CHINA IN J. GOBINEAU’S THEORY Cover Image

КИТАЙ В ТЕОРИИ Ж. ГОБИНО
CHINA IN J. GOBINEAU’S THEORY

Author(s): Dmitry Evgenievich Martynov
Subject(s): History, Anthropology, Sociology, Culture and social structure , Social development, Demography and human biology
Published by: Казанский (Приволжский) федеральный университет
Keywords: China; Europe; Central Asia; socialism; egalitarianism; elitism; aristocratism; hierarchy; sociology; race theory;

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the place of Chinese civilization in J. Gobineau’s racial theory, which pretended to explain the global course of human history. With all his speculations, Gobineau anticipated a number of propositions of modern Sinology. In particularly, he pointed out the southern (rather than northern) genesis of early Chinese civilization. Gobineau was the first to use the term feudalism for describing socio-political structures in Pre-Imperial China and to contradistinguish aristocratic Europe from the egalitarian East. Moreover, long before the works of Max Weber, Gobineau tied Calvinist and Confucian approaches to economic rationality, though did not give any extensive explanation of them.

  • Issue Year: 156/2014
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 247-257
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: Russian