Theory, Culture &
Society [Link]
Global History
Bruce Mazlish
Theory Culture Society 2006; 23; 406
DOI: 10.1177/026327640602300272
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406 Theory, Culture & Society 23(2–3)
in vying for control over trade and other forms of Friedman, Jonathan (2004b) ‘Culture and its
external wealth have been a crucial aspect of such Politics in the Global System’, Protosociology
‘diffusion’ in Asia, Africa, the Pacific and even in 20: 217–38.
the early history of Europe. The articulation Friedman, Jonathan (2004c) ‘Choc de cultures et
between different logics and strategies originating logique du déclin hégémonique’, pp. 261–79
in different parts of the world forms the site of a in H. Dawod (ed.) Tribus et pouvoirs en terre
true understanding of such phenomena. d’Islam. Paris: Armand Colin.
Goad, Jim (1997) The Redneck Manifesto. New
References York: Simon & Schuster.
Huntington, Samuel P. (1996) The Clash of
Buruma, Ian and Avishai Margalit (2004) Civilizations and the Remaking of World
Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of its Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Enemies. New York: Penguin.
Friedman, Jonathan (2004a) ‘The Dialectic of
Cosmopolitanization and Indigenization in the Jonathan Friedman is Directeur d’Etudes at the
Contemporary World System: Contradictory Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and
Configurations of Class and Culture’, Professor of Social Anthropology at Lund
pp. 179–97 in D. Nugent and J. Vincent (eds) University, Sweden. He has written extensively on
The Blackwell Companion to the Anthropology issues of world systems, globalization, and socio-
of Politics. Oxford: Blackwell. cultural transformation.
Global History
Bruce Mazlish
dence of people, trends that appear to be increas-
Keywords Eurocentrism, global history,
ing over time. Yet, teleology and determinism
globalization, knowledge, new global history,
must be rejected as we seek to understand
world history
globalization’s development. The story of the
latter is made up of unintended consequences and
human agency, with the result being powerful
currents that move in a global direction.
G
lobal history compels us to ask what it is
we know about our world, and how we We ‘know’ this since some time after the end
know it. In its simplest terms, globaliz- of the Second World War, when the factors making
ation, the subject of study in global history, takes globalization achieved a level of expansion and
us beyond Eurocentrism, nationalism, and their synchronicity and synergy that, like water boiling,
parochial ways of thinking, into a world of both has brought us to a new state. The very term
difference and differences being transcended in ‘globalization’ only appeared around the 1960s. To
the name of a common humanity. In doing so, reflect our new awareness we would do well to
however, it raises many questions about the disci- adopt a new periodization: the global epoch.
plines by which we try to discern the shape of Previously, we spoke of ancient, medieval and
what it is we are seeking to understand. modern periods or epochs. Now we must transcend
These are lofty-sounding statements. We need the latter term in this sequence, modern (and its
to come down to earth as well. Global history is, offspring postmodern), for it has lost its potency in
to begin with, a sub-field of history (Mazlish, orienting us in a ‘world’ (a word derived from
1993; Hughes-Warrington, 2005). It is often used Middle English meaning ‘earth’) that has become a
as a synonym for world history. This obfuscates our globe (a word derived from Latin for spheroid,
knowledge in an important way. While world and pointing us outward) (Mazlish, 1998). Our
history is also an effort to go beyond Eurocentrism, consciousness of space and time has changed to
it does not focus on globalization. The latter is a match our changed life experiences. This is knowl-
theme, contained within world history, that can be edge, a knowledge that requires us to re-examine
traced from earliest times – hunter–gatherers all our social sciences disciplines, which were
spreading across the globe – up to the present. It derived from an earlier transformation, that of the
encompasses interconnection and interdepen- Industrial and French Revolutions.
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Problematizing Global Knowledge – Genealogies of the Global/Globalizations 407
Many, if not most, scholars will refuse to take Hungary, and Vietnam – needs to be matched by
this jump. Their disciplinary traditions, their fights our visualization of this world (Chandler and
over turf, do not allow them to embrace the inter- Mazlish, 2005). If we open an atlas, we do not see
disciplinary approach and the global history perspec- this fact. To remedy this distortion, an historical
tive that is required. This is even more true in regard atlas of the MNCs, Global Inc., has been published
to what is emerging as New Global History, an initia- (New Press, 2003). A project is now under way to
tive that focuses on present-day globalization, seen match it with a similar atlas depicting the extent
as coming into being after 1945 (for further details, and power of the NGOs.
see the website, [Link] [Link]). This is knowledge for the eye as well as in the
Knowledge moves by fits and starts – one thinks of mind. Global history requires us to rethink and
Galileo’s opponents who refused to look through his review all our other pieces of knowledge. Thus, the
telescope or, if they did, declared the stars seen notions of sovereignty, internationalism, migra-
through it to be mere dust on the glass. Such an tions, and so forth call out for re-conceptualization
intelligent man, but stuck in his own limited in the context of globalization, viewed from an
perspective, as Immanuel Wallerstein declares ‘so- historical perspective (in which history, of course,
called “globalization”’ to be a fad (Wallerstein, 2000, is interdisciplinary). In spite of certain fantasists of
xviii–xix). Many follow him in this view. globalization, nation-states will not disappear in
Often they are blinded by their political the world shaping itself around us. Yet national
desires. Particular ethnic, religious, and national histories will certainly have to be written anew
groupings prize particularism rather than univer- from the global history perspective. One can see
salism, which they link to globalization and see as this beginning to happen even in such extremely
threatening their ways and local power. Thus, nationalistic and parochial settings as the teaching
universalizing sciences, such as mathematics and of American history.
physics, are viewed as mere social constructs, with In short, global history puts all our preconcep-
no need to accept them as true knowledge. This tions and presumed knowledge at risk. As we have
in spite of the fact that they are the same for been told since antiquity, with this truism recently
Asians and Americans and produce similar results emphasized by many postmodernists, knowledge
everywhere. The same can be said for parts of is power. It can be power over nature, or power
technology: computers work the same everywhere. over humans. And power produces knowledge,
How they are used, of course, is a different matter. whether aiding in domination or undermining
Needless to say, outside the natural sciences, existing dominations. The question at issue is
the situation is more complicated. Do we know whether knowledge is merely local power or can
about human rights in the same way we know transcend its origin and become part of the
about gravity? The answer is obviously no. Yet, heritage of humanity. The answer is, of course,
emerging out of human historical experience as a contested, but now must be contested in the terms
moral imperative with universalistic claims, human presented to us by globalization.
rights, or so its proponents claim, override local, At a minimum, global history requires us to
particularistic behaviors in the name of the greater take up the epistemological and dialectical dimen-
community of humanity. Foreshadowed in the idea sions of old questions about knowledge in a new
of cosmopolitanism (see the entry in this encyclo- light. Without doubt, it forces us to transcend the
pedia by Pheng Cheah), which is being rethought received Eurocentric perspective and to engage in
in the light of globalizing experiences, human the preliminary step of going beyond Orientalism
rights are based on the reality of developments in to a close examination of Occidentalism (Coronil,
the information revolution and the interconnec- 1996). The next step is to explore the geography
tions made possible by that revolution. In the of globalism per se, an adventure on which we are
shape of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), only now beginning to embark in a serious way.
operating in connection with the UN and nation- This is a piece of knowledge that is no longer
states, the rights of each individual and of refutable.
oppressed minorities are vindicated.
The perspective of (new) global history
References
requires us to see the world anew in these terms.
NGOs and multinational corporations (MNCs) Chandler, A. and B. Mazlish (2005) Leviathans:
are the new actors, alongside the state, in our Multinational Corporations and New Global
emerging global society. Our growing knowledge of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University
this fact – for example, of the 100 largest econ- Press.
omies, 29 of these are MNCs; as a result, the value Coronil, F. (1996) ‘Beyond Occidentalism: Toward
added by, say, Exxon Mobil, is larger than the GDP Nonimperial Geohistorical Categories’,
of countries such as Pakistan, New Zealand, Cultural Anthropology 11(1): 51–87.
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22_global_062704 10/5/06 10:25 am Page 408
408 Theory, Culture & Society 23(2–3)
Hughes-Warrington, M. (ed.) (2005) Palgrave Wallerstein, I. (2000) The Essential Wallerstein.
Advances in World Histories. London: New York: New Press.
Palgrave Macmillan.
Mazlish, B. (1993) ‘An Introduction to Global
Bruce Mazlish is Professor of History Emeritus at
History’, in B. Mazlish and R. Buultjens (eds)
MIT. Among his most recent publications are The
Conceptualizing Global History. Boulder, CO:
Global History Reader, ed. Bruce Mazlish and
Westview Press.
Akira Iriye (Routledge, 2005) and Civilization and
Mazlish, B. (1998) ‘Comparing Global History to
Its Contents (Stanford University Press, 2004). He
World History’, Journal of Interdisciplinary
has also published numerous articles on globaliz-
History, xxviii(3): 385–95.
ation in various periodicals.
East and West in Global History
John Hobson
the problem lies. For what eludes Roberts and
Keywords capitalism, civilizations, East/West,
Landes is that Europe only appears to occupy
Eastern agency, Eurocentrism/Orientalism,
centre-stage of progressive global history because
imperialism, Oriental globalization
Eurocentric values have led them to select Europe
as, or place it at, the centre of the story in the first
place. And the East only appears to be absent
I
f the title of this entry appears to be unprob- because it has been selected out, having being
lematic, if not anodyne, it turns out to be consigned to the dark ghetto of the marginalized
contradictory and loaded with Eurocentric periphery.
bias. It is contradictory because within conven- The idea of Western history as universal
tional historiography there is no East and West in (global) history emerged in the 19th century when
‘global history’. ‘Global history’ is neither global, racist-Eurocentrism or Orientalism had been
because it is a provincial story of Western univer- constructed by the Europeans (Said, 1978). This
salism, nor historical, because it is ‘ahistorical- discourse suddenly pronounced the superiority of
Eurocentrism’ written backwards. For in Europe over the ‘inferior Eastern other’. It
conventional historiography, the East is prejudi- entailed two critical assumptions: first, that what
cially relegated to a residual category that has no had previously been thought of as interlinked, if
autonomous place in global history – it is merely a not symbiotic, regions were suddenly relocated
stagnant backwater in the mainstream Western along either side of a constructed ‘civilizational line
story. In short, conventional global history turns of apartheid’. And, second, Europe was con-
out to be an ahistorical-Eurocentric ‘Western structed as qualitatively superior to the East
provincialism writ large’. because it supposedly had exceptional, progressive
David Landes dismisses this view as but politi- characteristics or virtues. By contrast, the East was
cally correct ‘good think’ which avoids the ‘twin inscribed with only regressive properties. Having
facts’ that the West has consistently led the East constructed Europe as superior and exceptional,
and pioneered modern global capitalism (Landes, Eurocentric thinkers then extrapolated this
1998). Similarly, John Roberts argues for the conception back in time to Ancient Greece,
veracity of Eurocentrism on the grounds that: thereby painting an ahistorical picture of Europe
as permanently superior (Amin, 1989; Bernal,
[it] means ‘putting Europe at the centre of
1991). Simultaneously Europe was inscribed with
things’, and its usual implication is that to do so
a unique ‘logic of immanence’ wherein the seeds
is wrong. But, of course, if we are merely talking
of progress were contained within its socio-politi-
about facts, about what happened, and not
cal structure. Accordingly, from Ancient Greece
about the value that we place on them, then it
on, European development and global history are
is quite correct to put Europe at the centre of
(re)presented as a purely endogenous Western
the story in modern times. (1985: 201)
story that unfolds in a linear sequence. In the
But it is precisely the naïvety or impossibility of process, the Western people were elevated to the
the fact-value distinction wherein the source of permanent ‘subject’ of global history standing at
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