The state of world history

Christoph Strobel Discussion

Pat Manning published Navigating World History in 2003. This book was, in my limited understanding, the last systemic attempt at assessing the field. It is now almost 12 years ago since the book came out. I am curious about what the H-World community thinks about the state of the field of world history.

Many of our subscribers’ research is grounded in area or nation-state studies and they teach world history as a secondary teaching field to comply with many of our institutions’ of higher learning general education requirements. Many others teach world history in secondary schools. Do you self-identify as world historians? Also world history seemed to have contributed to encourage historians in area and nation state studies to emphasize “transnationalism,” the “international,” and to focus on “the world.” Has this global turn made world history irrelevant as a field? 

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Professor Strobel asks a good question: what is the state of world history today?

Teaching pre-modern world history became my responsibility for two reasons: there were too few students interested in taking my medieval European history courses, and when it was decided to require world history not many in my department were willing to assume the responsibility. The result was that I spent over twenty years teaching world history. Because of the difficulty of the job, my effort was more dedicated to class preparation than research, for which I paid a price. Perhaps the implication is that world history germinated because it was "politically correct", but without any clear conception of a useful function independent of the history of national states. The justification for transnational or international histories may not extend to world hsitory.

Lord Action is supposed to have said, historic consciousness is the keystone of liberty (I'd be very grateful if anyone would pin down the source of this attribution). Intuitively, in today's increasingly "globalized" world, that should be truer than ever.
However, it seems world history refers more to pedagogy than historiography. There is much about how to teach it, but not much about its social function. This seems a reversed priority.

Should it have a social function? Higher education is very expensive, not only in terms of budgets, but because young people spend their most vital years sitting in stuffy classrooms. I accept that the social function of some courses may be subtle, indirect or intuitive, but it is crucial that at least the function exist and that it be discussed.

Professor Strobel refers to the literature. My impression of it is that the justfification for the study of world history following the two world wars has largely evaporated. To provoke further discussion, let me offer a proposition: world history no longer has any useful social function.

My own sense is that it certainly could have one, but only if certain issues are addressed:

a) The conceptual or theoretical dead end in which the social sciences now find themselves must be overcome. In particular, is the function of a social science primarily in relation to mental life or to informed action? It may be easy to dismiss this question, but it would be a mistake because its answer has profound implications. Postmodernism seems to favor the latter, but most young people in the world seem more concerned with the efficacy of action than the truth value of abstractions.

b) Useful would be an understanding of why the earlier warrant for world history no longer seems persuasive. What has changed? I suspect it has to do with politics. The globalization of politics is accompanied by individuals in the West less able to make a difference locally. For example, in my home town, post-WWII political reforms replaced the old ward system with professional city management. While it meant less corruption and more efficiency, it also meant less democracy (these corrupt politicians were neighbors subject to community pressure). As most of the world's young people are (for better or worse) increasingly coming to exist as political agents (jihads, green revolutions, protests), in the West people are increassingly quiescent (union membership, voter participation).

c) What distinguishes world history from other histories? Presumably the ecumenical world history that many of us actually teach is simply an enlargement of scope rather than anything really novel. Given the pain that world history can bring for both teacher and student, surely it must offer something not otherwise available. I suggest that the object it references must be defined in such a way that clearly implies a significant relation with the student, reader or researcher.

Haines Brown
Central Connecticut State University, Emeritus

As someone who has taught in history as well as anthropology departments, I miss reference to contributions made by anthropologists. There are several major figures who come to mind, but here I would like to draw attention to Eric Wolf, whose 1984 book "Europe and the People Without History" has had a major impact. In fact, there are well over 100,000 copies sold in the English edition alone. In addition, the book has been translated in Arabic, Chinese, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian, and Spanish. For a brief overview, see my chapter about his work in "Fifty Key Anthropologists" (Robert Gordon et al,, eds. 2011, pp. 260-66).

In response to Christoph Strobel's question ("Has this global turn made world history irrelevant as a field?), I was reminded of what Wolf said in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1998. Although he commented on developments in anthropology, the same can be said about history, in particular world history: "Assessing anthropology's relation to the powers external to it requires not merely a history of anthropological ideas, but also an appraisal of the changing political economic arenas within which the discipline developed. That field was structured by capitalist development and the formation of nation-states and their rivalries in imperialism and colonialism, as well as by the rise of new educational regimes, institutions and disciplines."
Since Wolf spoke these words, about a year before his death in 1999, the process of "globalization" has accelerated and intensified, in part because of more powerful communications technologies.The global arena of power relations is restructuring the international force field as we now know it (esp. the spectacular rise of China). In short, what is needed in world history (or global history) is a comprehensive theoretical framework that enables us (and, importantly, our students and the general public) to better understand, interpret, and explain our world as it continues to change.
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I absolutely agree Harald Prins that what is needed in world history (or global history) is a comprehensive theoretical framework that enables us (and, importantly, our students and the general public) to better understand, interpret, and explain our world as it continues to change.

I am extremely interested in this goal, and would appreciate the opportunity to work with others towards achieving it. 

Please contact me if you are interested in discussing this goal. I expect that we will each have our preferred theories and frameworks, but we can still learn from each other and discover potential synergies. If nothing else, it will certainly be a fascinating discussion.

Will any of you be at the 2015 WHA conference in Savannah? If so, perhaps some sort of face-to-face discussion may be possible there.

Professor Ciotola,

You seem to invite others to engage you in dialog off list. Is that your intention? If so, you do not provide an email address for that to happen.

Arguably it may be beneficial for such a dialog to be carried out instead in this forum, for then everyone could benefit. However, I suspect some will disagree because they feel a "comprehensive theoretical framework" is more properly the concern of philosophy than of historiography. I suspect historians are deeply divided over whether their aim is to describe "wie es eigentlich gewesen" or to construct meaning. Or is subject/object a false dichotomy invented by Kant?

Haines Brown
Central Connecticut State University, Demeritus

I’ve been enjoying the discussion, but want to inject myself, to pick up on some issues that were raised:

Discussing issues such as the “relevance” or the “state of the field” of “world history” at the WHA conference or at the regional affiliates is certainly important. I would be happy to meet and be part of that discussion in Savannah and beyond.

That said many of our subscribers are not necessarily at these conferences, and it is still months away. Seconding Prof. Haines Brown, the H-World editorial team believes that H-World remains a good place to discuss these issues and questions, which is why I have been raising many of them and related questions.

I think it also important to acknowledge Prof. Prins’ point about the interdisciplinary contributions to “world history.” Pardon the personal note here, but Prof. Wolf’s work, along the work of several sociologists and geographers, drew me to world history. Others might have similar experiences. H-World has subscribers from a variety of fields (and from various corners of the world). Furthermore, I hope you will invite colleagues in other disciplines that are working on questions relevant to the field to become part of the H-World community.

I think Prof. Prin’s second point raised again by Dr. Ciotola:
“what is needed in world history (or global history) is a comprehensive theoretical framework that enables us (and, importantly, our students and the general public) to better understand, interpret, and explain our world as it continues to change”
also deserves wider discussion on H-World. It also seems to have been raised by several other posts in the last few weeks.

Beyond a need for more theoretical discussions, what is the state of the field of “world” or “global” history in the United States (i.e. in terms of pedagogy, teaching, research, etc)? What about other parts of the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa?

Professor Brown,

Apologies!  I would be happy to discuss frameworks on this forum, but I didn't want to "hijack" the post, and it never occurred to me that our profile do not have a "private message" option.

Since you first mentioned the issue, would you like to create a new post on h-net for this discussion? Otherwise my preferred email is: ciotola at sfsu dot edu.

I feel that both aims are extremely important and have a place in history. However, many historians already address the latter aim, while relatively few the first. This lack of balance may do much to explain the current state of world history. 

Dear Prof. Ciotola et al.

Regarding the possible use of a theoretical perspective in world history:
Over the past 30 years I have been using the approach advocated by the late German sociologist Norbert Elias (1897-1990) for analyzing world history at all possible scales. This approach is based on explaining human behavior by looking at their interdependency relations throuhgn power balances.

I found this approach very useful, and enlightening, for my long-term study of religion and politics in Peru, published in 1994 as Religious Regimes in Peru. Dr. Eric Wolf used this book in his teaching, or so he told me a little less than 20 years ago.

While teaching big history over the past 20 years, I found that Elias’ approach fits almost seamlessly within the larger frame of natural history. This was first elaborated in my book The Structure of Big History of 1996, and more recently in Big History and the Future of Humanity of 2010.

Furthermore, in the revised and expanded Second Edition a text box was added specifically discussing this issue. The edition is due to appear within a few weeks (the Kindle and Apple iBook versions are already available).

Elias’ theoretical approach still needs to be refined and further elaborated. But, in my opinion, it offers the best possible theoretical approach currently available, and I see no reason why it would not be applicable to any aspect of world history.

You can find more information on the second edition (and on big history) on www.bighistory.info

Perhaps this is helpful.

Fred Spier

Dear All,

I second what Fred Spier says here. It seems to me that big history supplies the comprehensive theoretical framework for world history quite nicely. Understanding cultural evolution in terms of energy regimes works. Big history also supplies the answer to the questions of world history's function because it both enriches mental life and provides a program for informed action in a variety of ways but with an especial emphasis on global environmental issues. True, big history has yet to address adequately the question of meaning--some work needs to be done there for sure--but scholars are now turning to this problem by re-integrating into it more traditional humanist approaches. From my perspective, big history is the way forward for world history in every sense that has been raised in this stimulating discussion. And yes, let's talk more about this in Savannah (30 June-2 July 2015) at the WHA meeting and the following summer in Brussels (WHA) and in Amsterdam at the International Big History Association conference (14-16 July 2016).

David Blanks
Chair, Department of History
The American University in Cairo

This discussion has been pretty “theory” heavy so far. Some in this discussion suggest the need for a “broader theoretical framework” and the need to more clearly communicate that. For others, it seems, such models are already in place. It might be “Big History,” “globalization,” or etc.

For many others “history” is, at least in part, about “story.” What role does narrative history, biography, fiction, etc. play as you look at the “state of the field of world history” either as a teaching or research field?

Perhaps those of us at the WHA this week in Savannah can meet for coffee to continue this discussion and figure out a way to best include interested persons not in attendance. My email is: ciotola@sfsu.edu