History G8930
Fall 2007
Approaches to International and Global History
This course introduces students to the issues and conceptual possibilities of approaching history from an international or global perspective. It will survey historiographies and methodologies, including civilizational approaches, comparative histories, and world systems theory. It will address specific problems such as how to rethink area divisions rooted in the Cold War and colonial eras, and how to think about periodization on a global scale. It will also emphasize examples of research that provide viable models for graduate research, such as studies on migration, technology, trade, diplomacy, international organizations, and war.
The goal is to encourage students to consider research that can illuminate large scale historical processes, engage in comparative and cross-cultural histories, or explore geographically dispersed phenomena such as environmental processes, international politics, transnational networks, borderlands and oceanic regions.
Course Requirements
Every week a student will lead the class together with the instructor. The discussion leader will post questions on Monday before the Wednesday meeting, and open and direct the discussion.
For the course paper, analyze a historiographical problem or debate in international and global history. You can focus on a subject from the readings, or come up with one of your own. Try to go beyond what each author explicitly argues, and identify underlying issues and assumptions that constitute different methodologies or ideologies. Questions you may like to use to frame the paper include: What is at stake in this debate (and do the participants rightly perceive what is at stake)? Why is this issue important, beyond a mere clash of scholarly egos? Is there a way to reconcile the differences (through empirical research or otherwise)? You must submit a topic proposal, including a one-page bibliography, by October 12. The paper should be no more than 10,000 words and is due by November 30th.
For the last class (December 7th), you are asked to choose one of the dissertations along with the book that resulted from it and write a short critique (approximately 1,000 words). Describe how the author made their dissertation manageable, analyze how and why it was revised for publication, and assess the results. You need to post your critique by December 5th.
Part I: Why International and Global History?
Sep. 7Course Introduction
14How Worlds Divide
Martin Lewis and Karen Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1997).
*Immanuel Wallerstein, "What are We Bounding, and Whom, When We Bound Social Research?" Social InquiryWinter, 1995 (Proquest)
21Nations and Nationalism
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (London ; New York : Verso, 1991)
Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, 1-14, 263-307 (coursepack)
28International Systems, and Some Alternatives
Paul Lauren, Gordon Craig, and Alexander George, Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time
*Akira Iriye, "Internationalizing International History," in Thomas Bender, ed., Rethinking American History in a Global Age (Berkeley: Univ. of CA Press, 2002) (electronic text available via Clio)
Oct. 5Navigating World History
Jurgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Peterson, Globalization: A Short History
*Michael Geyer and Charles Bright, “World History in a Global Age,” American Historical Review 100 (October 1995), 1034-1060 (JSTOR)
Part II: Narratives: A History of Everything?
Oct. 12World Systems Theory and Its Discontents
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System I, pp. 347-57, 301-44.
___. The Modern World-System II, pp. 147-93
___. The Modern World-System III, pp. 128-89.
*Steve Stern, “Feudalism, Capitalism, and the World System in the Perspective of Latin America and the Caribbean,” American Historical Review 93 (1988): 829-872. (JSTOR)
*Immanuel Wallerstein, “Comments on Stern’s Critical Tests,” AHR 93 (1988): 873-85. (JSTOR)
Oct. 19Global History or History of Globalization?
A.G. Hopkins, "The History of Globalization—and the Globalization of History?" in A. G. Hopkins, ed. Globalization in World History.
Chris Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2004)
Oct. 26Understanding the Twentieth Century
Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991 (New York: Vintage, 1996)
*Charles Maier, "Consigning the Twentieth Century to History: Alternative Narratives for the Modern Era" American Historical Review 105 (2000): 807-831 (History Cooperative)
Part III: Practices: What is To be Done?
Nov. 2Migration
Jose C. Moya, Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850-1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)
*Adam McKeown, “Global Migration, 1846-1940,” Journal of World History 15 (June 2004): 155-189 (History Cooperative)
Nov. 9Trade and Consumption
Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Viking, 1985)
Nov. 16Empires and their Others
Frederick Cooper, Ann Laura Stoler, eds., Tensions of Empire : Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997)
Nov. 23Comparative History
Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2000)
Nov. 30Diplomacy and High Politics
Niall Ferguson. The House of Rothschild. Volume 1, Money's Prophets 1798–1848 (New York: Penguin. 1999)
Dec. 7Doable Dissertations (choose one – see above)
Adam McKeown, “Chinese Migrants Among Ghosts: Chicago, Peru and Hawaii in the Early Twentieth Century” (Univ. of Chicago, 1997)
Erez Manela, “The Wilsonian Moment: Self determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism, 1917-1920” (Yale, 2003)
Jeremi Suri, “Convergent Responses to Disorder: Cultural Revolution and Detente among the Great Powers During the 1960s” (Yale, 2001)
Kerry Ward, "The Bounds of Bondage: Forced Migration Between the Cape of Good Hope and the Netherlands East Indies" (Michigan, 2000)