World history or Global history (not to be
confused with diplomatic, transnational or
international history) is a field of historical
study that emerged as a distinct academic
field in the 1980s. It examines history from
a global perspective. It is not to be confused
with comparative history, which, like world
history, deals with the history of multiple
cultures and nations, but does not do so on
a global scale. World history looks for common
patterns that emerge across all cultures.
World historians use a thematic approach,
with two major focal points: integration (how
processes of world history have drawn people
of the world together) and difference (how
patterns of world history reveal the diversity
of the human experiences).
== Establishment and parameters of the field
==
Jerry H. Bentley has observed that 'the term
world history has never been a clear signifier
with a stable referent', and that usage of
the term overlaps with universal history,
comparative history, global history, big history,
macro history, and transnational history,
amongst others.The advent of world history
as a distinct academic field of study can
be traced to the 1960s, but the pace quickened
in the 1980s. A key step was the creation
of the World History Association and graduate
programs at a handful of universities. Over
the next decades scholarly publications, professional
and academic organizations, and graduate programs
in World History proliferated. World History
has often displaced Western Civilization in
the required curriculum of American high schools
and universities, and is supported by new
textbooks with a world history approach.
World History attempts to recognise and address
two structures that have profoundly shaped
professional history-writing:
A tendency to use current nation-states to
the set the boundaries and agendas of studies
of the past.
A deep legacy of Eurocentric assumptions (found
especially, but not only, in Western history-writing).Thus
World History tends to study networks, connections,
and systems that cross traditional boundaries
of historical study like linguistic, cultural,
and national borders. World History is often
concerned to explore social dynamics that
have led to large-scale changes in human society,
such as industrialisation and the spread of
capitalism, and to analyse how large-scale
changes like these have affected different
parts of the world. Like other branches of
history-writing in the second half of the
twentieth century, World History has a scope
far beyond historians' traditional focus on
politics, wars, and diplomacy, taking in a
panoply of subjects like gender history, social
history, cultural history, and environmental
history.
=== Organizations ===
The H-World discussion list serves as a network
of communication among practitioners of world
history, with discussions among scholars,
announcements, syllabi, bibliographies and
book reviews.
The International Society for the Comparative
Study of Civilizations (ISCSC) approaches
world history from the standpoint of comparative
civilizations. Founded at a conference in
1961 in Salzburg, Austria, that was attended
by Othmar Anderlie, Pitirim Sorokin, and Arnold
J. Toynbee, this is an international association
of scholars that publishes a journal, Comparative
Civilization Review, and hosts an annual meeting
in cities around the world.
The Journal of World History has been published
quarterly by the World History Association
since 1990.
The Journal of Global History is a scholarly
journal established in 2006 and is published
by Cambridge University Press.
World History Association (WHA) - Established
in the 1980s, the WHA is predominantly an
American phenomenon.
== History ==
=== 
Pre-modern ===
The study of world history, as distinct from
national history, has existed in many world
cultures. However, early forms of world history
were not truly global, and were limited to
only the regions known by the historian.
In Ancient China, Chinese world history, that
of China and the surrounding people of East
Asia, was based on the dynastic cycle articulated
by Sima Qian in circa 100 BC. Sima Qian's
model is based on the Mandate of Heaven. Rulers
rise when they united China, then are overthrown
when a ruling dynasty became corrupt. Each
new dynasty begins virtuous and strong, but
then decays, provoking the transfer of Heaven's
mandate to a new ruler. The test of virtue
in a new dynasty is success in being obeyed
by China and neighboring barbarians. After
2000 years Sima Qian's model still dominates
scholarship, although the dynastic cycle is
no longer used for modern Chinese history.In
Ancient Greece, Herodotus (5th century BC),
as founder of Greek historiography, presents
insightful and lively discussions of the customs,
geography, and history of Mediterranean peoples,
particularly the Egyptians. However, his great
rival Thucydides promptly discarded Herodotus's
all-embracing approach to history, offering
instead a more precise, sharply focused monograph,
dealing not with vast empires over the centuries
but with 27 years of war between Athens and
Sparta. In Rome, the vast, patriotic history
of Rome by Livy (59 BC-17 AD) approximated
Herodotean inclusiveness; Polybius (c.200-c.118
BC) aspired to combine the logical rigor of
Thucydides with the scope of Herodotus.In
Central Asia, The Secret History of Mongols
is regarded as the single significant native
Mongolian account of Genghis Khan. The Secret
History is regarded as a piece of classic
literature in both Mongolia and the rest of
the world.
In the Middle East, Ala'iddin Ata-Malik Juvayni
(1226–1283) was a Persian historian who
wrote an account of the Mongol Empire entitled
Ta' rīkh-i jahān-gushā (History of the
World Conqueror). The standard edition of
Juvayni is published under the title Ta' rīkh-i
jahān-gushā, ed. Mirza Muhammad Qazwini,
3 vol, Gibb Memorial Series 16 (Leiden and
London, 1912–37). An English translation
by John Andrew Boyle "The History of the World-Conqueror"
was republished in 1997.
Rashīd al-Dīn Fadhl-allāh Hamadānī (1247–1318),
was a Persian physician of Jewish origin,
polymathic writer and historian, who wrote
an enormous Islamic history, the Jami al-Tawarikh,
in the Persian language, often considered
a landmark in intercultural historiography
and a key document on the Ilkhanids (13th
and 14th century). His encyclopedic knowledge
of a wide range of cultures from Mongolia
to China to the Steppes of Central Eurasia
to Persia, the Arabic-speaking lands, and
Europe, provide the most direct access to
information on the late Mongol era. His descriptions
also highlight the manner in which the Mongol
Empire and its emphasis on trade resulted
in an atmosphere of cultural and religious
exchange and intellectual ferment, resulting
in the transmission of a host of ideas from
East to West and vice versa.
One Muslim scholar, Ibn Khaldun (1332-1409)
broke with traditionalism and offered a model
of historical change in Muqaddimah, an exposition
of the methodology of scientific history.
Ibn Khaldun focused on the reasons for the
rise and fall of civilization, arguing that
the causes of change are to be sought in the
economic and social structure of society.
His work was largely ignored in the Muslim
world. Otherwise the Muslim, Chinese and Indian
intellectuals held fast to a religious traditionalism,
leaving them unprepared to advise national
leaders on how to confront the European intrusion
into Asia after 1500 AD.
=== Early modern ===
During the Renaissance in Europe, history
was written about states or nations. The study
of history changed during the Enlightenment
and Romanticism. Voltaire described the history
of certain ages that he considered important,
rather than describing events in chronological
order. History became an independent discipline.
It was not called philosophia historiae anymore,
but merely history (historia).Voltaire, in
the 18th century, attempted to revolutionize
the study of world history. First, Voltaire
concluded that the traditional study of history
was flawed. The Christian Church, one of the
most powerful entities in his time, had presented
a framework for studying history. Voltaire,
when writing History of Charles XII (1731)
and The Age of Louis XIV (1751), instead choose
to focus economics, politics and culture.
These aspects of history were mostly unexplored
by his contemporaries and would each develop
into their own sections of world history.
Above all else, Voltaire regarded truth as
the most essential part of recording world
history. Nationalism and religion only subtracted
from objective truth, so Voltaire freed himself
for their influence when he recorded history.Giambattista
Vico (1668–1744) in Italy wrote Scienza
nuva seconda (The New Science) in 1725, which
argued history as the expression of human
will and deeds. He thought that men are historical
entities and that human nature changes over
time. Each epoch should be seen as a whole
in which all aspects of culture—art, religion,
philosophy, politics, and economics—are
interrelated (a point developed later by Oswald
Spengler). Vico showed that myth, poetry,
and art are entry points to discovering the
true spirit of a culture. Vico outlined a
conception of historical development in which
great cultures, like Rome, undergo cycles
of growth and decline. His ideas were out
of fashion during the Enlightenment, but influenced
the Romantic historians after 1800.
A major theoretical foundation for world history
was given by German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel,
who saw the modern Prussian state as the latest
(though often confused with the highest) stage
of world development.
G.W.F. Hegel developed three lenses through
which he believed world history could be viewed.
Documents produced during a historical period,
such as journal entries and contractual agreements,
were considered by Hegel to be part of Original
History. These documents are produced by a
person enveloped within a culture, making
them conduits of vital information but also
limited in their contextual knowledge. Documents
which pertain to Hegel’s Original History
are classified by modern historians as primary
sources.Reflective History, Hegel’s second
lens, are documents written with some temporal
distance separating the event which is discussed
in the academic writing. What limited this
lens, according to Hegel, was the imposition
of the writers own cultural values and views
on the historical event. This criticism of
Reflective History was later formalized by
Anthropologists Franz Boa and coined as Cultural
relativism by Alain Locke. Both of these lenses
were considered to be partially flawed by
Hegel.Hegel termed the lens which he advocated
to view world history through as Philosophical
History. In order to view history through
this lens, one must analyze events, civilizations,
and periods objectively. When done in this
fashion, the historian can then extract the
prevailing theme from their studies. This
lens differs from the rest because it is void
of any cultural biases and takes a more analytical
approach to history. World History can be
a broad topic, so focusing on extracting the
most valuable information from certain periods
may be the most beneficial approach. This
third lens, as did Hegel’s definitions of
the other two, affected the study of history
in the early modern period and our contemporary
period.Another early modern historian was
Adam Ferguson. Ferguson’s main contribution
to the study of world history was his An Essay
on the History of Civil Society (1767). According
to Ferguson, world history was a combination
of two forms of history. One was natural history;
the aspects of our world which god created.
The other, which was more revolutionary, was
social history. For him, social history was
the progress humans made towards fulfilling
God’s plan for humanity. He believed that
progress, which could be achieved through
individuals pursuing commercial success, would
bring us closer to a perfect society; but
we would never reach one. However, he also
theorized that a complete dedication to commercial
success could lead to societal collapse—like
what happened in Rome—because people would
lose morality. Through this lens, Ferguson
viewed world history as humanities struggle
to reach an ideal society.Henry Home, Lord
Kames was a philosopher during the Enlightenment
and contributed to the study or world history.
In his major historical work, Sketches on
the History of Man, Home’s outlined the
four stages of human history which he observed.
The first and most primitive stage was small
hunter-gatherer groups. Then, in order to
form larger groups, humans transitioned into
the second stage when they began to domesticate
animals. The third stage was the development
of agriculture. This new technology established
trade and higher levels of cooperation amongst
sizable groups of people. With the gathering
of people into agricultural villages, laws
and social obligations needed to be developed
so a form of order could be maintained. The
fourth, and final stage, involved humans moving
into market towns and seaports where agriculture
was not the focus. Instead, commerce and other
forms of labor arouse in a society. By defining
the stages of human history, Homes influenced
his successors. He also contributed to the
development of other studies such as sociology
and anthropology.
=== Contemporary ===
World history became a popular genre in the
20th century with universal history. In the
1920s, several best-sellers dealt with the
history of the world, including surveys The
Story of Mankind (1921) by Hendrik Willem
van Loon and The Outline of History (1918)
by H.G. Wells. Influential writers who have
reached wide audiences include H. G. Wells,
Oswald Spengler, Arnold J. Toynbee, Pitirim
Sorokin, Carroll Quigley, Christopher Dawson,
and Lewis Mumford. Scholars working the field
include Eric Voegelin, William Hardy McNeill
and Michael Mann. With evolving technologies
such as dating methods and surveying laser
technology called LiDAR, contemporary historians
have access to knew information which changes
how past civilizations are studied.
Spengler's Decline of the West (2 vol 1919–1922)
compared nine organic cultures: Egyptian (3400
BC-1200 BC), Indian (1500 BC-1100 BC), Chinese
(1300 BC-AD 200), Classical (1100 BC-400 BC),
Byzantine (AD 300–1100), Aztec (AD 1300–1500),
Arabian (AD 300–1250), Mayan (AD 600–960),
and Western (AD 900–1900). His book was
a smashing success among intellectuals worldwide
as it predicted the disintegration of European
and American civilization after a violent
"age of Caesarism," arguing by detailed analogies
with other civilizations. It deepened the
post-World War I pessimism in Europe, and
was warmly received by intellectuals in China,
India, and Latin America who hoped his predictions
of the collapse of European empires would
soon come true.In 1936–1954, Toynbee's ten-volume
A Study of History came out in three separate
installments. He followed Spengler in taking
a comparative topical approach to independent
civilizations. Toynbee said they displayed
striking parallels in their origin, growth,
and decay. Toynbee rejected Spengler's biological
model of civilizations as organisms with a
typical life span of 1,000 years. Like Sima
Qian, Toynbee explained decline as due to
their moral failure. Many readers rejoiced
in his implication (in vols. 1–6) that only
a return to some form of Catholicism could
halt the breakdown of western civilization
which began with the Reformation. Volumes
7–10, published in 1954, abandoned the religious
message, and his popular audience slipped
away, while scholars picked apart his mistakes.,McNeill
wrote The Rise of the West (1963) to improve
upon Toynbee by showing how the separate civilizations
of Eurasia interacted from the very beginning
of their history, borrowing critical skills
from one another, and thus precipitating still
further change as adjustment between traditional
old and borrowed new knowledge and practice
became necessary. McNeill took a broad approach
organized around the interactions of peoples
across the Earth. Such interactions have become
both more numerous and more continual and
substantial in recent times. Before about
1500, the network of communication between
cultures was that of Eurasia. The term for
these areas of interaction differ from one
world historian to another and include world-system
and ecumene. Whatever it is called, the importance
of these intercultural contacts has begun
to be recognized by many scholars.
== History education ==
=== 
United States ===
T. Walter Wallbank and Alastair M. Taylor
co-authored Civilization Past & Present, the
first world-history textbook published in
the United States (1942). With additional
authors, this very successful work went through
numerous editions up to the first decade of
the twenty-first century. According to the
Golden Anniversary edition of 1992, the ongoing
objective of Civilization Past & Present "was
to present a survey of world cultural history,
treating the development and growth of civilization
not as a unique European experience but as
a global one through which all the great culture
systems have interacted to produce the present-day
world. It attempted to include all the elements
of history – social, economic, political,
religious, aesthetic, legal, and technological."
In college curricula of the United States,
world history became a popular replacement
for courses on Western Civilization. Professors
Patrick Manning, previously of Northeastern
University and now at the University of Pittsburgh's
World History Center; and Ross E. Dunn at
San Diego State are leaders in promoting innovative
teaching methods.In schools of architecture
in the U.S., the National Architectural Accrediting
Board now requires that schools teach history
that includes a non-west or global perspective.
This reflects a decade-long effort to move
past the standard Euro-centric approach that
had dominated the field.
== Recent themes ==
In recent years, the relationship between
African and world history has shifted rapidly
from one of antipathy to one of engagement
and synthesis. Reynolds (2007) surveys the
relationship between African and world histories,
with an emphasis on the tension between the
area studies paradigm and the growing world-history
emphasis on connections and exchange across
regional boundaries. A closer examination
of recent exchanges and debates over the merits
of this exchange is also featured. Reynolds
sees the relationship between African and
world history as a measure of the changing
nature of historical inquiry over the past
century.
== Marxian theory of history ==
The Marxist theory of historical materialism
claims the history of the world is fundamentally
determined by the material conditions at any
given time – in other words, the relationships
which people have with each other in order
to fulfil basic needs such as feeding, clothing
and housing themselves and their families.
Overall, Marx and Engels claimed to have identified
five successive stages of the development
of these material conditions in Western Europe.The
theory divides the history of the world into
the following periods: Primitive communism;
Slave society; Feudalism; Capitalism; and
Socialism.
Regna Darnell and Frederic Gleach argue that,
in the Soviet Union, the Marxian theory of
history was the only accepted orthodoxy, and
stifled research into other schools of thought
on history. However, adherents of Marx's theories
argue that Stalin distorted Marxism.
== World historians ==
Christopher Bayly, The Birth of the Modern
World: Global Connections and Comparisons,
1780–1914 (London, 2004)
Jerry Bentley, (1949-2012) Founder and editor
of the Journal of World History
Jacques Bertin, Atlas historique universel.
Panorama de l'histoire du monde, Geneva, Minerva,
1997
Fernand Braudel, (1903-1985) Civilisation
matérielle, économie et capitalisme (Paris,
1973, 3 vols.); English translation, Civilization
and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries, translated
by Siân Reynolds, 3 vols. (1979)
Philip D. Curtin (1922-2009), The World and
the West: The European Challenge and the Overseas
Response in the Age of Empire. (2000) 308
pp. ISBN 978-0-521-77135-1. online review
Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) Religion and
the Rise of Western Culture (1950) excerpt
and text search
Will Durant (1885-1981) and Ariel Durant (1898-1981);
Story of Civilization(1935-1975).
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (b.1950), "Millennium"
(1995), "Civilizations" (2000), "The World"
(2007).
Francis Fukuyama (1952– ) The End of History
and the Last Man (1992)
Peter Haugen, professor of the University
of Wisconsin; writer of World History for
Dummies
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1830),
philosopher of world history
Patrick Manning, Navigating World History:
Historians Create a Global Past (2003)
William Hardy McNeill (born 1917); see especially
The Rise of the West: A History of the Human
Community (1963)
Robert McNeill and William H. McNeill. The
Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History
(2003) excerpt and text search
Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of
the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth
Century (2014) excerpt
Carroll Quigley (1910-1977), The Evolution
of Civilizations (1961), Tragedy and Hope:
A History of the World in Our Time (1966),
Weapons Systems and Political Stability: A
History (1983)
Pitirim Sorokin (1889–1968), Russian-American
macrosociology; Social and Cultural Dynamics
(4 vol., 1937–41)
Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), German; Decline
of the West (1918–22) vol 1 online; vol
2 online; excerpt and text search, abridged
edition
Peter Stearns, (1936- ) USA; World History
in Brief: Major Patterns of Change and Continuity,
7th ed. (2009); Encyclopedia of World History,
6th ed. (200pp)
Luc-Normand Tellier, Canadian; Urban World
History, PUQ, (2009), 650 pages; online edition
Arnold J. Toynbee, British; A Study of History
(1934–61); see especially A Study of History.
Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) Order and History
(1956–85)
Immanuel Wallerstein, World-systems theory
== 
See also ==
Comparative history
History of globalization
Political history of the world
Universal history
Transnational history
