JONES, Charles A. "American civilization", Volume 2, February 2013, Human Figurations, Permalink: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.11217607.0002.104
Reading the title "American civilization" we may think of the many aspects we can talk about it such as the political, social or economic background. The author, Charles Arthur Jones, is an emeritus college professor from the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) at Cambridge University. In his very current article from 2013, he makes points accurately about the abovementioned scenarios. Furthermore, he delineates the concept of civilization, discusses frontiers, cultural and social differences, modernity, and compiles some historical facts to base his arguments.
The paper is a shortened version of the homonymous book, written by the same author and, published in 2007. The article organized into subheadings, which in the end, conveys the purpose of showing the challenging nature of cultural differences within restricted spaces. On the first subhead, named "Delineating Civilizations", he starts by expressing his different opinion to the limited conception of Samuel Huntington (1993; 1997) regarding the replacement of the "clash of ideologies" by a "clash of civilizations" after the Cold War (1991). Besides that, Huntington believed that the Latino presence in the United States would be a serious threat to maintaining a supposed US national identity.
Jones accomplishes an embracing point when he affirms that there is no single Western civilization and if there is an American civilization, it includes the whole hemisphere. He says that what unifies a civilization are not accomplishments such as those shown by indices of development, democracy, urbanization or productivity. In addition to these social results, are other variables such as religiosity, rates of incarceration, murder, and ethnic diversity. These are extra measures that can differentiate Western Europe from the Americas, thus we should put North and South together as a whole.
The second subhead is titled "Three Conceptions of Modernity". In this part, the author refers to other writers such as Bayly (2004), Jones (2007), O'Gorman (1961), Hannah Arendt (1973: 23) Anthony Trollope (1968: 115), Robert W. Tucker and Lynn Miller (1961: 264-66). Regarding modernity, the author crosses a thought line to explain when, where and how, in history, modernity has fallen and arisen through the eras. Therefore, there is no single modernity. For instance, events such as the abdication of Romulus Augustus in 476 CE, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 CE, are dated as being the end of antiquity and medieval period respectively.
After that, the Americas' "discoveries", around 1492 and 1500, were taken as the "archetype of modernity" where the Europeans could achieve their new "project of modernity". At this point, the author is frank when he says that "social experiments" such as slavery and other forms of coerced labor and genocide, that could not quickly be launched at the time in Europe proved possible in the Americas.
While the third subhead cares a little about "A common American History", marked by wars, revolutions, slavery, and migration, the last subhead summarizes that a discernibly American identity unites the republics of the Western hemisphere in the modern period. After all, the author says that a definition of civilization "should not principally be concerned to establish homogeneity within a territory with clearly defined borders. He suggests recognizing diversity, especially unique solutions to "the challenge of cultural differences."
Jones's article is very current, brings reliable sources and seems to be extremely useful for the scholar audience and those who want to review or update her or her knowledge about history and society.
Reading the title "American civilization" we may think of the many aspects we can talk about it such as the political, social or economic background. The author, Charles Arthur Jones, is an emeritus college professor from the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) at Cambridge University. In his very current article from 2013, he makes points accurately about the abovementioned scenarios. Furthermore, he delineates the concept of civilization, discusses frontiers, cultural and social differences, modernity, and compiles some historical facts to base his arguments.
The paper is a shortened version of the homonymous book, written by the same author and, published in 2007. The article organized into subheadings, which in the end, conveys the purpose of showing the challenging nature of cultural differences within restricted spaces. On the first subhead, named "Delineating Civilizations", he starts by expressing his different opinion to the limited conception of Samuel Huntington (1993; 1997) regarding the replacement of the "clash of ideologies" by a "clash of civilizations" after the Cold War (1991). Besides that, Huntington believed that the Latino presence in the United States would be a serious threat to maintaining a supposed US national identity.
Jones accomplishes an embracing point when he affirms that there is no single Western civilization and if there is an American civilization, it includes the whole hemisphere. He says that what unifies a civilization are not accomplishments such as those shown by indices of development, democracy, urbanization or productivity. In addition to these social results, are other variables such as religiosity, rates of incarceration, murder, and ethnic diversity. These are extra measures that can differentiate Western Europe from the Americas, thus we should put North and South together as a whole.
The second subhead is titled "Three Conceptions of Modernity". In this part, the author refers to other writers such as Bayly (2004), Jones (2007), O'Gorman (1961), Hannah Arendt (1973: 23) Anthony Trollope (1968: 115), Robert W. Tucker and Lynn Miller (1961: 264-66). Regarding modernity, the author crosses a thought line to explain when, where and how, in history, modernity has fallen and arisen through the eras. Therefore, there is no single modernity. For instance, events such as the abdication of Romulus Augustus in 476 CE, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 CE, are dated as being the end of antiquity and medieval period respectively.
After that, the Americas' "discoveries", around 1492 and 1500, were taken as the "archetype of modernity" where the Europeans could achieve their new "project of modernity". At this point, the author is frank when he says that "social experiments" such as slavery and other forms of coerced labor and genocide, that could not quickly be launched at the time in Europe proved possible in the Americas.
While the third subhead cares a little about "A common American History", marked by wars, revolutions, slavery, and migration, the last subhead summarizes that a discernibly American identity unites the republics of the Western hemisphere in the modern period. After all, the author says that a definition of civilization "should not principally be concerned to establish homogeneity within a territory with clearly defined borders. He suggests recognizing diversity, especially unique solutions to "the challenge of cultural differences."
Jones's article is very current, brings reliable sources and seems to be extremely useful for the scholar audience and those who want to review or update her or her knowledge about history and society.
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