From Intercivilizational Encounters to Intercivilizational Analysis - Reflections on Robertson's Views of the Global Human Condition, and Beyond

This volume contributes to Roland Robertson's (1938-2022) thinking on the impact of civilizational traditions on contemporary global relations. It also includes chapters by Robertsonian scholars on the social implications of intercivilizational encounters. Through theoretical discussions and ethnographic documentation, the volume highlights the importance of human needs and aspirations at the center of civilizational analyses. It offers an original methodology to formulate intercivilizational principles of moral order and a related intercivilizational imaginary. Readers will find in this volume a much-needed strategy to transform contemporary civilizational conflicts and manipulations into intercivilizational undertakings in reciprocal understanding, learning, and cooperation. This volume includes contributions from noted globalization scholars and is a must-read for those interested in macro-perspectives on globalization and global processes. 

List of contents

Introduction: On the Humanistic and Critical Perspective of Robertson s Civilizational Analysis.- Part I: Civilizational Analysis.- The Uses and Abuses of Civilizational Analysis: Bringing an Ontological Dialogue into Contention.- Civilizational Analysis, Legal Cultures, and Divergent Outcomes.- Globalization, Civilization and the Third Research Program of Multiple Modernities.- Part II: The Study of Inter civilizational Processes.- From Inter-civilizational Encounters to Global Modernity: The Journey of the Concept of Inter-civilizational Interaction.- On Translations Between Civilizational Worlds: Travelling with Roland Robertson Between Inter-civilizational Encounters and Civilizing Processes.- The Crossroads of Inter-civilizational encounters: Diasporas and Exilic Experiences.- Part III:  Case Studies of Inter civilizational Processes.- Globalization and Inter-civilizational Analysis: Orthodox Christianity in a World-Historical Perspective.- "Glocal" and Inter-civilizational: Roland Robertson and China's Globalization Studies and Practice.- On the Value of Studying Another Form of Civilization: Roland Robertson, Japan, and Glocalization.- Comparative Intra - Asian Civilizational Approach: Conceptualizing Global Asia.- Part  IV: On Inter civilizational Analysis.- Robertson s Prospective Embracement of Inter-civilizational Analysis: Notes from a Correspondence with Theoretical Significance.- Glocalizing Time and Space: Inercivilizational Encounters and Global Consciousness in the Era of Deglobalization".- Cultural and Civilizational Values of Dialogue in the Modern World.- Roland Robertson on Modernities, Glocalization and Populism: Cautionary Words on the Inter-civilizational Paradigm.- Toward the Construction of a Moral Order: An Inter-civilizational Framework for Civilizational Aanalysis.

About the author

Ino Rossi is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Saint John’s University, NYC, where he served as a chair of the department and a faculty member of the Interdisciplinary Doctor of Arts in Modern World History. He has a Master in Sociology from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Anthropology-Sociology from the New School for Social Research, New York. His publishing career began with four edited books: Cultural Anthropology: Anthropology Full Circle; People in Culture: A Survey of Cultural Anthropology, and two interpretive critiques and elaborations of Claude Levi-Strauss’s structuralism: The Unconscious in Culture: Levi-Strauss' Structuralism in Perspective, and The Logic of Culture: Refinements of Structural Theory and Method. Then, he went on to propose a structuralist-dialectic approach in sociology with an authored volume: From the Sociology of Symbols to the Sociology of Signs: Toward a Dialectical Sociology, and an edited one: Structural Sociology: Theoretical Essays and Substantive Analyses (with the contributions of T. Parsons, S. Eisenstadt, M. Godelier, C. Lemert, A. Stinchombe among others). He applied the structuralist-dialectic approach in disaster studies under an NSF grant with an authored book (Community Reconstruction after an Earthquake: Dialectical Sociology in Action). The study of reconstruction and developmental issues led him to the field of globalization, first with an edited book on its theoretical and methodological foundations (Frontiers of Globalization Research, Springer) and with another more recent one offering a systematic documentation of the input of globalization on the Global North and Global South as well as a new approach on possible inter-civilizational understanding and dialogue (Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order, Springer). He is the editor of Springer’s series “Emerging Globalities and Civilizational Perspectives”.

Summary

This volume contributes to Roland Robertson’s (1938-2022) thinking on the impact of civilizational traditions on contemporary global relations. It also includes chapters by Robertsonian scholars on the social implications of intercivilizational encounters. Through theoretical discussions and ethnographic documentation, the volume highlights the importance of human needs and aspirations at the center of civilizational analyses. It offers an original methodology to formulate intercivilizational principles of moral order and a related intercivilizational imaginary. Readers will find in this volume a much-needed strategy to transform contemporary civilizational conflicts and manipulations into intercivilizational undertakings in reciprocal understanding, learning, and cooperation. This volume includes contributions from noted globalization scholars and is a must-read for those interested in macro-perspectives on globalization and global processes. 

Product details

• Assisted by: Ino Rossi (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 18.09.2025
• EAN: 9783031971877
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3197187-7
• No. of pages: 500
• Illustrations: X, 500 p.
• Series: Emerging Globalities and Civilizational Perspectives
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Political sociology; Globalisierung, Sozialwesen und soziale Dienste, Kommunal-, Regional- Landes und Lokalregierung, Globalization, Politik und Staat, Sociological Theory, Political Sociology, Glocalization, Global Social Policy, Intracivilizational analysis, Civilizational engagements, Exile experiences