M. |last2=Zulkifle |first2=M. |last3=Ansari |first3=A. H. |title=IBN Nafis – A Forgotten Genius in the Discovery of Pulmonary Blood Circulation |journal=Heart Views |date=2010 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=26–30 |pmc=2964710 |pmid=21042463 |ref=none}} * Samir Amin, ''Accumulation on a World Scale'', Monthly Review Press, 1974. * Samir Amin: ''L'eurocentrisme, critique d'une idéologie''. Paris 1988, engl. ''Eurocentrism'', Monthly Review Press 1989, {{ISBN|0-85345-786-7}} *{{cite journal |last1=Ansari |first1=A. S. Bazmee |title=Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Yahya al-Razi: Universal Scholar and Scientist |journal=Islamic Studies |date=1976 |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=155–166 |jstor=20847003 |ref=none}} *{{cite journal |last1=Bademci |first1=Gulsah |last2=Batay |first2=Funda |last3=Sabuncuoglu |first3=Hakan |title=First detailed description of axial traction techniques by Serefeddin Sabuncuoglu in the 15th century |journal=European Spine Journal |date=26 April 2005 |volume=14 |issue=8 |pages=810–812 |doi=10.1007/s00586-005-0889-3 |pmid=15856337 |pmc=3489253 |ref=none}} *Bernal, M. ''Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization'', Rutgers University Press (1987) {{ISBN|0-8135-1277-8}}) *Bessis, Sophie (2003). ''Western Supremacy: The Triumph of an Idea''. Zed Books. {{ISBN|9781842772195}} * Blaut, J. M. (1993) ''The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History''. Guilford Press. {{ISBN|0-89862-348-0}} * Blaut, J. M. (2000) ''Eight Eurocentric Historians''. Guilford Press. {{ISBN|1-57230-591-6}} *{{cite book |last=Bairoch |first=Paul |title=Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes |year=1993 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-03462-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/economicsworldhi00bair |ref=none}} *{{cite book |last=Baudet |first=E. H. P. |title=Paradise on Earth: Some Thoughts on European Images of Non-European Man |translator=Elizabeth Wentholt |year=1959 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, Connecticut |asin=B0007DKQMW |ref=none}} *{{cite book |last=Elders |first=Leo J. |doi=10.2307/j.ctv8j74r.19 |chapter=Avicenna |title=Thomas Aquinas and His Predecessors: The Philosophers and the Church Fathers in His Works |pages=283–305 |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-8132-3028-3 |location=Washington D.C. |publisher=Catholic University of America Press |ref=none}} *{{cite journal |last1=Fancy |first1=Nahyan |title=Medical Commentaries: A Preliminary Examination of Ibn al-Nafīsʾs Shurūḥ, the Mūjaz and Subsequent Commentaries on the Mūjaz |journal=Oriens |date=2013 |volume=41 |issue=3/4 |pages=525–545 |jstor=42637276 |doi=10.1163/18778372-13413412 |ref=none}} *Frank, Andre Gunder (1998) ''ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age''. University of California Press. * Haushofer, Karl (1924) ''Geopolitik des pazifischen Ozeans'', Berlin, Kurt Vowinckel Verlag. *Van der Pijl, Kees, ''The Discipline of Western Supremacy: Modes of Foreign Relations and Political Economy, Volume III'', Pluto Press, 2014, {{ISBN|9780745323183}} *{{cite journal |last1=Kren |first1=Claudia |title=The Rolling Device of Naṣir al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī in the De spera of Nicole Oresme? |journal=Isis |date=December 1971 |volume=62 |issue=4 |pages=490–498 |doi=10.1086/350791 |s2cid=144526697 |ref=none}} * Lambropoulos, Vassilis (1993) ''The Rise of Eurocentrism: Anatomy of interpretation'', Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. *{{cite book |last=Lefkowitz |first=Mary |title=Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History |author-link=Mary Lefkowitz |year=1996 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-465-09837-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/notoutofafricaho00lefk_1 |ref=none}} *{{cite journal |last1=Lin |first1=Daren |year=2008 |title=A Foundation of Western Ophthalmology in Medieval Islamic Medicine |journal=University of Western Ontario Medical Journal |volume=78 |issue=1 |pages=41–45 |ref=none}} *Lindqvist, Sven (1996). ''Exterminate all the brutes''. New Press, New York. {{ISBN|9781565843592}} *{{cite book |last1=Malhotra |first1=Rajiv |title=Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism |date=2013 |publisher=Harpercollins India |location=Noida |title-link=Being Different |ref=none}} *{{cite journal |last1=Masoud |first1=Mohammad T. |last2=Masoud |first2=Faiza |last3=Urquhart |first3=John |last4=Cattermole |first4=Giles N. |title=How Islam Changed Medicine |journal=BMJ: British Medical Journal |date=2006 |volume=332 |issue=7533 |pages=120–121 |doi=10.1136/bmj.332.7533.120-a |jstor=25455873 |pmid=16410601 |pmc=1326979 |ref=none}} *{{cite journal |last1=MA'ṢŪMĪ |first1=M. ṢAGHĪR ḤASAN |title=Imām Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and his Critics |journal=Islamic Studies |date=1967 |volume=6 |issue=4 |pages=355–374 |jstor=20832894 |ref=none}} *{{cite journal |first1=S. Mohammad |last1=Mozaffari |first2=Georg |last2=Zotti |title=Ghāzān Khān's Astronomical Innovations at Marāgha Observatory |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |date=2012 |volume=132 |issue=3 |page=395 |doi=10.7817/jameroriesoci.132.3.0395 |ref=none}} *{{cite journal |last1=Nowsheravi |first1=A. R. |title=Muslim Hospitals in the Medieval Period |journal=Islamic Studies |date=1983 |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=51–62 |jstor=23076050 |ref=none}} *{{cite book |last1=Preiswerk |first1=Roy |title=Ethnocentrism and History: Africa, Asia, and Indian America in Western Textbooks |last2=Perrot |first2=Dominique |year=1978 |publisher=NOK |location=New York and London |isbn=978-0-88357-071-5 |ref=none}} *Rabasa, Jose (1994) ''Inventing America: Spanish Historiography and the Formation of Eurocentrism'' (Oklahoma Project for Discourse and Theory, vol. 2), University of Oklahoma Press *{{cite journal |last1=Rüsen |first1=Jörn |title=How to Overcome Ethnocentrism: Approaches to a Culture of Recognition by History in the Twenty-First Century1 |journal=History and Theory |date=December 2004 |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=118–129 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-2303.2004.00301.x |ref=none}} *Said, Edward (1978). ''Orientalism''. Pantheon Books. {{ISBN|9780394428147}} *Schmidl, P. G. (2007) "ҁUrḍī: Mu'ayyad (al‐Milla wa‐) al‐Dīn (Mu'ayyad ibn Barīk [Burayk]) al‐ҁUrḍī (al‐ҁĀmirī al‐Dimashqī)". In: Hockey T. et al. (eds) ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers''. Springer, New York *Shohat, Ella and Stam, Robert (1994) ''Unthinking Eurocentrism: multiculturalism and the media''. New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-06325-6}} *{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=John D. |s2cid=118597450 |title=The Remarkable Ibn al-Haytham |journal=The Mathematical Gazette |date=March 1992 |volume=76 |issue=475 |pages=189–198 |doi=10.2307/3620392 |jstor=3620392 |ref=none}} *{{cite journal |last1=Tbakhi |first1=Abdelghani |last2=Amr |first2=Samir S. |title=Ibn Rushd (Averroës): Prince of Science |journal=Annals of Saudi Medicine |date=March 2008 |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=145–147 |doi=10.5144/0256-4947.2008.145 |pmid=18398288 |pmc=6074522 |ref=none}} *{{cite book |last=Trevor-Roper |first=Hugh |title=The Rise of Christian Europe |author-link=Hugh Trevor-Roper |year=1965 |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |asin=B000O894GO |ref=none}} *Vlassopoulos, K. (2011). ''Unthinking the Greek polis: Ancient Greek history beyond Eurocentrism''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Xypolia, Ilia (2016) "Eurocentrism and Orientalism" in ''The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies'' {{div col end}}

==External links== {{Wikiquote}} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20160327204903/https://infinityfoundation.com/mandala/h_rs/h_rs_malho_euro_frameset.htm Critiques of Eurocentrism Bibliography] *[https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/einrichtungen/cias/publikationen/wiki/e/eurocentrism.xml "Eurocentrism"] by Hannah Franzki, Center for InterAmerican Studies Wiki, Bielefeld University

Category:Eurocentrism Category:European-American culture Category:Ethnocentrism Category:Geocultural perspectives Category:Pan-Europeanism Category:Political neologisms Category:1970s neologisms Category:20th-century neologisms Category:Western culture