Description
Book SynopsisEurope (in Theory) is an innovative analysis of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ideas about Europe that continue to inform thinking about culture, politics, and identity today. Drawing on insights from subaltern and postcolonial studies, this title deconstructs imperialism not from the so-called periphery but from within Europe itself.
Trade Review“Remarkably lucid and accessible,
Europe (in Theory) is a superb antidote to the ‘clash of civilizations’ mindset. It ought to be required reading in any course on imperialism and/or postcolonialism.”—Joseph A. Buttigieg, editor of Antonio Gramsci’s
Prison Notebooks“What does Europe look like when you look at it from Sicily? It looks very much like Europe seen from its ex-colonies. Roberto M. Dainotto has shifted the geography of understanding and made a signal contribution to an ‘epistemology of the South.’
Europe (in Theory) is a landmark. A neglected archive, like the work of Michele Amari, becomes the anchor for a de-colonial take on Eurocentrism from inside Europe itself.”—Walter D. Mignolo, author of
The Idea of Latin America“Written in a lively style,
Europe (in Theory) is fresh, innovative, and brings the most advanced post-colonial and historiographic positions into Italian studies and conversely suggests that an understanding of Italy’s complex past could enrich American cultural studies, Mediterranean area studies and the thorny issue of the relation of Islamic culture to Christian Europe.” -- Peter Carravetta * Journal of Modern Italian Studies *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction: A Pigs Eye View of Europe 1
1. The Discovery of Europe: Some Critical Points 11
2. Montesquieu’s North and South: History as a Theory of Europe 52
3. Republics of Letters: What Is European Literature? 87
4. Mme de Stael to Hegel: The End of French Europe 134
5. Orientalism, Mediterranean Style: The Limits of History at the Margins of Europe 172
Notes 219
Works Cited 239
Index 267
