Abstract
Although the asymmetrical concepts have been well-known to scholars across social sciences and humanities, their role in structuring the human world has never been an object of detailed research. Thirty-five years ago, Reinhart Koselleck sketched out the historical semantics of the oppositions "Hellenes/barbarians," Christians/pagans," and "Uebermensch/Untermensch," but his insights, though eagerly cited, have been rarely developed in a systematic fashion. This volume intends to remedy this situation by outlining the general theory of asymmetrical concepts on the crossroads of history, sociology, literary criticism, linguistics, political science, and international studies.