The Challenges
of World History
What does “world history” mean?
Can it be done?
What is “the world”?
• The first problem we encounter when we
begin to study world history is simply: what
do we mean by “the world”?
• From different geographical and cultural
perspectives—as well as different
geographical periods—”the world” can be
defined in quite different ways
• If we are going to make any headway we
have to agree on what the term “world”
actually means
Some 19th century ideas
• Hegel believed that “world history” was a
process leading towards an inevitable final
cause – the idea of freedom
• Karl Marx had a similar idea but
emphasized the material aspects of
freedom
• In the 20th century, historians have
challenged (an even rejected) the idea
that history is progressing through stages
towards one final end
Globalization
• We also have to take
account of the fact
that we live in an era
of globalization
• This challenges us to
see world history from
the perspective of
how we arrived at
where we are today
History and Globalization
• Even if we agree that “the world” is the
planet that we live on, we still have some
methodological concerns to deal with:
– How can we understand world history in an
inclusive way that does not rely on our
cultural biases and assumptions?
– Just how objective can we be?
– How can we understand the past if we look at
everything from a 21st century perspective?
How do we understand the past?
• Historians use a number of categories of
analysis in order to assess the past:
Political
Economic
Social
Religious
Intellectual
Technological
Artistic
• All of these categories can be use to make
comparisons about different parts of the world
Other categories
• Since the 1960s historians have tended to focus
on the following three categories:
Class
Gender
Race
• Building on these themes historians have also
emphasized the importance of:
Power
Ideology
Identity
Regions and Interactions
• One of the major themes of this course is
the interaction and divergence between
different regions of the world
• While we need to know something about
the distinct nature of each region, we do
not want to look at them in isolation
• Sometimes these interactions are
harmonious, other times they engender
deep-seated conflict
World Populations
Afro-Eurasia
• The textbook uses the term “Afro-Eurasia”
to designate the area that was the most
interconnected around 1000 CE
• The authors argue that this designation
best reflects how “pre-modern” understood
their geography
• It includes Europe, Northern Africa, and
Asia
T-O World Maps
Postcolonial Theory
• Postcolonial theorists analyze the effects
of colonialism on societies and try to come
up with working solutions to the effects of
colonialism in places like India, Africa, and
Latin America
• The great impact of postcolonial theory
has been to challenge some of the
underlying assumptions of Western culture
as a natural “dominator” of the rest of the
world
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)
• Born in the French colony of
Martinique, studied psychiatry in
France
• His works, like Black Skin, White
Masks (1952) explored the
effects of colonial domination on
the ‘colonized’
• Inspired revolutionary
movements across the world, as
well as the study of colonial
domination
Edward Said
• In his pioneering 1978
work Orientalism, Said
argued that the Western
mindset which sees “the
other” as inferior and an
object to be conquered
• Often seen as the father of
postcolonial theory
Impact of Postcolonial theory
• Effort to write a history of the colonial era
that does not simply appropriate the
colonizer’s view – but also takes into
account the experiences and history of
colonized people
• In order to do this, we must be aware of
western historical traditions and avoid
projecting them on to non-western peoples
Our Goal
• To sketch the outline of the roots of our
modern global system (narrative)
• To identify and discuss major themes that
emerge from the interaction between
people from different parts of the globe
• To develop a balanced view of the past
that takes in the perspectives of the
various historical actors involved