White Mythologies: Writing History and the West

In the first edition of White Mythologies (1990) Rober J.C. Young challenged the foundational status of history, asking whether in this postmodern era we should consider it a questionable and uncertain Western myth.  Above all, he asked, is it possible to write history that avoids the trap of Eurocentrism? Investigating the history of 'History', from Hegel to Foucault, White Mythologies interrogates traditional accounts of 'World History' that treat the so-called 'Third World' as peripheral to the narrative of the West.  Young goes on to consider questionings of the limits of Western knowledge in the work of Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Homi Bhabha.  For Young, these thinkers have been involved in a project to decolonize History and to deconstruct 'the West'.  Their powerful subversive strategies highlight the relation of history to theory and of politics to knowledge.  White Mythologies has proved to be one of the most important critical works in postcolonial theory of the past two decades.  It has engendered much debate and inspired countless critical responses. Fourteen years after publication, Robert J.C. Young returns to the issues raised in this book to offer fresh perspectives and to reflect upon developments in the debates on postcolonialism since White Mythologies was first published.