Abstract
What if we built the headquarters of the UN at the center of the earth, equidistant from all states, to make it the very place of the universal ? This seemingly absurd proposal comes not from a science-fiction novel, but from Voltaire's 1761 polemical Rescrit de l'empereur de la Chine. Against projects of perpetual peace, reduced to the powers of Europe, Voltaire and many other authors proposed, throughout the century, a historical narrative of universalization, a world history, open to the great Asian empires such as China, articulated to trade as the driving force of civilization and globalization. But this story itself is not without ambiguity. Despite its declared universalism, it sees Europe as a model, and sees difference only in terms of backwardness. It thus projects new frontiers and hierarchies, between civilized Europe and the rest of the world, and within Europe itself, to the point of eulogizing French domination of Europe. We need to reflect on the power and limits of this historical language of civilization, which triumphs at the end of the century, at a time of revolutions.
