Western Supremacy

This book traces the journey of western domination from the conquest of theAmericas to the current forms and practices of globalization and development.Bessis contends that the West, unlike other empires of the past, is theonly one to have produced a theoretical (philosophical, moral, and scientific)apparatus to legitimate its supremacy and hegemony around the world.While making her case, she explores what she terms as the ultimate paradoxof the West: its ability to produce and even violently promote universals(e.g., democracy, justice, and human rights) and yet, at the same time, exertan inexhaustible capacity to self-justify its own violations of these very universals.It is precisely this capacity to disassociate what it says from what itdoes, the author asserts, that makes the West both unintelligent and illegitimateto the world. This book, divided into three parts with 12 chapters, providesthe reader with an excellent introductory overview of the nature andextent of western domination, as well as the relationship it has fostered withthe rest of the world.Part 1, “The Formation of a Culture,” sets out the West’s historicopoliticalformation, tracing its birth to the turn of the sixteenth century ...