Is the 21st Century going to be the Asian Century?Theo Sommer

ASIEN – Nr. 100 (2006) pp. 70–78

For 500 years, Europe dominated the course of world history. The 19th century was the century of Europe, the twentieth became the American Century. Is the 21st century going to be the Asian Century? The hypothesis that the world spirit, having wandered from the heartland of Asia via Greece, Rome and Northwestern Europe to America, would soon return to its point of departure, has long intrigued western minds. Karl Marx was fascinated by it. It inspired Oswald Spengler’s gloomy vision of the Decline of the West. The British historian Arnold Toynbee was influenced by it as well. Nowadays it agitates all those Western apocalyptics who observe the awakening of Asia almost hysterically, considering its future paramountcy a forgone conclusion…