Conclusion

Abstract

The West is not a Western invention. At least, not simply or merely. It was developed and imagined in important, new and influential ways in the non-West. This argument implies a re-orientation of the way the modern world is imagined. It challenges the tautological use of such phrases as ‘Western modernity’ and ‘Western civilisation’. It also suggests that the common image of Western action and non-Western re-action was always inaccurate: that ‘the West’ has been employed, and deployed as an idea to develop and secure a variety of geo-political projects across the globe.