Global History

Introduction to the course„Historiography of Global History“Course Type W3 = Philosophy of Science 3

Historiography of HistoryThe historical writings (=texts) about history itself

a matter of a critical assessment of sources applying relevant methods explicitlly

ORThe perspective or point of view from which a specific historical writing emanates

a matter of philosophy of science

How to deal with different perspectives?

We can imagine infinite possibilities of different perspectives, but we cannot tell different histories simultaneously. So a critical scientific attitude takes these differences into account and under this assumption opt for a particular perspective.To negate differences in perspectives produces a single vision of truth =dogmatism

Perspectives on History (1)Directed at the past as source for the recent political/ economic/ social order Historism: methods = mainly positivistim and later hermeneuticsDirected at the future of mankind Universalism: methods = philosophical, mainly metaphysicsDirected at different social and cultural circumstances Multipersepctivity: methods are more similar to social sciences

Perspectives on History (2)

Focus on civilizations and their epic struggle World History, e.g. Annales: economic, social historiesDirected at the relations and interactions of people and other relevant entities in past and present; globalisations & their contemporary outcomes Global History, e.g. systemic approaches

Universal History (=UH)

... doesn‘t mean the same in different epochs18th century/ invention of UH as an expression of a universal future of mankind philosophy of histroy =Geschichtsphilosophie19th century/ institutionalisation of UH as the leading principle of history as an academic science philosophy of historical sciences =Geschichtswissenschaftstheorie

The philosophy of historical sciences deals with ...

TheoriesMethodsOrganisation of historical sources and the findings of research, e.g. Periodization

Theories ...

Certain assumptions taken from contemporary cognitive framworks brougth into discussion about philosophy of historical sciences

e.g. Cyclical cosmovision (e.g. genealogies); anthroposophical pessimism Golden Age (e.g. Romans); anthroposophical optimism chronological progress development; structuralism (Foucault), systemic approach (WST), constructivist theories, etc.

Methods ...

Historians assert their arguments applying scientific means (=methods)

Examining sources applying quantitative (e.g. statistics) and/or qualitative methods (e.g. hermeneutics) critical arguments preparing datas and compare them (only the same type of datas can be compared properly reduction of complexity)Examining history writings itself according, e.g. to the discourse practices within the field history of historiography

Periodization ...

The concept of an era focuses on cycles, based on a definite dramatical event, but preferably searches for several constructions aggregating an episode

E.g. • 12.10.1492 Or: Modern Times (Neuzeit? =

WZGN 3) • WW1+ Big Depression + WW2 OR: The era of

the Great War (Wallerstein)

Possible Classifications of History...

According to ages: Ancient World, Middle Ages, Modern Times, Contemporary History etc.

eurocentric

According to aspects: Economic, Social, Political, Women‘s History etc.

eurocentric?

According to spaces and systems: Local, European, World, WSA, Global History etc.

Classification of History According to the Maximum Human Space or System

Universal History deals with how the world will once become.World History deals with the confirmably constituting facts of the actual civilizations, composed by different histories concluding in a common vision of humanity. Global History deals with globally asserted interactions in their until now ignored varieties and locally different levles of their respective pertinance, e.g. bifurcations (Wendezeit)

Is there an era of globalisation?

Scholars from different fields and different theoretical backgrounds agree: the era of globalisation emerged since the 1960ies, the time mass communication took place creating so far a new global technoscietnific civilisation

Global Perspective

Since the late 1960s, the image of „one world“ has edged its way into contemporary consciousness – the globe in its physical finitness.

We share in humanity (UH), we are connected by the world market (WH), and potentially we interact with all inhabitants of the planet (GH).

Global Perspective at the blue planet?

This is the message conveyed by the first photograph of the ‚one world‘, taken from outer space, which has irresistibly emerged as the icon of our age.

World or Global History?

Mazlish, Bruce 2005: Terms.

In: Marnie Hughes Warrington (ed): World Histories. Palgrave: N.Y., 18-43

Bruce Mazlish, Professor of Historyreceived his Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Mazlish's areas of interest and expertise are Western intellectual and cultural history, with a special nod to history of science and technology, the culture of capitalism, and history of the social sciences. He is also an authority in the interdisciplinary field of psychohistory as well as historical methodology; most recently he has spearheaded an effort to conceptualize global history. His most recent publications are: Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and The New Global History, co-edited with Alfred D. Chandler, JrHe is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1986 he was awarded the Toynbee Prize, an international award in social science.

• Source: http://web.mit.edu/bmazlish/www/

„World histories ...

themselves cannot become new forms of myth, but must remain part of the practive of history (Mazlish 2005, 39).“„In practice, of course, pieces of the whole are chosen for investigation, and the local treated as an opening to the world or globe (Mazlish 2005, 40).“

„Overall our world histories ...

share some common characteristics, but also exhibit ‚local‘ differences. The most essential common feature is a desire to transcend their existing geographic limitations (Mazlish 2005, 40).“

Can we write the History of the Globe?

Bruce Mazlish Global History faces the basic facts of our time:

• Satellites in outer space link the people together in real time and a totally new fashion

• Nuclear therats reveal the inadequacy of territorial states and it‘s military forces

• Environmental Problems• Enormous expansion of MNCs

– Mazlish, Bruce 2005: Terms. In Marnie Hughes Warrington (ed): Wolrd Histories. Palgrave: N.Y., 18-43

An examples of World History.

Arnold J. Toynbee, Mankind And Mother Earth - A Narrative History Of The World, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1976. --, Menschheit und Mutter Erde. Die Geschichte der großen Zivilisationen, Claassen Verlag GmbH, Düsseldorf, 1979.

Arnold J. Toynbee (1989-1975)Born in London, Arnold J. he began his teaching career as a fellow of Balliol College in 1912, and thereafter held positions at King‘s College London (as Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History), the LSE and the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) in Chatham House. Toynbee presented history as the rise and fall of civilizations, rather than the history of nation-states or of ethnic groups. He identified his civilizations according to cultural rather than national criteria. Thus, the "Western Civilization", comprising all the nations that have existed in Western Europe since the collapse of the Roman Empire, was treated as a whole, and distinguished from both the "Orthodox" civilization of Russia and the Balkans, and from the Greco-Roman civilization that preceded it.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_J._Toynbee

1. Arnold J. Toynbee (philosophy of history)

The History of human race according to the main stages of production and dissimination of knowledge consisted of three successive phases

PrehistoryHistoryNew Era

Toynbee ...

1. PrehistoryCommunications are extremly slowKnowledge advanced painfully Every new development had time to

spread everywhere before an other came along

All human societies developed in parallel with one another and had many characteristics in common

e.g. The Neolithical Revolution

Toynbee ...

2. HistoryKnowledge developed faster than the means of disseminating it human societies grew more and more different from one another

e.g. book printing

Toynbee ...

3. New EraKnowledge advances more and

more rapidly, the dissemination of knowledge progresses even faster human societies are likely to become less and less differentiated from one another

An examples for a historical perspective according to Global History

Michael Geyer/ Charles Bright, (1995): World History in a Global Age. In: American Historical Review 100/ 4: 1047-60.

Geyer and Bright applied philosophy of science

World History in a Global AgeGlobalisation is not the trigger for a new age, but a new ordering of relations of domination and subordination among all regions of the world

After the European-Atlantic-civilisations became the centering axis of an integrating world (= The West), in the Global Age this world became de-centered radically due to worldwide processes of unsettlement.

Michael Geyer and Charles Bright...

Narrating world history in our global age means

Taking into account the recent phenomenas of globalisation =worldwide unsettlement

To do proper historical inquiry = archival research

Teasing out the fissures and tensions between what happened and what is said to have happened (= a kind of positivism!)

The worldwide processes of unsettlement Geyer/ Bright...

1. The unequal process of industrialisation2. The proliferation of transnational

practices in banking, commerce, information, communication and in the interactions of states

3. Migration reversed from the poor South to the rich North

4. The vanishing of the nation-state proliferation of export platforms, para-states, „private“ (family-based) states and state satrapies.