The urban sociologist Janet Abu-Lughod ( the mother of the Palestinian American anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod who wrote -Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society ,2000)- in her marvelous book:  Janet Abu-Lughod. 1989. “Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350” demonstrates and deconstructs the classical ideas of the western civilization’s concept of its centrality to civilization. especially when she researched the history of Cairo city in 1001(Janet Abu-Lughod. 1971. “Cairo: 1001 years of the City Victorious),and other cities as Baghdad and Damascus….. 

The main idea of Janet is to undermine the egocentric/Eurocentric concept (Eurocentrism as the term for an ideology was coined by Samir Amin in the 1970s) that is built around the globality of the world that is long-established before the industrial Europan revolution, and long before the renaissance; especially when we study the east and mainly china’s culture: an intro to Janet theory:   

Interview with her daughter: Lila Abu Lughod on her research on women in Upper Egypt and other articles and books of her research_

https://americanethnologist.org/features/interviews/lila-abu-lughod-interview