In Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past, author Patrick Manning introduces the students and teachers of history to world history. World history is a field of study that is as vast as it is rich, broadly spanning many social science disciplines to help forge a comprehensive history of us. Through the analysis of connections between historical issues, world history has helped create “an idea of a larger scale that frames the analysis, whether it is all of humanity or the entire integrated world.” This discipline has evolved into a formal area of historical study. Manning’s book describes the genesis, contributing fields, frameworks for research, and continuing education in world history thoughtfully and incisively, and prepares the student for a rigorous survey of the field, emphasizing the teaching and study of world history throughout his monograph.
But it has not developed without its detractors. These detractors included colleagues and civil society, as debates about the scope of world history and the events that shaped this field during the 20th century ebbed and flowed. In many instances, nationalism and local politics affected how founders of world history reshaped their narrative over time. In other instances, internal debate, including those about cross-cultural concerns, the scope of the field, and how best to widen the reach of world history professors and researchers.
With lessons learned spanning back decades to the Cold War and earlier, world historians have spent the last 70 years formalizing their discipline, beating back their detractors to establish the World History Association, develop curriculum for K-12 and college classrooms, obtain public funding, hold symposiums and conferences, and curate an ever-growing body of literature and research to support their endeavors.
Broadly, Manning discusses the definition, themes, disciplines, analysis, and study of world history. Specifically, he discusses the history of world history, global studies and the types of history that influence world history, such as social and cultural history, a framework for formulating topics for consideration and verifying the interpretations, and he offers suggestions for graduate and doctoral students in the types of courses and resources, and the types of original research available to them. Manning “presents an overview and critique of world history as a field of scholarship and teaching.”
Manning also details the brief history of the impact of world historical studies on education. In his book, he describes the genesis of “global studies study by professional historians” and a burst of textbooks that entered schools in the mid-1970’s. “Nevertheless,” Manning writes, “…The intellectual interplay of this era set a powerful impetus for global conceptualization of the past against an almost equally powerful mixture of inertia and backlash that repeatedly stymied any coordination in study of world history.” This course of study eventually emerged as Western Civilization. Nevertheless, by the late 1980’s, world history had found its footing as both a field of study in colleges, graduate studies, and teaching programs and in secondary education in the United States. “The teaching of world history expanded dramatically from the 1960’s…but it did not advance much,” noted Manning. The last decade of the 20th century saw the “founding of a scholarly journal” and the internet emerged, facilitating information exchange, which “provided a dramatic advance in the professional organization of and support for world historians.”
Since 1990, world history has continued to face challenges in academia. On the one hand, parents and educators in the U.S. may be predisposed to their students learning a U.S. history-based lesion. And on the other hand, world history must be cognizant of the many narratives, inputs, and debates that continue to play a significant role in the development of historical discipline. Finally, world history, even as a concept, is a new addition to the field of historical study, and while it has developed significantly in recent decades, new inputs from a changing social science horizon and development will continue to slow its progress.
Complimenting the book are three journal articles: Toward World History: American Historians and the Coming of the World History Course by Gilbert Allardyce, Expanding Worlds of World History by Raymond Grew, and Comparing Global History to World History by Bruce Mazlish. In Toward World History, Allardyce draws conclusions about world history by examining the impact of several world historians, breathing real life into the Evolution of World History. For example, Allardyce dives into the details of the contributions to world history made by Louis Gottschalk. Gottschalk worked with UNESCO, as world history matured in the mid-19th century. Like Gottschalk, Grew expands on the themes from Manning. Grew spends time highlighting the ideas of Jarred Diamond and unpacking the term globalization, and detailing how environment and economy contribute to, and even reinforce, the work of world historians. Finally, Mazlish in Comparing Global History continues fleshing out Manning by viewing world history as having evolved to global history, “it is the point at which a possible transition to global history occurs.”
All four of these readings work together to encourage students and professors working in the field of world history to “draw from the lessons of their experiences in preparing the coming of world history in American education.” In a combined reading, these manuscripts add a new dimension to Manning’s text. Readers are presented with a broad overview of the history and study of world history through Manning. The related journal articles put a human touch on, and take a deeper look at, some of the people and events that have been at the center of world historical studies both in form and practice. To round out his study, Manning outlines the way to do world history – modeling, verifying, analyzing, and interpreting results – offering advice for students that are in the process of picking programs, considering courses of study, and beginning their research for graduate studies and beyond.
Bibliography
Allardyce, Gilbert, “Toward World History: American Historians and the Coming of the World History Course.” Journal of World History, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 1990): pp. 23-76.
Barnes, Jordon. “Defining World History vs. Global History.” H-world, March 31, 2015.
Grew, Raymond, “Expanding Worlds of World History,” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 78, No. 4 (December 2006): pp. 878-898.
Manning, Patrick. Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.
Mazlish, Bruce, “Comparing Global History to World History,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Winter 1998), pp. 385-395.
