There is a well-established tradition of scholarly writing that treats geographical areas of the world as natural, preformed backgrounds against which historical events unfold. This perspective, with roots in Enlightenment thinkers like Montesquieu, lives on in the work of conservative political theorists like Samuel Huntington, for whom civilizations were built on permanent geo-ethnic blocs, as well as in the work of Marxist scholars like Immanuel Wallerstein, for whom center and periphery were products of long-term geographical imbalances.
******
Arjun Appadurai: “Achille Mbembe’s vision of emancipation has global implications... We encounter arguably one of the closest things we have today to an avatar of Frantz Fanon. His arguments stand out for the force of their claims”
