Oriental despotism

For the 1957 book by Karl August Wittfogel, see Oriental Despotism.

Oriental potentate by Charles Toché

Oriental despotism refers to the Western view of Asian societies as politically or morally more susceptible to despotic rule, and therefore different from the democratic West. This view is often pejorative. ^{[1] [2]} The term is often associated with Karl August Wittfogel's 1957 book Oriental Despotism , ^[3] although this work primarily focusses on hydraulic empires.

First articulated explicitly by Aristotle, who contrasted the perceived natural freedom of Greeks with the alleged servitude of Persians and other "barbarian" peoples, the concept was developed extensively in European thought during the Enlightenment. Notably, Montesquieu, in his influential Spirit of the Laws (1748), defined Oriental despotism as a distinct type of governance based on absolute power concentrated in the hands of a single ruler, maintained through fear rather than law or tradition.

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the idea of Oriental despotism served both as a theoretical explanation of supposed Eastern political stagnation and as a rhetorical justification for Western colonial and imperial ventures. It evolved further within Marxist thought as part of the "Asiatic mode of production," depicting Asian civilizations as economically stagnant due to centralized control over land and irrigation. In the mid-20th century, Karl Wittfogel's book Oriental Despotism (1957) controversially revived the concept, applying it critically to communist states like the USSR and China, describing their centralized bureaucratic control as modern forms of ancient despotic governance.

Today, the term "Oriental despotism" is widely recognized as problematic and Eurocentric, ^[4] largely discredited by contemporary scholarship that emphasizes its ideological underpinnings rooted in colonialism and Orientalist stereotypes. ^{[5] [6]} Nevertheless, the concept remains historically significant for understanding Western perceptions of Eastern political institutions, and continues to influence debates about authoritarian governance, East-West distinctions, and post-colonial critiques of historical narratives. ^{[7] [8]}

Classical and early modern origins

The concept of "Oriental despotism" first took shape in classical antiquity as a way for Greeks to contrast their own political ethos with that of the "barbarian" East. ^{[9] [10] [11]} In Aristotle's Politics (4th century BCE), despotic monarchy was defined as the absolute rule of a master over slaves, a form of monarchy legitimate and hereditary among those who supposedly accepted servitude, unlike tyranny which was illegitimate rule over the unwilling. ^[12] Aristotle explicitly theorized that while Greeks, by their nature, would not tolerate absolute domination for long, certain non-Greek peoples (exemplified by the Persians) were "by nature" inclined to obey one all-powerful ruler. ^[13] Despotism, in this view, was natural and even stable among "barbarous" nations but alien to the freedom-loving Greeks. This Greek stereotype of Asiatic peoples as natural slaves underpinned a lasting dichotomy: the "Oriental" world was cast as inherently despotic, opposed to the liberty and civic life of the West. ^[14] Ancient writers from Aeschylus to Isocrates had already portrayed the Persian Great King as an autocrat over slavish subjects, and Aristotle's theory codified this into political philosophy, making "Oriental despotism" a byword for the antithesis of Greek polity. ^[15]

Throughout late antiquity and the medieval era, this idea persisted and evolved. ^[16] After Aristotle's works were rediscovered in medieval Europe, scholastic thinkers like Thomas Aquinas ^[17] and Marsilius of Padua ^[18] renewed the Aristotelian notion that certain Eastern realms were naturally suited to despotic rule. By the early modern period, European observers applied the term to contemporary empires. Machiavelli in 1513 (though not using the word "despotism") distinguished the Ottoman "state of slaves" (an absolutist sultanate with no intermediate nobility) from the more pluralistic monarchies of Europe. ^[19] He noted that a regime like Ottoman Turkey, where the prince held all authority directly, was hard to conquer but easy to hold, whereas a European kingdom with powerful lords was the opposite: an analysis underscoring fundamental East-West differences in governance. ^{[20] [21]}

Political theorist Jean Bodin systematized these contrasts in the late 16th century. ^{[22] [23]} Bodin described a type of sovereignty he called monarchie seigneuriale (seignorial or lordly monarchy) in which the ruler's power over subjects was absolute and "limitless, similar to that of a master over slaves". ^{[24] [25]} Although Bodin did not use the word "despotism" explicitly, he cited the Ottoman Empire as the prime example: a government where no private property or fundamental law existed to restrain the sovereign, who was sole owner of all land and goods. This he distinguished from a monarchie royale (royal/legitimate monarchy) like France, where property rights, divine and natural laws, and customary legal limits tempered absolutism. ^{[24] [25]} Bodin attributed Oriental-style limitless monarchy not to any innate ethnic trait (as Aristotle had) but to historical circumstance: conquest and subjugation in the wake of war. ^{[26] [27]} In his view, despotic monarchy was the oldest and most primitive form of regime, capable of long stability, and not confined to Asia: even Charles V's Spanish colonial empire could be seen as despotic since it arose from conquest and lacked traditional checks. ^[28] Bodin's formulation thus broadened "Oriental despotism" into a trans-historical category of absolute conquest-states, while reinforcing the notion that the Ottoman sultan's rule was fundamentally different from European kingship. ^{[18] [29]}

Travelers and missionaries of the 16th and 17th centuries further cemented the concept with empirical detail. Works like Giovanni Botero's Relazioni universali (1590s) collated reports of Eastern courts ^[30] and generalized that many Asiatic kingdoms, from Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Persia to Mughal India, China, and Siam, shared a despotic character. ^{[31] [32]} This marked an important expansion of the idea beyond the Ottoman example, applying a single model of absolutism across the diverse "Orient". François Bernier, a French physician in Mughal India in the 1660s, gave one of the classic accounts: he depicted the Mughal Empire as tyrannically administered, with crushing taxation, no secure private property, and a stark gulf between an all-powerful emperor and the impoverished populace. ^[33] Bernier argued that the absence of hereditary land rights and the caprice of officials led to economic ruin – a critique that would heavily influence European views of India as the paradigm of oriental misrule. ^[34] Similarly, Jean Chardin's travels in Safavid Persia (1670s) described an autocratic state where historical contingencies (like the need to suppress an aristocracy) had concentrated extreme power in the Shah's hands. ^{[35] [36] [37]} Chardin notably downplayed cultural or religious explanations: he observed that Persian and Turkish governments differed despite both being Islamic, and concluded that "oriental despotism" took varied forms depending on local circumstances. ^[17] Such first-hand reports, while sometimes tempering sweeping theories, generally confirmed Europeans' belief that in Asia the ruler's will was law and customary liberties were absent. ^[38] By 1700, the image of vast Eastern empires ruled by capricious, all-controlling despots, in contrast to Europe's evolving legal-constitutional orders, was firmly established in the Western imagination. ^{[39] [40]}

Enlightenment theories and debates

The 18th-century Enlightenment made "Oriental despotism" a central concept in political thought. ^{[41] [39] [40]} Thinkers of this era used the idea both to analyze Asian governance and to draw contrasts highlighting (or questioning) Europe's superiority. The seminal figure was Charles-Louis de Montesquieu, whose Persian Letters (1721) and Spirit of the Laws (1748) gave the classic Enlightenment definition of oriental despotism. ^{[42] [43]} Montesquieu argued that of the three basic types of government (republics, monarchies, and despotisms) all Asian societies fell into the despotic category. ^{[44] [45]} In his taxonomy, a despotism was not merely an abusive monarchy but a distinct form of rule: it was a polity in which one individual holds all power, law is the ruler's whim, and subjects are treated as passive slaves with no liberty. ^{[46] [47]} Crucially, Montesquieu treated this as a system with its own internal logic and stability, not just a degenerated European monarchy. ^{[48] [49]} He sought to explain why despotism predominated across the Orient, examining factors from climate to religion. ^[26] In Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu famously posited that the vast, fertile plains of Asia and its warm climates facilitated centralized control and pervasive fear, whereas Europe's cooler climate and fragmented geography bred liberty and moderation. ^{[50] [51]} He identified "intimidation" as the principle of despotism (rule by fear) in contrast to honor in monarchies or virtue in republics. ^{[52] [53]} Montesquieu also linked political absolutism with social and cultural conditions: for example, he argued that Islam, by uniting spiritual and temporal authority, was an "ally" of despotism (though he acknowledged religion could sometimes restrain a despot by imposing moral rules). ^{[17] [54] [55]}

Despite its negative judgment, Montesquieu's analysis was empirical and comparative for its time. ^{[47] [46] [54]} He drew heavily on travel literature (citing sources like Bernier and Chardin) to catalogue variations in Oriental governments. ^{[56] [57]} For instance, he noted that Persia's succession of despotisms differed from China's stable bureaucratic autocracy, yet in his view both shared the essential quality of power without check. ^{[58] [59]} Asia, in his view, was the natural home of despotism, a vast milieu where geography and history conspired to keep societies stagnant under arbitrary rule. ^{[44] [60]} Europe, by contrast, was presented as uniquely disposed to freedom, though Montesquieu did warn that even European states might lapse into despotism under certain conditions (for example, if a monarch extended his realm too far and eroded intermediate institutions, a scenario he feared in his own era). ^{[61] [62]} Published to great acclaim, Spirit of the Laws made Oriental despotism a standard lens through which Enlightenment Europe viewed the East. ^{[47] [46] [54]} Montesquieu's influence ensured that late 18th-century political theory assumed a basic opposition: Occident = moderate government under law, Orient = unchecked despotic power. ^{[63] [64]}

Not all philosophes agreed on the causes or even the existence of such a stark East-West divide, and the concept sparked lively debate. Voltaire, for example, admired certain Asian civilizations and accused Montesquieu of misreading his sources. ^{[65] [64]} In a rebuttal, Voltaire argued that real Eastern states like Ottoman Turkey did not fit Montesquieu's caricature. ^[66] Drawing on empirical observation, he claimed there were laws and constraints in Muslim kingdoms and that Montesquieu had conjured a theoretical despotism that had no matches in history. ^{[65] [64] [66]} Other critics with firsthand expertise bolstered this view: the orientalist Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, who had lived in India and Persia, published Législation Orientale (1778) to refute the notion that Oriental rulers were entirely above the law or that private property was absent in Asia. ^{[22] [67] [68]} Anquetil showed, for instance, that the Mughal and Persian empires had legal codes and recognized property rights, thereby directly challenging the stereotype of an omnipotent Asiatic monarch owning everything and everyone. ^{[39] [64] [26]} Such critiques were motivated not only by scholarly accuracy but also by contemporary politics: as European colonial interests in places like India grew, there was an urgent need to understand Asian systems on their own terms, rather than dismiss them as mere despotisms. ^{[69] [70]} Anquetil warned that glibly labeling India despotic insulted a complex civilization, especially at a time when France and Britain were vying for influence there. ^{[71] [68]}

Meanwhile, other Enlightenment writers took Montesquieu's thesis in different directions. Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger's Recherches sur l'origine du despotisme oriental (1761) concurred that Asiatic despotism was real, but rooted it firmly in theocracy (a word coined in that work): ^[72] he argued that priestly authority and "mystification" of the masses through religion were the ultimate basis of despots' power. ^{[73] [74]} Boulanger thus shifted emphasis away from climate and toward religion as the engine of Oriental absolute rule, reflecting the broader anti-clerical spirit of the Enlightenment (using "Asiatic tyranny" as a veiled critique of European churchly domination as well). ^[75] Helvétius and others echoed Boulanger in doubting geography as destiny; they saw despotism as a political construct, often buttressed by superstition, rather than a simple outgrowth of environment. ^[76] At the Enlightenment's end, Condorcet in his Sketch for a Historical Picture of Progress (c.1794) gave the idea a humanitarian revolutionary twist: he portrayed Orient vs. Occident in stark moral terms and urged "enlightened" European nations to emancipate the peoples subjected to Oriental despotism, whom he saw as trapped in oppression and stagnation. ^{[77] [78]} This was an early articulation of what would later be called the "civilizing mission", using the trope of despotic East to justify Western intervention as a benevolent duty. ^{[79] [80]}

Notably, China occupied a special place in Enlightenment discussions. The French physiocrats (economic philosophers) admired China's agrarian bureaucracy and, rather counter-intuitively, held it up as a model of "good" despotism. ^[81] François Quesnay's essay Despotisme de la Chine (1767) argued that the Chinese emperor's rule was effectively constrained by rational laws and Confucian moral order, making it a benevolent autocracy quite unlike the arbitrary despotisms elsewhere. ^[82] The physiocrats coined the term "legal despotism" or "despotism of evidence", suggesting that an enlightened absolute ruler following natural law could achieve social harmony and prosperity. ^{[83] [84] [85]} They thus offered a rare positive re-imagining of Oriental despotism, leveraging Jesuit reports of China's stable governance to argue that strong central authority was not always tyrannical but could be virtuous and economically beneficial. ^{[82] [86]} This sinophilic strand stood in contrast to Montesquieu's largely negative schema, highlighting that Enlightenment thought about the East was diverse: some saw Asia's autocrats as despised symbols of backwardness, others as exemplars of orderly paternalistic rule. ^[87]

By the late 18th century, "Oriental despotism" had become a commonplace of Western discourse, so much so that it even bounced back on Europe's own self-analysis. French critics of absolutism, during and after Louis XIV's reign, routinely compared their king to an "Oriental despot" and France to a Persia or Turkey in bondage. ^{[88] [89]} Montesquieu's Persian Letters itself satirized French society through the eyes of Persian visitors, implicitly likening Louis XIV's centralized state to an oriental court. ^[90] In Britain's imperial debates, too, the trope was invoked: figures like Edmund Burke lambasted misrule in British India by warning that Europeans were descending to the level of oriental despots in their treatment of Indians. ^[91] As colonial administrators gained direct experience in Asia, they sometimes took the concept literally, with significant consequences: British officials in late 18th-century India, imbued with the idea that the Mughal system was one of absolutism without private land ownership, implemented reforms (such as the Permanent Settlement of Bengal in 1793) to create secure property rights, hoping to remedy "oriental" defects. ^[92] This policy of treating zamindars (revenue landlords) as English-style proprietors was a direct application of Enlightenment political theory, and it backfired, causing economic disruption and social dislocation. ^{[93] [94]} The episode vividly demonstrated how the European idea of Oriental despotism, when imposed as a template on Eastern societies, could misjudge native institutions and produce unintended results. Thus by 1800 the concept was not merely academic: it underpinned real strategies of governance and justified both liberal reforms and imperial domination in the non-Western world. ^{[95] [96]}

19th-century evolutionary frameworks and Marxist theory

Around the turn of the 19th century, the notion of Oriental despotism was absorbed into new grand theories of historical development. Enlightenment universalism gave way to evolutionary or stadial thinking, and many writers placed despotism as an early stage in humanity's political progression. Late Enlightenment and German Idealist philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, J. G. Herder, and above all G. W. F. Hegel, repackaged the East-West dichotomy in a developmental schema. Kant, for example, described some Asian states (like China) as static despotic regimes and voiced a growing Sinophobia in German thought, suggesting that China's supposedly unchanging absolutism illustrated a lack of progress. ^{[97] [40]} Herder associated the predominance of agriculture and settled village life in Asia with political stagnation and despotism, implying that societies pass through an "agricultural despotic" phase before higher forms of civic freedom emerge. ^{[98] [99]} These ideas fed into Hegel's influential philosophy of history (lectured 1820s), which placed "Oriental despotism" as the starting point of world-historical development. ^[100] Hegel taught that the Oriental world was the "childhood of history": the first stage in the evolution of Spirit (Geist), where only one person (the emperor or sultan) is truly free and the rest have no individual autonomy. ^[101] In Hegel's dialectic, history is the story of freedom gradually expanding, and in the Orient this process had barely begun. ^[102] Despotic Asia, he argued, represented a society just out of the state of nature but not yet aware of personal rights; ^[103] it was a homogeneous mass ruled by an absolute will. ^[104] The consequence was political immobility: Hegel asserted that Eastern empires (China, India, Persia, etc.) were essentially static and extraneous to the true "development of Spirit," which moved westward to Greece, Rome, and ultimately the Germanic (European) world. ^[105] "The History of the World travels from East to West," Hegel declared, for Europe is the end of history: ^[106] the Orient, lacking internal dynamism, remained stuck in time. ^{[107] [108]} This schema reinforced an "inexorable connection between despotism and immobility", ^[109] giving a philosophical rationale to the earlier Enlightenment judgment that Asia was fundamentally different and inferior in political terms. ^[109] Hegel's prestige helped to canonize the idea that Oriental despotism implies absence of historical progress, ^{[107] [108]} a view that dovetailed with 19th-century imperial ideology (the White Man's Burden to bring progress to the stagnant East) and with European justifications of their global dominance. ^{[110] [111] [112]}

The most significant adaptation of the concept in the 19th century came from the realm of political economy and Marxist theory. Karl Marx, while initially influenced by Hegel's constructs, reinterpreted Oriental despotism in materialist terms as part of his theory of the "Asiatic mode of production." ^{[113] [114]} Writing in the 1850s about India and China, Marx picked up long-noted features, such as the absence of private landownership and the village-based agrarian economy, and argued these formed a distinct socioeconomic system. ^[115] In Marx's analysis, Oriental despotism was rooted in economic structure: because land was traditionally owned by the sovereign (or the community) rather than individuals, and villages were largely self-sufficient, a powerful centralized state was needed to coordinate large public works (especially irrigation) and to extract surplus from an otherwise stagnant rural society. ^{[116] [117]} This "Asiatic mode of production", characterized by communal villages, hydraulic agriculture, and state ownership of property, created a stable but stagnant social order. ^{[118] [119]} For Marx, it explained why great Asian civilizations had not undergone the same class-driven revolutions as Europe's and had remained frozen in a "primitive" phase of history. ^{[120] [121]} He explicitly linked the idea to despotism: the oriental mode of production, Marx wrote, was the material foundation that made an all-powerful despotic state both possible and necessary, fusing economic and political absolutism. ^[122] This was essentially a secular, structural restatement of Montesquieu's old observation about irrigation and central power. ^[123] Marx's prime examples were India and China, but he also extended the logic to "parts of Russia" ^{[124] [125]} and the Islamic world. ^{[126] [127]} In Marx's view, Asian despotic regimes, though often stable for centuries, represented a historical dead-end: a "block" to human progress that would eventually be shattered by external forces. ^{[128] [129]} Famously, Marx saw British colonial rule in India as performing a "double mission": it was violently destroying the stagnant Asiatic order, but in doing so it would lay the groundwork for a modern society and integration into capitalist progress. ^{[130] [131] [132]} This judgment that colonialism, however brutal, was indirectly enabling India's regeneration out of Oriental despotism, illustrates how deeply the concept had permeated 19th-century European thought, even among its radical critics. ^{[133] [134]} Marx's formulation spurred extensive debate within socialist circles and academia, ^[121] as it implied a unique path of development for Eastern societies. ^[135] In late 19th-century Russia, for instance, intellectuals fiercely discussed whether their own Tsarist autocracy was an "Asiatic" despotism following an Asiatic mode of production or a feudal monarchy that could evolve like Western Europe. ^{[136] [137] [138]} Russian "Westernizers" often invoked the concept to disparage Tsarism as a holdover of Mongol-style absolutism that must be overcome, while Slavophiles rejected that label, arguing Russia had its own distinct tradition. ^{[139] [140]} Thus, the Western concept of Oriental despotism was not only projected onto Russia by foreigners but was also actively contested within Russian thought, showing the term's provocative reach. ^{[141] [142] [143]} Similarly, in the Ottoman Empire's late 19th-century reform era, some Ottoman intellectuals strove to counter European depictions of the Sultanate as hopelessly despotic, by highlighting constitutional moves and Islamic legal restraints that moderated the monarch's power. ^{[144] [145] [146]} The idea of Oriental despotism became a yardstick in global political discourse: either a stigma to escape or a diagnosis to be embraced in calls for reform. ^{[146] [147] [148]}

Weber, Wittfogel, and Cold War revival

Entering the 20th century, academic interest in "Oriental despotism" waned somewhat as social science developed more nuanced frameworks. Yet key thinkers continued to revisit the idea, particularly in the context of explaining why the West industrialized and modernized while the East (supposedly) did not. ^{[149] [150] [151]} Max Weber, the German sociologist, integrated the concept into his comparative studies of civilization. ^[152] Weber analyzed ancient economies and argued that environmental and structural factors made Near Eastern and Asian societies develop powerful bureaucratic states that stifled individualism, unlike the city-states and feudal polities of Europe. ^{[153] [154]} Echoing older theories, Weber highlighted irrigation as a prime cause: in regions like Pharaonic Egypt or Mesopotamia, the need for large-scale water control led to centralized administrations and a "hydraulic bureaucracy" overseeing canals and flood management. ^{[152] [155] [156]} "The crucial factor which made Near Eastern development so different was the need for irrigation systems," Weber wrote, which "demanded the existence of a unified bureaucracy". ^[109] The result, in Weber's assessment, was the "subjugation of the individual" in Eastern cultures, whereas the Mediterranean world (Greece, in particular) benefited from a freer social environment and a purely secular civic life that enabled the rise of capitalism. ^{[157] [158]} He pointed to the patrimonial bureaucracy of Imperial China, characterized by a cadre of officials personally dependent on the emperor, as a model case where a tradition of centralized administration impeded the growth of autonomous cities, merchant classes, or legal-rational authority. ^{[159] [160] [161]} Weber gave new scholarly respectability to the idea that Oriental political structures were inherently anti-progressive. ^{[162] [163] [164]} By tying political forms to economic rationality, he supported the "European miracle" narrative: a unique combination of factors allowed the West to escape the trap of agrarian despotism and achieve modern capitalism. ^{[165] [166]} Weber's work thus revitalized the core notion of Oriental despotism in early 20th-century social science, helping frame the long history of Eastern polities as a contrast case that underscored European singularity. ^{[162] [163] [164]}

It was not until the Cold War era, however, that "Oriental despotism" as a term made a dramatic comeback, and this was largely due to Karl August Wittfogel. ^{[167] [168] [169]} Wittfogel was a German-American historian who in 1957 published Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power , the most famous modern work dedicated to the concept. ^{[170] [171]} Himself a former Marxist, Wittfogel broke with orthodox Soviet-friendly Marxism and used the idea of Oriental despotism as a weapon to criticize contemporary communist states. ^{[172] [173]} In this sweeping study, he built upon Marx and Weber to argue that "hydraulic civilizations" (societies dependent on large-scale irrigation and water works) tended to develop authoritarian bureaucratic governments he dubbed "oriental despotisms". ^{[41] [174] [175]} According to Wittfogel's "hydraulic hypothesis," the technical requirements of managing irrigation in arid or flood-prone regions (like Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China) led to the rise of an all-powerful centralized state apparatus; that bureaucracy, in turn, amassed control over both economy and society, resulting in totalitarian control of a kind unknown in the decentralized West. ^{[176] [177]} Wittfogel essentially formalized the idea of a distinctive non-Western path of civilization: unlike the feudal-to-capitalist trajectory of Europe, the Orient followed a "hydraulic-bureaucratic" path culminating in stagnant absolutist empires. ^{[178] [179] [180]} He not only surveyed ancient Asian empires but provocatively argued that modern Communist regimes in China and the USSR were new incarnations of Oriental despotism. ^{[181] [182] [183]} In his view, Marx had been shortsighted to see socialism as a leap forward. Wittfogel claimed the Communist Party-state under Stalin or Mao was structurally akin to the old despotic dynasties, simply with "industrial" means. ^{[184] [185]} He described Soviet Russia as a "monocentric" system akin to Asiatic monarchy, in contrast to the "polycentric" pluralism of Western societies. ^{[186] [187]} This thesis, arriving at the height of the Cold War, fed into the ideological narrative that communism represented an Asiatic-like tyranny antithetical to Western freedom. ^{[188] [189]}

Wittfogel's Oriental Despotism was both influential and controversial. ^{[190] [191] [192]} Supporters praised its grand comparative sweep and the insight that environmental adaptation (irrigation) could shape political evolution. ^{[193] [194]} His work drew explicitly from the lineage of Montesquieu, Marx, and Weber, tying together climate, economic mode of production, and bureaucratic form into one grand explanation. ^{[195] [196]} However, many scholars, especially sinologists and anthropologists, criticized Wittfogel's claims as overly deterministic and empirically flawed. ^{[163] [197] [198]} For example, Chinese history experts pointed out that not all major waterworks in China were state-run, that private property and local institutions did exist to significant degrees, and that the term "despotism" oversimplified the complex legal and moral restraints on imperial power. ^{[199] [200]} Historian Frederick W. Mote in 1961 famously attacked Wittfogel's thesis as misreading Chinese history, arguing that the growth of Chinese imperial power was not unchecked or unchanging and that the term "despotism" is a dubious fit for traditional Chinese rule. ^{[201] [202] [203] [204]} Likewise, British scientist-historian Joseph Needham, in reviewing Wittfogel, objected that applying a derogatory word like despotism, freighted with Western notions of arbitrary tyranny, distorted our understanding of how Confucian bureaucratic governance actually worked. ^{[205] [206] [207]} These critiques were part of a broader mid-20th-century reassessment that warned against uncritical use of the old Orientalist tropes. ^{[208] [209] [210]} Nonetheless, Wittfogel's book had a significant impact, especially outside of Asian studies. ^{[211] [212] [213]} It kept alive the idea that there was a through-line from ancient Eastern empires to modern totalitarian states: an East-West divide in political culture that resonated with the geopolitics of the 1950s. ^{[214] [215]} Wittfogel's revival of "Oriental despotism" demonstrated the enduring allure of this historical concept, even as it was now being adapted to very contemporary debates about freedom and tyranny. ^{[216] [217] [218]}

Modern critiques and reframing

By the late 20th century, the concept of Oriental despotism came under sustained attack from new intellectual currents, notably post-colonial studies and revisionist historiography. Scholars in these fields argued that "Oriental despotism" was less a neutral analytical model and more a Eurocentric myth that said more about Western self-justification than about Asian realities. ^{[219] [220] [221]} In his landmark 1978 book Orientalism , Edward Said identified the trope of the "Oriental despot" as a key element of Western imaginings of the East: a stereotype of "the arbitrary power of Asiatic princes" used to portray Eastern societies as stagnant, cruel, and inferior. ^[109] Said and those influenced by him showed how this image had served as an ideological tool of colonial domination, rationalizing European imperial rule as bringing law and liberty to benighted peoples. ^{[164] [222] [223]} From Montesquieu's climate theories to Marx's evolutionary schema and Wittfogel's Cold War polemic, the through-line was a claim of Western superiority and Eastern backwardness. ^{[181] [224]} Modern scholarship has been intent on deconstructing these claims. ^[225] Researchers have highlighted, for example, the constitutional and consultative traditions within Ottoman and Mughal governance, or the civic institutions in Qing China, which contradict the caricature of entirely unchecked tyranny. ^{[226] [227] [228]} They note that terms like "despot" were often pejorative labels affixed by outsiders rather than accepted descriptions by insiders. ^[229]

In regions once dubbed "oriental despotisms," local reformers and intellectuals had long contested the characterization. In the 19th century, Asian and Middle Eastern thinkers increasingly engaged with Western political ideas and offered their own perspectives: Ottoman constitutionalists argued the Sultan's power should be limited by shari'a and a parliament (hardly a concession to being "natural despots"), ^{[144] [145] [146]} Indian nationalists pointed out that pre-colonial India had village self-governance and traditions of consultation, ^{[230] [231] [232]} and Chinese reformers in the late Qing and Republican eras strove to show that China could modernize its monarchy or establish a republic, escaping the "Oriental despotic" mold that Westerners ascribed to it. ^{[96] [233] [234]} These indigenous debates underscore that "Oriental despotism" was never a self-image, but a contentious external judgment: one that those so labeled often resisted or sought to disprove. ^{[235] [236] [237]}

Within Western academia, the late 20th century brought a more critical historiography. Influenced by the "global history" and post-colonial turns, scholars argue that the concept's theoretical force has essentially vanished today. Comparative historians have moved away from rigid East-West dichotomies and instead emphasize economic and cultural connections, indigenous agency, and the diversity of political forms in Asia. For instance, economic historian B. J. O'Leary (1989) revisited the Marxian debates on the Asiatic mode and found them wanting, suggesting that Indian history did not fit a unilinear despotic model and that colonialism's impact was more complex. ^[238] Area specialists continue to dismantle monolithic notions: Ottoman studies reveal a negotiated system of provincial governance and law (far from an omnipotent Sultan free of constraints), ^{[239] [240] [241]} while Sinology has shown that Qing emperors operated within a framework of Confucian norms and had to earn the "Mandate of Heaven" by just rule: concepts incompatible with pure arbitrary despotism. ^{[242] [243]} Furthermore, anthropologists studying irrigation-based communities found that "hydraulic societies" did not always lead to centralization: small-scale local management was often the norm, undermining Wittfogel's deterministic link between water and authoritarianism. ^{[177] [176]}

At the same time, some modern analysts caution that in dismissing "Oriental despotism" entirely, one should not ignore the real patterns of authoritarian governance in many historical Asian states. ^[244] There remains debate on how to balance recognizing Orientalism's exaggerations with acknowledging that, for example, the Chinese imperial state or Mughal state were more centralized and autocratic in certain respects than contemporaneous European polities. ^{[245] [246]} Critics of Said have argued he downplayed the genuine history and function of despotism as a regime type by focusing solely on Western representations. ^[247] They point out that concepts akin to "despotism" existed in Asian political thought too (for example, Chinese political theory condemned "bao jun" 暴君 (tyrannical rulers) and praised enlightened monarchs who ruled by moral law). ^{[248] [249]} Thus the scholarly conversation has shifted to a more nuanced ground: moving beyond the simplistic East-vs-West trope, researchers examine each society's own political idioms and power structures. ^{[250] [251] [252]} The term "Oriental despotism" itself, however, is now mostly used in historical context, as an object of study (how and why Western thinkers conceived this idea) rather than as a reliable analytic category. ^{[253] [254]}

See also

• Asian values
• Asiatic mode of production
• Hydraulic empire
• Tsarist absolutism

References

1. Rubiés, Joan-Pau (2005). "Oriental Despotism and European Orientalism: Botero to Montesquieu" . Journal of Early Modern History. 9 (1–2): 109–180. doi:10.1163/1570065054300275. ISSN   1385-3783.
2. Yoon, Kate (2023). "Oriental Despotism and the Limits of Doux Commerce, from Montesquieu to Raynal" . Political Theory. 51 (3): 456–480. doi:10.1177/00905917221134718. ISSN   0090-5917.
3. Mote, F. W. (1961). "The Growth of Chinese despotism: A critique of Wittfogel's theory of Oriental Despotism as applied to China". Oriens Extremus. 8 (1): 1–41. ISSN   0030-5197. JSTOR   43382295.
4. Isakhan, Benjamin (2009), Discourses of Democracy: 'Oriental Despotism' and the Democratisation of Iraq, Griffith University, Stephen Stockwell, Griffith University, doi:10.25904/1912/1967 , retrieved 2025-06-16
5. Blaut, James M. (1999). "Environmentalism and Eurocentrism". Geographical Review. 89 (3): 391–408. Bibcode:1999GeoRv..89..391B. doi:10.2307/216157. ISSN   0016-7428. JSTOR   216157.
6. Kanth, Rajani Kannepalli (2005). "Against Eurocentrism: A Transcendent Critique of Modernist Science, Society, and Morals". SpringerLink. doi:10.1007/978-1-4039-7879-0. ISBN   978-1-4039-6737-4.
7. Varghese, Rebecca Rose (2024-06-12). "Impact of Oriental despotism and the idea of otherness". The Hindu. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 2025-06-16.
8. Galtung, Johan; Fischer, Dietrich (2013-05-29). Johan Galtung: Pioneer of Peace Research. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 54. ISBN   978-3-642-32481-9.
9. Isaac, Benjamin (2013-10-31). The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton University Press. p. 258. ISBN   978-1-4008-4956-7.
10. Harrison, Thomas (2019-07-30). Greeks And Barbarians. Edinburgh University Press. p. 3. ISBN   978-1-4744-6891-6.
11. Malia, Martin E. (2009-06-30). Russia under Western Eyes: From the Bronze Horseman to the Lenin Mausoleum. Harvard University Press. p. 6. ISBN   978-0-674-04048-9.
12. Aristotle (1894). The politics of Aristotle. A rev. text. Macmillan. p. 427.
13. Boesche, Roger (1993). "Aristotle's 'Science' of Tyranny". History of Political Thought. 14 (1): 1–25. ISSN   0143-781X. JSTOR   26214417.
14. Harland, Philip A. (2023-10-26). "Europeans, Asians, and Greeks: Aristotle on hierarchies, slaves, and environmental determinism (fourth century BCE) | Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World: The Websites of Philip A. Harland" . Retrieved 2025-06-16.
15. McIntosh, Matthew (2018-02-08). "The Concept of 'Oriental Despotism' from Aristotle to Marx". Brewminate: A Bold Blend of News and Ideas. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
16. Brading, D. A. (1993-09-24). The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots and the Liberal State 1492-1866. Cambridge University Press. p. 80. ISBN   978-0-521-44796-6.
17. Curtis, Michael (2009-06-08). Orientalism and Islam: European Thinkers on Oriental Despotism in the Middle East and India. Cambridge University Press. pp. 31–32, 45, 87. ISBN   978-0-521-76725-5.
18. Sawer, M. (2012-12-06). Marxism and the Question of the Asiatic Mode of Production. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 6–8. ISBN   978-94-009-9685-4.
19. Inalcik, Halil (2013-11-21). The Ottoman Empire: 1300-1600. Orion. pp. xi. ISBN   978-1-78022-699-6.
20. Quataert, Donald (2005-08-11). The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922. Cambridge University Press. p. 7. ISBN   978-0-521-83910-5.
21. Önder, Çakırtaş (2017-03-20). Ideological Messaging and the Role of Political Literature. IGI Global. p. 151. ISBN   978-1-5225-2392-5.
22. Baghdiantz-MacCabe, Ina (2008-06-01). Orientalism in Early Modern France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism, and the Ancien Régime. Berg. pp. 58, 282–284. ISBN   978-1-84788-463-3.
23. Elsner, Jaś; Rubiés, Joan Pau (1999). Voyages and Visions: Towards a Cultural History of Travel. Reaktion Books. p. 133. ISBN   978-1-86189-020-7.
24. "Bodin, Jean" . Retrieved 2025-06-16.
25. Turchetti, Mario (2024), "Jean Bodin", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2024 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2025-06-16
26. Çırakman, Aslı (2002). From the "terror of the World" to the "sick Man of Europe": European Images of Ottoman Empire and Society from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth. Peter Lang. pp. 110, 125, 130. ISBN   978-0-8204-5189-3.
27. Runkle, Gerald (1968). A History of Western Political Theory. Ronald Press Company. p. 224. ISBN   978-0-471-07060-3.
28. Koskenniemi, Martti (2021-08-26). To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: Legal Imagination and International Power 1300–1870. Cambridge University Press. p. 371. ISBN   978-0-521-76859-7.
29. Ellis, Harold A. (2019-05-15). Boulainvilliers and the French Monarchy: Aristocratic Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century France. Cornell University Press. p. 36. ISBN   978-1-5017-4573-7.
30. Backhaus, Gary (2009-03-26). Colonial and Global Interfacings: Imperial Hegemonies and Democratizing Resistances. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 7. ISBN   978-1-4438-0931-3.
31. Abbattista, Guido (2021-09-22). Global Perspectives in Modern Italian Culture: Knowledge and Representation of the World in Italy from the Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century. Taylor & Francis. p. 37. ISBN   978-1-000-42325-9.
32. Contesting Europe: Comparative Perspectives on Early Modern Discourses on Europe, 1400–1800. Brill. 2019-12-09. p. 283. ISBN   978-90-04-41471-6.
33. Manglik, Mr Rohit. CUET UG Section II : History Study Notes with Theory + Practice MCQs for Complete Preparation | Conducted by NTA. EduGorilla Community Pvt. Ltd. p. 73. ISBN   978-93-5880-339-6.
34. Flores, Jorge (2015-11-16). The Mughal Padshah: A Jesuit Treatise on Emperor Jahangir's Court and Household. Brill. p. 63. ISBN   978-90-04-30753-7.
35. Chardin, Sir John (2010-01-01). Sir John Chardin's Travels in Persia. Cosimo, Inc. pp. xx. ISBN   978-1-61640-514-4.
36. Ayatollahi, Amir Yahya (2022-03-19). Political Conservatism and Religious Reformation in Iran (1905-1979): Reconsidering the Monarchic Legacy. Springer Nature. p. 171. ISBN   978-3-658-36670-4.
37. Cavaliero, Roderick (2010-07-02). Ottomania: The Romantics and the Myth of the Islamic Orient. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 136. ISBN   978-0-85771-540-1.
38. Pradella, Lucia (2014-11-27). Globalization and the Critique of Political Economy: New Insights from Marxʼs Writings. Routledge. p. 35. ISBN   978-1-317-80072-9.
39. Whelan, Frederick G. (2009-05-07). Enlightenment Political Thought and Non-Western Societies: Sultans and Savages. Routledge. pp. 94–99. ISBN   978-1-135-83806-5.
40. Tzoref-Ashkenazi, Chen (2015-10-06). German Soldiers in Colonial India. Routledge. pp. 82, 157. ISBN   978-1-317-32023-4.
41. "Oriental Despotism - Asian Politics - iResearchNet" . Retrieved 2025-06-16.
42. Gallagher, Megan (2023-05-08). The Spirit of Montesquieu's Persian Letters. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p. 34. ISBN   978-1-6669-1328-6.
43. Pangle, Thomas L. (2010-05-15). The Theological Basis of Liberal Modernity in Montesquieu's "Spirit of the Laws". University of Chicago Press. pp. 33–34. ISBN   978-0-226-64552-0.
44. Boesche, Roger (2010-11-01). Theories of Tyranny: From Plato to Arendt. Penn State Press. p. 179. ISBN   978-0-271-04405-7.
45. Kung, Peng-cheng (2022-01-10). Fifteen Lectures On Traditional Chinese Culture. World Scientific. p. 382. ISBN   978-981-12-3977-9.
46. Carrithers, David W.; Mosher, Michael A.; Rahe, Paul A. (2000-12-20). Montesquieu's Science of Politics: Essays on The Spirit of Laws. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. pp. 148, 249. ISBN   978-1-4616-4017-2.
47. Richter, Melvyn (1977-04-29). The Politcal Theory of Montesquieu. CUP Archive. p. 75. ISBN   978-0-521-21156-7.
48. Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat baron de (1949). The Spirit of the Laws. Simon and Schuster. pp. xliii. ISBN   978-0-02-849270-4.
49. Callanan, Keegan Francis; Krause, Sharon Ruth (2023-03-02). The Cambridge Companion to Montesquieu. Cambridge University Press. p. 101. ISBN   978-1-108-47855-7.
50. Mosher, Michael; Plassart, Anna (2022-12-15). A Cultural History of Democracy in the Age of Enlightenment. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 157. ISBN   978-1-350-27284-2.
51. Withers, Charles W. J. (2008-09-15). Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason. University of Chicago Press. p. 141. ISBN   978-0-226-90407-8.
52. Cro, Stelio (2006-01-01). The Noble Savage: Allegory of Freedom. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. p. 122. ISBN   978-0-88920-847-6.
53. Paul, Ellen Frankel; Miller (Jr.), Fred D.; Paul, Jeffrey (2012-08-27). Natural Rights Individualism and Progressivism in American Political Philosophy: Volume 29, Part 2. Cambridge University Press. p. 64. ISBN   978-1-107-64194-5.
54. Minuti, Rolando (2018-05-15). Studies on Montesquieu - Mapping Political Diversity. Springer. pp. 175, 184. ISBN   978-3-319-77456-5.
55. Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History Volume 13 Western Europe (1700-1800). Brill. 2019-09-16. p. 662. ISBN   978-90-04-40283-6.
56. Waddicor, Mark H. (2012-12-06). Montesquieu and the Philosophy of Natural Law. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 69. ISBN   978-94-010-3238-4.
57. Chisick, Harvey (2005-02-10). Historical Dictionary of the Enlightenment. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p. 403. ISBN   978-0-8108-6548-8.
58. Mokhberi, Susan (2019-10-21). The Persian Mirror: Reflections of the Safavid Empire in Early Modern France. Oxford University Press. p. 193. ISBN   978-0-19-088481-9.
59. Millar, Ashley Eva (2017-03-22). Singular Case: Debating China's Political Economy in the European Enlightenment. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. p. 133. ISBN   978-0-7735-4916-6.
60. Kow, Simon (2016-08-25). China in Early Enlightenment Political Thought. Taylor & Francis. p. 146. ISBN   978-1-317-61121-9.
61. Joly, Maurice (2003-01-01). The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu: Humanitarian Despotism and the Conditions of Modern Tyranny. Lexington Books. p. 308. ISBN   978-0-7391-0699-0.
62. Boer, Inge E. (2004). Disorienting Vision: Rereading Stereotypes in French Orientalist Texts and Images. Rodopi. p. 35. ISBN   978-90-420-1723-8.
63. Bibby, Andrew Scott (2016-04-29). Montesquieu's Political Economy. Springer. p. 38. ISBN   978-1-137-47722-4.
64. Pitts, Jennifer (2018-03-12). Boundaries of the International: Law and Empire. Harvard University Press. pp. 49, 59. ISBN   978-0-674-98629-9.
65. Launay, Robert (2018). Savages, Romans, and Despots: Thinking about Others from Montaigne to Herder. University of Chicago Press. doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226575421.003.0008. ISBN   978-0-226-57539-1.
66. Salzmann, Ariel (2004). Tocqueville in the Ottoman Empire: Rival Paths to the Modern State. Brill. p. 179. ISBN   978-90-04-10887-5.
67. Keane, John (2020-05-12). The New Despotism. Harvard University Press. p. 203. ISBN   978-0-674-24669-0.
68. Whelan, Frederick G. (2001). "Oriental Despotism: Anquetil-Duperron's Response to Montesquieu". History of Political Thought. 22 (4): 619–647. ISSN   0143-781X. JSTOR   26219778.
69. Bhattacharya, Baidik (2024-02-08). Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters. Cambridge University Press. p. 38. ISBN   978-1-009-42264-2.
70. Israel, Jonathan (2023-01-30). Historical Dictionary of the Enlightenment. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p. 12. ISBN   978-1-5381-2314-0.
71. Israel, Jonathan (2013-01-17). Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790. Oxford University Press. p. 604. ISBN   978-0-19-966809-0.
72. Maryks, Robert Aleksander (2024-12-02). France and the Destruction of the Jesuits, 1759–65: Three Treatises. Brill. p. 25. ISBN   978-90-04-70746-7.
73. Berkel, Maaike van; Duindam, Jeroen (2018-01-22). Prince, Pen, and Sword: Eurasian Perspectives. Brill. p. 286. ISBN   978-90-04-31571-6.
74. Poulsen, Frank Ejby (2023-11-06). The Political Thought of Anacharsis Cloots: A Proponent of Cosmopolitan Republicanism in the French Revolution. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. pp. 148–149. ISBN   978-3-11-078254-7.
75. Loft, Leonore (2001-10-30). Passion, Politics, and Philosophie: Rediscovering J.-P. Brissot. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 89. ISBN   978-0-313-07504-9.
76. Sunar, Lutfi (2016-05-05). Eurocentrism at the Margins: Encounters, Critics and Going Beyond. Routledge. p. 34. ISBN   978-1-317-13996-6.
77. Clarke, J. J. (2002-09-11). Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought. Routledge. p. 53. ISBN   978-1-134-78473-8.
78. Tam, Agnes; Meek Lange, Margaret (2024), "Progress", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2024 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2025-06-16
79. Wolfe, Ross. "Marquis de Condorcet". The Charnel-House. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
80. Edelstein, Dan (2025-04-15). The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin. Princeton University Press. p. 143. ISBN   978-0-691-23185-3.
81. Heinrich, Markus (2024-02-04). "A 18th Century's French Economist and Xi Jinping's China". The Globalist. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
82. Min, Tan (2025-05-05). The Chinese Origin of Physiocracy. Springer Nature. pp. 54–55, 206. ISBN   978-981-97-9703-5.
83. Vardi, Liana (2012-03-19). The Physiocrats and the World of the Enlightenment. Cambridge University Press. p. 170. ISBN   978-1-107-02119-8.
84. Mourant, John Arthur (1943). The Physiocratic Conception of Natural Law. University of Chicago. p. 52.
85. Harcourt, Bernard E. (2012-11-12). The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order. Harvard University Press. p. 93. ISBN   978-0-674-97132-5.
86. Kaplan, Steven; Reinert, Sophus (2019-01-16). The Economic Turn: Recasting Political Economy in Enlightenment Europe. Anthem Press. p. 92. ISBN   978-1-78308-856-0.
87. Shaffer, E. S.; Shaffer, Elinor S. (2000-11-30). Comparative Criticism: Volume 22, East and West: Comparative Perspectives. Cambridge University Press. p. 239. ISBN   978-0-521-79072-7.
88. Cook, Alexander (2015-10-06). Representing Humanity in the Age of Enlightenment. Routledge. pp. 139, 141. ISBN   978-1-317-32017-3.
89. Hosford, Desmond; Wojtkowski, Chong J. (2010-07-12). French Orientalism: Culture, Politics, and the Imagined Other. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 183. ISBN   978-1-4438-2344-9.
90. Ph.D, W. Scott Haine (2019-05-24). The History of France. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 77. ISBN   978-1-4408-6383-7.
91. Crowe, Ian (2005). An Imaginative Whig: Reassessing the Life and Thought of Edmund Burke. University of Missouri Press. p. 151. ISBN   978-0-8262-6419-0.
92. Cohen, Ashley L. (2021-01-05). The Global Indies: British Imperial Culture and the Reshaping of the World, 1756-1815. Yale University Press. p. 133. ISBN   978-0-300-25569-0.
93. Chakrabarti, Upal (2018). "The Problem of Property: Local Histories and Political-Economic Categories in British India". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 61 (5/6): 1005–1035. doi:10.1163/15685209-12341467. ISSN   0022-4995. JSTOR   26572328.
94. "Permanent Settlement System: Impact On Indian Agriculture, Advantages, Disadvantages, And Abolition - PWOnlyIAS". 2023-07-28. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
95. Pennycook, Alastair (2002-09-11). English and the Discourses of Colonialism. Routledge. p. 169. ISBN   978-1-134-68407-6.
96. Chiou, C. (1995-08-23). Democratizing Oriental Despotism: China from 4 May 1919 to 4 June 1989 and Taiwan from 28 February 1947 to 28 June 1990. Springer. pp. 40, 119. ISBN   978-0-230-38968-7.
97. Cavallar, Georg (2015-05-19). Kant's Embedded Cosmopolitanism: History, Philosophy and Education for World Citizens. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 72. ISBN   978-3-11-042940-4.
98. Jr, Robert T. Clark (2023-11-15). Herder: His Life and Thought. Univ of California Press. p. 191. ISBN   978-0-520-32524-1.
99. Piirimäe, Eva (2023-04-06). Herder and Enlightenment Politics. Cambridge University Press. p. 160. ISBN   978-1-009-26386-3.
100. Ventura, Lorella (2018-05-02). Hegel in the Arab World: Modernity, Colonialism, and Freedom. Springer. p. 13. ISBN   978-3-319-78066-5.
101. Forster, Michael N. (1998-05-13). Hegel's Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit. University of Chicago Press. p. 74. ISBN   978-0-226-25742-6.
102. Browning, Gary (1999-02-26). Hegel and the History of Political Philosophy. Springer. p. 66. ISBN   978-0-230-59613-9.
103. The American: A National Weekly Journal of Politics, Literature, Science, Art, and Finance. The American. 1887. p. 160.
104. Diggins, John P. (2000-01-01). On Hallowed Ground: Abraham Lincoln and the Foundations of American History. Yale University Press. p. 164. ISBN   978-0-300-08237-1.
105. Embree, Ainslie T.; Gluck, Carol (2015-05-20). Asia in Western and World History: A Guide for Teaching: A Guide for Teaching. Routledge. pp. 149, 154. ISBN   978-1-317-47648-1.
106. "Hegel's Philosophy of History". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
107. Kerr, Douglas (2022-06-16). Orwell and Empire. Oxford University Press. p. 85. ISBN   978-0-19-267901-7.
108. Ruskola, Teemu (2013-06-01). Legal Orientalism. Harvard University Press. p. 43. ISBN   978-0-674-07576-4.
109. Minuti, Rolando (2012-05-03). "Oriental Despotism" . Retrieved 2025-06-16.
110. Agozino, Biko (2023-06-08), Aliverti, Ana; Carvalho, Henrique; Chamberlen, Anastasia; Sozzo, Máximo (eds.), "From Genocidal Imperialist Despotism to Genocidal Neocolonial Dictatorship: Decolonizing Criminology and Criminal Justice with Indigenous Models of Democratization", Decolonizing the Criminal Question (1 ed.), Oxford University PressOxford, pp. 71–86, doi:10.1093/oso/9780192899002.003.0005, ISBN   978-0-19-289900-2 , retrieved 2025-06-16
111. Tzoref-Ashkenazi, Chen (2013). "Romantic Attitudes toward Oriental Despotism". The Journal of Modern History. 85 (2): 280–320. doi:10.1086/669734. ISSN   0022-2801. JSTOR   10.1086/669734.
112. Kohn, Margaret; Reddy, Kavita (2024), "Colonialism", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2024 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2025-06-16
113. Thavaraj, M. J. K. (1984). "The Concept of Asiatic Mode of Production: Its Relevance to Indian History". Social Scientist. 12 (7): 26–34. doi:10.2307/3517056. ISSN   0970-0293. JSTOR   3517056.
114. Chenglin, Tu (2014-04-03). "The Asiatic Mode of Production in World History Perspective: From a Universal to a Particularistic View of History". Social Sciences in China. 35 (2): 5–25. doi:10.1080/02529203.2014.900882. ISSN   0252-9203.
115. Pryor, Frederic L (1980-12-01). "The Asian mode of production as an economic system". Journal of Comparative Economics. 4 (4): 420–442. doi:10.1016/0147-5967(80)90005-0. ISSN   0147-5967.
116. Currie, Kate (1984-04-01). "The asiatic mode of production: Problems of conceptualising state and economy". Dialectical Anthropology. 8 (4): 251–268. doi:10.1007/BF00246003. ISSN   1573-0786.
117. Gardezi, Hassan N. (2019-07-05). "South Asia and the Asiatic Mode of production: Some conceptual and empirical problems". Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. 11 (4): 40–44. doi:10.1080/14672715.1979.10424020.
118. Melotti, Umberto (1977), Melotti, Umberto (ed.), "The Long Stagnation of Societies Based on the Asiatic Mode of Production", Marx and the Third World, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 101–104, doi:10.1007/978-1-349-15801-0_18, ISBN   978-1-349-15801-0 , retrieved 2025-06-16
119. Augusto, André Guimarães; Miranda, Flávio; Corrêa, Hugo F. (2020-06-10). "Marx e os povos sem história". Nova Economia (in Portuguese). 30: 69–93. doi:10.1590/0103-6351/5036. ISSN   0103-6351.
120. "Brian Pearce: Marxism and the Asiatic Mode of Production (2002)". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
121. Fogel, Joshua A. (1988). "The Debates over the Asiatic Mode of Production in Soviet Russia, China, and Japan". The American Historical Review. 93 (1): 56–79. doi:10.2307/1865689. ISSN   0002-8762. JSTOR   1865689.
122. Curtis, Michael, ed. (2009), "Karl Marx: The Asiatic Mode of Production and Oriental Despotism", Orientalism and Islam: European Thinkers on Oriental Despotism in the Middle East and India, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 217–257, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511812422.009, ISBN   978-0-521-76725-5 , retrieved 2025-06-16
123. Bloch, Maurice (2013-10-11). Marxism and Anthropology: The History of a Relationship. Routledge. p. 113. ISBN   978-1-136-54900-7.
124. Lackner, Helen; Seddon, David (2012-11-12). Relations of Production. Routledge. p. 229. ISBN   978-1-136-27450-3.
125. Schlesinger, Rudolf (2013-09-27). Federalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Routledge. p. 330. ISBN   978-1-136-23115-5.
126. Turner, Bryan S. (1998). Weber and Islam. Psychology Press. p. 14. ISBN   978-0-415-17458-9.
127. Lewis, Bernard (2011-04-15). Islam in History: Ideas, People, and Events in the Middle East. Open Court. p. 17. ISBN   978-0-8126-9757-5.
128. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory. Elsevier. 2014-06-28. p. 121. ISBN   978-1-4832-9429-2.
129. Li, Shang (2020-07-02). "Marx's Concept of The Asiatic Mode of Production and Its Historical Geography". Critique. 48 (2–3): 257–277. doi:10.1080/03017605.2020.1759197. ISSN   0301-7605.
130. "The Future Results of British Rule in India by Karl Marx". marxists.architexturez.net. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
131. Bartolovich, Crystal; Lazarus, Neil (2002-07-11). Marxism, Modernity and Postcolonial Studies. Cambridge University Press. p. 84. ISBN   978-0-521-89059-5.
132. Tomba, Massimiliano (2012-11-09). Marx's Temporalities. Brill. p. 181. ISBN   978-90-04-23678-3.
133. Salvatore, Armando; Ḥanafī, Sārī; Obuse, Kieko (2022). The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East. Oxford University Press. p. 285. ISBN   978-0-19-008747-0.
134. Sharma, Ram Sharan (1991). Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. p. 86. ISBN   978-81-208-0827-0.
135. Ge, Chenhong (2020-04-25). View of Moralization: Study on Confucian Moral Thought. Springer Nature. pp. 2–4. ISBN   978-981-15-3090-6.
136. Rozman, Gilbert (2014-07-14). The Chinese Debate about Soviet Socialism, 1978-1985. Princeton University Press. p. 151. ISBN   978-1-4008-5859-0.
137. Amberger, Alexander (2024-02-06). Dissident Marxism and Utopian Eco-Socialism in the German Democratic Republic: The Intellectual Legacies of Rudolf Bahro, Wolfgang Harich, and Robert Havemann. Brill. p. 184. ISBN   978-90-04-68786-8.
138. Van Der Linden, Marcel (2007). Western Marxism and the Soviet Union: A Survey of Critical Theories and Debates Since 1917. Brill. p. 231. ISBN   978-90-04-15875-7.
139. Schram, Stuart Reynolds; d'Encausse, Hélène Carrère (1969). Marxism and Asia: An Introduction with Readings. Allen Lane. p. 94. ISBN   978-0-7139-0056-9.
140. Riasanovsky, Nicholas Valentine (1992). The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought. Oxford University Press, Incorporated. p. 240. ISBN   978-0-19-536061-5.
141. Kingston-Mann, Esther (1983-08-25). Lenin and the Problem of Marxist Peasant Revolution. Oxford University Press. p. 32. ISBN   978-0-19-536528-3.
142. Caron, Jean-François (2023-12-02). Putin's War and the Re-Opening of History. Springer Nature. p. 48. ISBN   978-981-99-8167-0.
143. White, James D. (2018-09-06). Marx and Russia: The Fate of a Doctrine. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 135. ISBN   978-1-4742-2408-6.
144. Brisku, Adrian (2017-09-21). Political Reform in the Ottoman and Russian Empires: A Comparative Approach. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 62. ISBN   978-1-4742-3854-0.
145. Yildiz, Aysel (2017-01-30). Crisis and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire: The Downfall of a Sultan in the Age of Revolution. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 197. ISBN   978-1-78673-147-0.
146. Bowering, Gerhard; Crone, Patricia; Mirza, Mahan (2013). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton University Press. pp. 12, 358. ISBN   978-0-691-13484-0.
147. Bethencourt, Francisco (2015-09-15). Racisms: From the Crusades to the Twentieth Century. Princeton University Press. p. 157. ISBN   978-0-691-16975-0.
148. Okihiro, Gary Y. (2009-06-02). Pineapple Culture: A History of the Tropical and Temperate Zones. University of California Press. p. 62. ISBN   978-0-520-25513-5.
149. Christensen, Peter (1993). The Decline of Iranshahr: Irrigation and Environments in the History of the Middle East, 500 B.C. to A.D. 1500. Museum Tusculanum Press. p. 11. ISBN   978-87-7289-259-7.
150. Clark, Barry (2016-03-21). Political Economy: A Comparative Approach. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 314–316. ISBN   978-1-4408-4326-6.
151. Osterhammel, Jürgen (2015-09-15). The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton University Press. p. 667. ISBN   978-0-691-16980-4.
152. Blaut, James Morris (2000-08-10). Eight Eurocentric Historians. Guilford Press. p. 21. ISBN   978-1-57230-591-5.
153. Evasdottir, Erika E. S. (2007-10-01). Obedient Autonomy: Chinese Intellectuals and the Achievement of Orderly Life. UBC Press. p. 7. ISBN   978-0-7748-2971-7.
154. Bannerji, Himani (2020-09-25). The Ideological Condition: Selected Essays on History, Race and Gender. Brill. p. 124. ISBN   978-90-04-44162-0.
155. Constas, Helen (1958). "Max Weber's Two Conceptions of Bureaucracy". American Journal of Sociology. 63 (4): 400–409. doi:10.1086/222263. ISSN   0002-9602. JSTOR   2774140.
156. Swedberg, Richard (2018-06-05). Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology. Princeton University Press. p. 153. ISBN   978-0-691-18766-2.
157. Sadri, Ahmad (1994-10-27). Max Weber's Sociology of Intellectuals. Oxford University Press. p. 91. ISBN   978-0-19-535751-6.
158. Adler, Paul S.; Gay, Paul du; Morgan, Glenn; Reed, Michael (2014-10-16). Oxford Handbook of Sociology, Social Theory and Organization Studies: Contemporary Currents. OUP Oxford. p. 487. ISBN   978-0-19-105805-9.
159. Li, Huaiyin (2005-03-09). Village Governance in North China: 1875-1936. Stanford University Press. p. 284. ISBN   978-0-8047-6755-2.
160. Adair-Toteff, Christopher (2016-02-19). Max Weber's Sociology of Religion. Mohr Siebeck. p. 146. ISBN   978-3-16-154137-7.
161. Eisenberg, Andrew (2008-01-01). Kingship in Early Medieval China. Brill. p. 6. ISBN   978-90-04-16381-2.
162. Naderi, Nader (1994). "European Absolutism Vs. Oriental Despotism: A Comparison and Critique". Michigan Sociological Review (8): 48–65. ISSN   1934-7111. JSTOR   40968982.
163. Andreski, Stanislav (1965). The Uses of Comparative Sociology. University of California Press. pp. 164–165.
164. Gran, Peter (2020-12-17). The Persistence of Orientalism: Anglo-American Historians and Modern Egypt. Syracuse University Press. pp. 8, 27. ISBN   978-0-8156-5508-4.
165. Blaut, J. M. (2012-07-23). The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History. Guilford Press. p. 102. ISBN   978-1-4625-0560-9.
166. Barker, Eileen (2021-12-24). On Freedom: A Centenary Anthology. Routledge. p. 171. ISBN   978-1-000-66272-6.
167. Ram, Harsha (2006-03-31). The Imperial Sublime: A Russian Poetics of Empire. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 250. ISBN   978-0-299-18194-9.
168. Rapp, John A. (2012-08-09). Daoism and Anarchism: Critiques of State Autonomy in Ancient and Modern China. A&C Black. p. 199. ISBN   978-1-4411-3223-9.
169. Cook, M. A. (2015-12-22). Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East. Routledge. p. 310. ISBN   978-1-136-04000-9.
170. Cushman, Thomas (2005-07-11). A Matter of Principle: Humanitarian Arguments for War in Iraq. Univ of California Press. p. 116. ISBN   978-0-520-24555-6.
171. Harding, Sandra (2011-09-12). The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader. Duke University Press. p. 48. ISBN   978-0-8223-4957-0.
172. Gellner, Ernest (1985). Nikiforov, V. N. (ed.). "Soviets against Wittfogel; Or, the Anthropological Preconditions of Mature Marxism". Theory and Society. 14 (3): 341–370. doi:10.1007/BF00161282. ISSN   0304-2421. JSTOR   657119.
173. Linden, Marcel van der (2007-06-30). Western Marxism and the Soviet Union: A Survey of Critical Theories and Debates Since 1917. Brill. p. 171. ISBN   978-90-474-2080-4.
174. "Hydraulic civilization | Irrigation, Agriculture & Water Management". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
175. Fagan, Dr Brian; Scarre, Chris (2015-08-13). Ancient Civilizations. Routledge. p. 34. ISBN   978-1-317-35033-0.
176. Mitchell, William P. (1973). "The Hydraulic Hypothesis: A Reappraisal". Current Anthropology. 14 (5): 532–534. doi:10.1086/201379. ISSN   0011-3204. JSTOR   2741023.
177. Stanish, Charles (1994). "The Hydraulic Hypothesis Revisited: Lake Titicaca Basin Raised Fields in Theoretical Perspective". Latin American Antiquity. 5 (4): 312–332. doi:10.2307/971820. ISSN   1045-6635. JSTOR   971820.
178. Needham, Joseph (1959). "Review of Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power". Science & Society. 23 (1): 58–65. ISSN   0036-8237. JSTOR   40400613.
179. Magdalene, F. Rachel; Wunsch, Cornelia; Wells, Bruce (2019-10-24). Fault, Responsibility, and Administrative Law in Late Babylonian Legal Texts. Penn State Press. p. 226. ISBN   978-1-64602-026-3.
180. Ferguson, Niall (2011-11-01). Civilization: The West and the Rest. Penguin. p. 42. ISBN   978-1-101-54802-8.
181. Stanziani, Alessandro (2014-07-31). After Oriental Despotism: Eurasian Growth in a Global Perspective. A&C Black. pp. 17, 117. ISBN   978-1-4725-2265-8.
182. Tambiah, Stanley J. (2002-02-14). Edmund Leach: An Anthropological Life. Cambridge University Press. p. 210. ISBN   978-0-521-52102-4.
183. Huang, Ray (2016-07-01). Broadening the Horizons of Chinese History: Discourses, Syntheses and Comparisons. Routledge. p. 111. ISBN   978-1-317-47567-5.
184. Lukin, Alexander (2000-03-23). Political Culture of the Russian 'Democrats'. OUP Oxford. p. 178. ISBN   978-0-19-154466-8.
185. Ma, Debin; Glahn, Richard von (2022-02-24). The Cambridge Economic History of China: Volume 1, To 1800. Cambridge University Press. pp. 3–5. ISBN   978-1-108-42557-5.
186. Delanty, Gerard; Isin, Engin F. (2003-06-03). Handbook of Historical Sociology. SAGE. p. 222. ISBN   978-1-84787-120-6.
187. Worsley, Peter (1984-09-15). The Three Worlds: Culture and World Development. University of Chicago Press. p. 106. ISBN   978-0-226-90755-0.
188. Robbins, Paul (2011-12-12). Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction. John Wiley & Sons. p. 57. ISBN   978-0-470-65732-4.
189. Blackledge, Paul (2013-07-19). Reflections on the Marxist theory of history. Manchester University Press. p. 112. ISBN   978-1-84779-134-4.
190. Barbieri-Low, Anthony J. (2021-07-17). Ancient Egypt and Early China: State, Society, and Culture. University of Washington Press. p. 19. ISBN   978-0-295-74890-0.
191. Richter, Maurice N. (1983-06-30). Technology and Social Complexity. State University of New York Press. p. 40. ISBN   978-1-4384-1729-5.
192. Rambo, A. Terry; Gillogly, Kathleen (1991-01-01). Profiles in Cultural Evolution: Papers from a Conference in Honor of Elman R. Service. University of Michigan Press. p. 51. ISBN   978-0-915703-23-4.
193. Tambiah, Stanley J. (2002-02-14). Edmund Leach: An Anthropological Life. Cambridge University Press. p. 210. ISBN   978-0-521-52102-4.
194. Dietzel, Irene (2014-11-10). The Ecology of Coexistence and Conflict in Cyprus: Exploring the Religion, Nature, and Culture of a Mediterranean Island. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 24. ISBN   978-1-61451-266-0.
195. Bush, Christopher (2010-02-01). Ideographic Modernism: China, Writing, Media. Oxford University Press. pp. xxii. ISBN   978-0-19-974139-7.
196. Lane, Jan-Erik; Redissi, Hamadi (2016-04-15). Religion and Politics: Islam and Muslim Civilisation. Routledge. p. 146. ISBN   978-1-317-06793-1.
197. Bryant, Raymond L. (2015-08-28). The International Handbook of Political Ecology. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 375. ISBN   978-0-85793-617-2.
198. Zhang, Ling (2016-09-09). The River, the Plain, and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China, 1048–1128. Cambridge University Press. p. 12. ISBN   978-1-107-15598-5.
199. Vogel, Ulrich (Dec 1979). "K. A. Wittfogel's Marxist studies on China (1926–1939)". Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. 11 (4): 30–37. doi:10.1080/14672715.1979.10424018. ISSN   0007-4810.
200. Wittfogel, Karl A. (1957). "Chinese Society: An Historical Survey". The Journal of Asian Studies. 16 (3): 343–364. doi:10.2307/2941230. ISSN   0021-9118. JSTOR   2941230.
201. So, Francis K. H. (2016), So, Francis K.H. (ed.), "Introduction", Perceiving Power in Early Modern Europe, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 1–24, doi:10.1057/978-1-137-58381-9_1, ISBN   978-1-137-58381-9 , retrieved 2025-06-16
202. Osborne, Thomas (2022-05-04). "Power degree zero: Montesquieu, Tocqueville, despotism". Journal of Political Power. 15 (2): 243–261. doi:10.1080/2158379X.2022.2061128. ISSN   2158-379X.
203. Papers on Chinese History. Fairbank Center, Harvard University. 1992. p. 39.
204. Mote, F. W. (1961). "The Growth of Chinese despotism: A critique of Wittfogel's theory of Oriental Despotism as applied to China". Oriens Extremus. 8 (1): 1–41. ISSN   0030-5197. JSTOR   43382295.
205. Tvedt, Terje (2015-12-22). Water and Society: Changing Perceptions of Societal and Historical Development. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 208. ISBN   978-0-85772-540-0.
206. Worster, Donald (1992). Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West. Oxford University Press. p. 346. ISBN   978-0-19-507806-0.
207. Guo, Rongxing (2018-05-16). Human-Earth System Dynamics: Implications to Civilizations. Springer. p. 108. ISBN   978-981-13-0547-4.
208. Said, Edward W. (1985). "Orientalism Reconsidered". Cultural Critique (1): 89–107. doi:10.2307/1354282. ISSN   0882-4371. JSTOR   1354282.
209. Weir, David (2019), Nash, Geoffrey P. (ed.), "Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Orientalism", Orientalism and Literature, Cambridge Critical Concepts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 202–218, doi:10.1017/9781108614672.012, ISBN   978-1-108-49900-2 , retrieved 2025-06-16
210. Halliday, Fred (1993). "'Orientalism' and Its Critics". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 20 (2): 145–163. doi:10.1080/13530199308705577. ISSN   1353-0194. JSTOR   195877.
211. Spate, O. H. K. (1959). "The "Hydraulic Society"". Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 49 (1): 90–95. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.1959.tb01601.x. ISSN   0004-5608. JSTOR   2561293.
212. "Karl Wittfogel's hydraulic theory and its contemporary critics : The Russian Sociological Review". Russian Sociological Review (in Russian).
213. Smith, Neil (1987). "Essay Review: Rehabilitating a Renegade? The Geography and Politics of Karl August Wittfogel". Dialectical Anthropology. 12 (1): 127–136. doi:10.1007/BF00734792. ISSN   0304-4092. JSTOR   29790221.
214. Bano, Shehar (2017). "Review of Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power". The Pakistan Development Review. 56 (4): 393–395. ISSN   0030-9729. JSTOR   44986428.
215. Price, David H. (July 1994). "Wittfogel's Neglected Hydraulic/Hydroagricultural Distinction". Journal of Anthropological Research. 50 (2): 187–204. doi:10.1086/jar.50.2.3630459. ISSN   0091-7710.
216. Janos, Andrew C. (2000). East Central Europe in the Modern World: The Politics of the Borderlands from Pre- to Postcommunism. Stanford University Press. p. 154. ISBN   978-0-8047-4688-5.
217. Bakken, Gordon Morris; Farrington, Brenda (2001). Environmental Problems in America's Garden of Eden. Taylor & Francis. p. 51. ISBN   978-0-8153-3459-0.
218. Clark, Peter (2013-02-14). The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History. OUP Oxford. p. 130. ISBN   978-0-19-163769-8.
219. Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representation of national characters. A critical survey. Brill. 2007-01-01. p. 316. ISBN   978-90-04-35813-3.
220. Huggan, Graham (2013-09-12). The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies. OUP Oxford. pp. lvii. ISBN   978-0-19-166242-3.
221. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1999-06-28). A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Harvard University Press. p. 71. ISBN   978-0-674-50417-2.
222. Eisenstadt, Shmuel Noah (2003). Comparative civilizations and multiple modernities. 1(2003). Brill. p. 418. ISBN   978-90-04-12534-6.
223. Massad, Joseph A. (2015-01-06). Islam in Liberalism. University of Chicago Press. p. 17. ISBN   978-0-226-20636-3.
224. Studies in Intelligence. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. 2004. p. 74.
225. Peilin, Li (2022-05-05). Another Invisible Hand: The Transformation of Social Structure. Taylor & Francis. p. 53. ISBN   978-1-000-57885-0.
226. Rubiés, Joan-Pau (2005-01-01). "Oriental Despotism and European Orientalism: Botero to Montesquieu". Journal of Early Modern History. 9 (1–2): 109–180. doi:10.1163/1570065054300275. ISSN   1385-3783.
227. Moaddel, Mansoor (2002-08-01). "The Study of Islamic Culture and Politics: An Overview and Assessment". Annual Review of Sociology. 28 (2002): 359–386. doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.140928. ISSN   0360-0572.
228. Chaudhry, Faisal (2018). "Property and Its Rule (in Late Indo-Islamicate and Early Colonial) South Asia: What?s in a Name?". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 61 (5/6): 920–975. doi:10.1163/15685209-12341469. ISSN   0022-4995. JSTOR   26572326.
229. Afzal-Khan, Fawzia; Seshadri-Crooks, Kalpana (2000). The Pre-occupation of Postcolonial Studies. Duke University Press. p. 79. ISBN   978-0-8223-2521-5.
230. Padamsee, Alex (2018-11-03). The Return of the Mughal: Historical Fiction and Despotism in Colonial India, 1863–1908. Springer. pp. 1, 121. ISBN   978-1-137-35494-5.
231. Lindner, Kolja (2022-04-13). Marx, Marxism and the Question of Eurocentrism. Springer Nature. p. 9. ISBN   978-3-030-81823-4.
232. Buettner, Elizabeth (2016-03-24). Europe after Empire: Decolonization, Society, and Culture. Cambridge University Press. p. 28. ISBN   978-0-521-11386-1.
233. Chen, Li (2015-12-22). Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes: Sovereignty, Justice, and Transcultural Politics. Columbia University Press. p. 127. ISBN   978-0-231-54021-6.
234. China, Democracy, and Law: A Historical and Contemporary Approach. Brill. 2021-12-06. p. 188. ISBN   978-90-04-48361-3.
235. Gu, Ming Dong (2013). Sinologism: An Alternative to Orientalism and Postcolonialism. Routledge. p. 100. ISBN   978-0-415-62654-5.
236. Tucker, Vincent (2014-06-23). Cultural Perspectives on Development. Routledge. p. 40. ISBN   978-1-317-85645-0.
237. Peilin, Li (2022-05-05). Another Invisible Hand: The Transformation of Social Structure. Routledge. p. 1990. ISBN   978-1-000-57887-4.
238. O'Leary, Brendan; Gellner, Ernest (1989). The Asiatic mode of production: oriental despotism, historical materialism and Indian history. Explorations in social structures (1. publ ed.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ISBN   978-0-631-16766-2.
239. Pitts, Jennifer (2018-03-12). Boundaries of the International: Law and Empire. Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/9780674986275-002. ISBN   978-0-674-98627-5.
240. Armagan, Mustafa. "The Myth of Ottoman Despotism". The Fountain Magazine. Archived from the original on 2025-02-11. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
241. Boldizzoni, Francesco; Hudson, Pat (2015-12-22). Routledge Handbook of Global Economic History. Routledge. p. 262. ISBN   978-1-317-56186-6.
242. Xiang, Lanxin (2019-09-03). The Quest for Legitimacy in Chinese Politics: A New Interpretation. Routledge. p. 5. ISBN   978-1-000-69976-0.
243. Qian, Kun (2015-11-24). Imperial-Time-Order: Literature, Intellectual History, and China's Road to Empire. Brill. p. 45. ISBN   978-90-04-30930-2.
244. Naderi, Nader (1994). "European Absolutism Vs. Oriental Despotism: A Comparison and Critique". Michigan Sociological Review (8): 48–65. ISSN   1934-7111. JSTOR   40968982.
245. Perdue, Peter C. (2009). "China and Other Colonial Empires". The Journal of American-East Asian Relations. 16 (1/2): 85–103. doi:10.1163/187656109793645706. ISSN   1058-3947. JSTOR   23613241.
246. Reddy, C. Srinivasa (1991). Streusand, Doughlas E. (ed.). "Approaches to the Mughal State". Social Scientist. 19 (10/11): 90–96. doi:10.2307/3517805. ISSN   0970-0293. JSTOR   3517805.
247. Scruton, Roger (2007-02-07). The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought. Springer. p. 499. ISBN   978-0-230-62509-9.
248. 唐德剛 (1998). 晚清七十年(1)中國社會文化轉型綜論: 唐德剛作品集1 (in Chinese). 遠流出版. p. 146. ISBN   978-957-32-3511-8.
249. 贊若. "政治之解析－我讀我見（2）". www.taiwantt.org.tw. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
250. Yapp, Malcolm (2014-01-09). The Making of the Modern Near East 1792-1923. Routledge. p. 38. ISBN   978-1-317-87107-1.
251. MīrʹAnṣari, ʿAli (2012). The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran. Cambridge University Press. p. 299. ISBN   978-0-521-68717-1.
252. Israel, Jonathan I. (2006-10-12). Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. OUP Oxford. p. 293. ISBN   978-0-19-927922-7.
253. Holloway, Steven Winford (2002). Aššur is King! Aššur is King!: Religion in the Exercise of Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Brill. p. 219. ISBN   978-90-04-12328-1.
254. Fitzgerald, Timothy (2011-12-29). Religion and Politics in International Relations: The Modern Myth. A&C Black. p. 218. ISBN   978-1-4411-4290-0.