Paper proposal accepted at 18th Annual World History Association Conference, Salem State College, Salem, Massachusetts, June 25-28, 2009. Focusing on British imperial experience, and developing hints offered by recent research in the global history of ideas, the paper tries to outline a pattern of interaction which involved the culture and the missionary élan of European imperialism, religious developments in its metropolitan centers, non-Western responses to the challenges of modernity in its peripheries. As revealed by the influential writings of proponents of Imperial Federation or the British Commonwealth of Nations, like Seeley, L. Curtis, Toynbee, British empire-builders perceived themselves as co-operators with a “natural” plan of education of mankind which called their country to evolve from nation-state to world-state, to oversee the civilizational marriage between Europe and Asia, to lead humanity to its ultimate goal: a universal polity embodying the Kingdom of God. This form of secularized eschatology claimed the status of a true, updated interpretation of the Christian message, which was deemed identical with the ethics of the “infinite duty of men to each other”, compatible with scientific rationalism, and thus sheltered from the criticisms directed against revealed religion. It was warmly welcomed and embraced by large sections of Protestant liberalism (e. g. the Broad Church Movement). But British latitudinarianism in its 19th-century imperial version, joining forces with other intellectual trends incorporating Christian values and modes of thought (Idealism, Positivism, Mazzinianism), proved also capable to exert a strong appeal on the heirs of non-Western religious traditions who, particularly in India and the Muslim world, were dealing with analogous problems: how to adapt their evolving systems of values and beliefs to an historical environment undergoing the changes dramatically accelerated by European domination.
Religion and British Imperial Experience in a World Historical Perspective, c. 1850-1950 / Tagliaferri, Teodoro. - (2009). (Intervento presentato al convegno Merchants and Missionaries: Trade and Religion in World History, 18th Annual World History Association Conference tenutosi a Salem State College, Salem, Massachusetts, USA nel June 25-28. 2009).
Religion and British Imperial Experience in a World Historical Perspective, c. 1850-1950
TAGLIAFERRI, TEODORO
2009
Abstract
Paper proposal accepted at 18th Annual World History Association Conference, Salem State College, Salem, Massachusetts, June 25-28, 2009. Focusing on British imperial experience, and developing hints offered by recent research in the global history of ideas, the paper tries to outline a pattern of interaction which involved the culture and the missionary élan of European imperialism, religious developments in its metropolitan centers, non-Western responses to the challenges of modernity in its peripheries. As revealed by the influential writings of proponents of Imperial Federation or the British Commonwealth of Nations, like Seeley, L. Curtis, Toynbee, British empire-builders perceived themselves as co-operators with a “natural” plan of education of mankind which called their country to evolve from nation-state to world-state, to oversee the civilizational marriage between Europe and Asia, to lead humanity to its ultimate goal: a universal polity embodying the Kingdom of God. This form of secularized eschatology claimed the status of a true, updated interpretation of the Christian message, which was deemed identical with the ethics of the “infinite duty of men to each other”, compatible with scientific rationalism, and thus sheltered from the criticisms directed against revealed religion. It was warmly welcomed and embraced by large sections of Protestant liberalism (e. g. the Broad Church Movement). But British latitudinarianism in its 19th-century imperial version, joining forces with other intellectual trends incorporating Christian values and modes of thought (Idealism, Positivism, Mazzinianism), proved also capable to exert a strong appeal on the heirs of non-Western religious traditions who, particularly in India and the Muslim world, were dealing with analogous problems: how to adapt their evolving systems of values and beliefs to an historical environment undergoing the changes dramatically accelerated by European domination.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
