Abstract
This article focuses on the rise of world history and the challenges it poses to curricula that emphasize history in service to national or civilizational identity. The nature and causes of the world history movement are juxtaposed to the continuing or renewed attachment to more nationalist history. Specific clashes around world history, particularly but not exclusively in the United States, have focused on opposing views about history and identity. Compromises continue to results, as well as clear delays in world history interest in many regions and many programs. Yet world history continues to gain ground, fundamentally because, at its best, it provides many of the tools needed for responsible understanding of globalization past and present.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This was ultimately published as a “Universal History” in 1915. The original version, by Karl Ploetz, had, among other things, omitted Asia.
It is also important to note that adaptations of Marxist analysis, also surfacing in the 1980s, could also support a world history approach, though this was obviously less important in the United States than in centers such as the University of Leipzig which began to build its own world history program. World-systems or world economy analysis, advanced by Immanual Wallterstein, provided a vigorous framework for examining political and economic relationships from the early modern period onward, and a number of world history programs worked on this approach at least for a time.
References
Bentley, J. H. (1993). Old world encounters: Cross-cultural contacts and exchanges in pre-modern times. New York: Oxford University Press.
Christian, D. (2005). Maps of time: An introduction to big history. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Dunn, R. (1994). National curriculum standards for social studies. Silver Spring, MD: National Council for the Social Studies.
Dunn, R. (1999). The new world history: A teacher’s companion. Bedford/St. Martins: Macmillan.
Frank, A. G. (1998). ReORIENT: Global economy in the Asian age. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Frankel, N., & Stearns, P. N. (2008). Globalizing American history: The AHA guide to re-imagining the U.S. survey course. Washington, DC: American Historical Association.
Goldstone, J. (2008). Why Europe? The rise of the west in world history 1500–1850. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Guarneri, C. (2007). America in the World: United States history in global context. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Manning, P. (2003). Navigating world history: Historians create a global past. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mazlish, B. (2006). The new global history. New York and London: Routledge.
McNeill, W. H. (1992). The rise of the west: A history of the human community; with a retrospective essay. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Nash, G., Crabtree, C., & Dunn, R. (2000). History on trial: Culture wars and the teaching of the past, 2/e. New York and Canada: Random House.
Pomeranz, K. (2000). The great divergence: China, Europe and the making of the modern world economy. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Robertson, R. T. (2003). The three waves of globalization: A history of a developing global consciousness. London: Zed Books.
Sachsenmaier, D. (2011). Global perspectives on global history: Theories and approaches in a connected world. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Stearns, P. N. (2003). Western civilization in world history. New York and London: Routledge.
Stearns, P. N. (2010). Globalization in world history. New York and London: Routledge.
Stearns, P. N. (2011). World history: The basics. New York and London: Routledge.
Stewart-Harawira, M. (2005). The new imperial order: Indigenous responses to globalization. New Zealand and Australia: Huai Publishers.
Stearns, P. N. (2015). Debating the Industrial Revolution. London: Bloomsburg.
Wallerstein, I. M. (2004). World-systems analysis: An introduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stearns, P.N. World History, Identity and Political Change. Found Sci 21, 105–115 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-014-9367-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-014-9367-x