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The Past in the Present
Author(s) -
Helliwell Christine,
Hindess Barry
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
australian journal of politics and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-8497
pISSN - 0004-9522
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8497.2011.01603.x
Subject(s) - enlightenment , protestantism , roman empire , politics , history , empire , classics , government (linguistics) , the renaissance , ancient history , law , political science , philosophy , art history , theology , linguistics
At least since John Locke's observation (in his Second Treatise of Government , 1690) that “in the beginning, all the world was America”, Western thinkers have engaged in the practice of treating non‐Western people as if they were living in the European past, a practice which remains pervasive within contemporary social and political thought. This article begins to chart the genealogy of this practice, exploring its classical (ancient Greek and Roman) antecedents as well as its European Renaissance and Enlightenment variants. We focus particularly, in this latter regard, on the European discovery of America and the revolt by sixteenth‐century Protestant historians against the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire.