Description
Book SynopsisPresents overviews and approaches to the problems of world history. This book offers radical postmodern and postcolonial critiques of holism, identity, and Western scientific history in favor of a different kind of universalism. It is suitable for those interested in teaching history courses attuned to the global era in which we live.
Table of ContentsList of Contributors vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: The Theory and Practice of World History 1
Philip Pomper
Part 1 Mapping the Field
1 The Changing Shape of World History 21
William H. McNeill
2 Crossing Boundaries: Ecumenical, World, and Global History 41
Bruce Mazlish
3 Periodizing World History 53
William A. Green
Part II Rethinking Structure, Agency, and Ideology
4 The World-System Perspective in the Construction of Economic History 69
Janet Lippman Abu-Lughod
5 Bringing Ideas and Agency Back In: Representation and the Comparative Approach to World History 81
Michael Adas
6 World Histories and the Construction of Collective Identities 105
S. N. Eisenstadt
Part II Unbinding Identities
8 History’s Forgotten Doubles 159
Ashis Nandy
9 Identify in World History: A Postmodern Perspective 179
Lewis D. Wurgaft
Part IV Charting Trajectories
10 World History, Cultural Relativism, and the Global Future 217
Theodore H. Von Laue
Notes 235
Index 272
