A comprehensive intellectual history of the idea of the West How did ' the West' come to be
used as a collective self-designation signaling political and cultural commonality? When did '
Westerners' begin to refer to themselves in this way? Was the idea handed down from the ancient
Greeks or coined by nineteenth-century imperialists? Neither writes Georgios Varouxakis in
The West his ambitious and fascinating genealogy of the idea. ' The West' was not used by
Plato Cicero Locke Mill or other canonized figures of what we today call the Western
tradition. It was not first wielded by empire-builders. It was Varouxakis shows decisively
promoted in the 1840s by the French philosopher Auguste Comte (whose political project
incidentally was passionately anti-imperialist). The need for the use of the term' the West'
emerged to avoid the confusing or unwanted consequences of the use of ' Europe.' The two
overlapped but were not identical with the West used to exclude certain ' others' within
Europe as well as to include the Americas. After examining the origins Varouxakis traces the
many and often surprising changes in the ways in which the West has been understood and the
different intentions and repercussions related to a series of these contested definitions.
While other theories of the West consider only particular aspects of the concept and its
history (if only in order to take aim at its reputation) Varouxakis's analysis offers a
comprehensive multilayered account that reaches to the present day exploring the multiplicity
of current and prospective meanings. He concludes with an examination of how since 2022
definitions and membership in the West are being reworked to include Ukraine as the evolution
and redefinition continue.
