Understanding intercivilizational encounters
The study of intercivilizational encounters is an important but still underdeveloped part of the research programm known as civilizational analysis. The article begins with a survey of Indian history which includes a series intercivilizational encounters both initiated from the West and those that brought Indian influence to other regions. Then the article turns to Benjamin Nelson’s elaboration of the concept of intercivilizational encounters and its application to the relationships between China and the West. The last part of the article relates the problematic of intercivilizational encounters to the social transformations of late modernity.