Training manual, Moscow: ROSMEN, 2007. M. A. CHESHKOV (IMEMO RAS). L. B. Alaev's work appeared at the right time, because it raises the urgent question of the need for historical science to turn to the understanding of history as a single process, where general laws determine features, or, in short, to turn to the universalist version of history in general and the East mainly. After all, the study of the East is a key point in the problem of the "general and special", this eternal question of both Marxist and post-Marxist historiography of world history. This turn is realized by L. B. Alaev through criticism of Western-centered versions of universalism, including Marxist ones, which indicates the author's self-criticism. Another positive path to the renewal of universalist history is outlined in the work through the combination of civilizational and formational approaches, as well as through tracking the opposition "East-West" as a cross-cutting pattern of world history. How consistently and productively do these two update mechanisms "work"? The first mechanism, where" civilizations " is a semantic axis (the idea of closing civilizations), which distinguishes the author's approach from the eclectic combination of these fundamental ideas (see, for example, the works of R. R. Tolkien). L. B. Alaev should have explained this "stop" (at least to the student), but it can be assumed that the East of the colonial era turned out to be - due to its inorganic nature (origin from outside) - an object too complex for both of them approaches, as long as they are applied by the author within the framework of the idea of natural-historical development of mankind. On the contrary, another tool of renewal - the "East-West" opposition-is used as a cross-cutting construction of historical knowledge: covering both the colonial and postcolonial East, this opposition is now embodied, according to the author, in relations between developed and developing countries, interpreted as a Nort ... Read more