The European social sciences tend to absorb criticism of their approach and re-label it as a part of what the critique opposes; thus criticism of European social sciences by subaltern social sciences, their 'talking back,' has become a frequent line of reflection. The relabeling of the critique of the European approach as a critique from 'Southern' social sciences of 'Western' social sciences has in effect turned 'Southern' as well as 'Western' social sciences into competing contributors to the same 'globalizing' social sciences. Both are no longer arguing about the European approach to social sciences but about which social thought from which part of the globe should prevail. If the critique becomes a part of what it opposes, one might conclude that the European social sciences are adaptable and capable of learning. One might, however, also raise the question whether there is anything wrong with the criticism of the European social sciences, or, for that matter, whether there is anything wrong with the European social sciences themselves. The contributions in this book discuss these questions from different angles: They revisit the mainstream critique of the European social sciences, and they suggest new arguments criticizing social science theories that may be found as often in the 'Western' as in the 'Southern' discourse.

Acknowledgements1. Critical thought about global social sciences, by Michael Kuhn and Hebe VessuriSection I: Critiques of critiques of the 'European' social sciences2. Post-colonialism and Social Theory Revisited, by Kwang Yeong Shin3. 21st Century Challenges to Social and Economic Sciences: Global Sciencesof the Economy and of Individual Behavior, by Huri Islamoglu4. Towards World Social Sciences. Why criticizing 'Western Hegemony' does not help, by Doris Weidemann5. Why arriving at imperial thought is not an accident of critical sociological thinking but the consequent endpoint of international sociological thinking, by Michael KuhnSection II: The European universalism6. The European Comprehension of the World. Early Modern Science and Eurocentrism, by Mauricio Nieto Olarte7. Institutional Re-structuring in the Social Science World: Seeds of Change, by Hebe Vessuri and Carmen Bueno8. What happened to the spread of universal ideas?, by Reiner GrundmannSection III: The social science world under the 'European' universalism and beyond9. Intervening in the Geopolitics of Travelling Theory. Constraints, Limitations and Possibilities, by Sujata Patel10. The Impact of Internationalization on Post-Soviet Social Sciences and Humanities, by Igor Yegorov and Pal Tamas11. Poverty and Social Sciences. Pauperology as Apology for Modernity, by Kumaran Rajagopal12. Academic Working Culture: Shifting from National Competitions towards Transnational Collaborations, by Kazumi OkamotoBiographical Notes