Critical Analysis of A Global History of Modern Historiography by Georg Iggers and Edward Wang - Book Report/Review Example

 A critical response paper on a global history of modern historiography by Georg Iggers and Edward Wang World history needs to be written within the global context and avoid copy pasting the historical approaches from the west to the modern historical writing. The systems of interaction in place between the local and global historical development have acted as central forces driving world history. These two historians have made certain truths based on evidence provided and have made us accept most of these claims. The ideas of evidence, standards of reasoning and rigor that has been applied in their historical inquiry forms a major histographical analysis of this paper. This school of thought, Georg Iggers and Edward Wang, have used a chronological analysis of the events after Cold War to make their claims. Some of the things that are of greater importance in their writings are the ideas of rise of world history and global history as envisaged in their book. Whether the claims made are true or false is what this paper seeks to address (Iggers and Wang 365-401). It is true that the end of world war two presented the world with new challenges and these were even compounded when the Soviet Union fell around 1989 and 1991 leading to the end of cold war. World history was changed with the emergence of new threats such as terrorism. There is partial acceptance of Fukuyama’s assertions that the fall of the cold war and the extension of capitalism from the west put globalization process in place and that all nations were geared towards democratization, in the western-style. The basis of their partial agreement stems from the fact that most countries such as those in Asia like South Korea and Taiwan are still under authoritarian rule. Based on this evidence, they think that globalization has not led to democratization. We need to look at the elements of globalization in order to establish whether their comments have a basis or not. Is globalization shaped by democracy or vice versa? The link between globalization of the world and democratization is quite weak. Democratization only features in spheres of globalization in instances where freedom of expression and participation is concerned. It is therefore not reasonable enough to argue over democratization based on perceptions of globalization (Baker 185-204). Analysis of historgraphy from the global perspective undertaken by these authors is quite commendable. They have ventured into a territory that not many historians would want to find themselves in. they have provided one of a first exposure on the analysis of global history and its writing. They actually did a successful initial survey based on history that is not related to the western writing. Tackling such historical developments from the China’s dynasty, Japanese political developments to the Ottoman empire is quite something to celebrate. The historical development of the eastern world has been brought to fore in a very intelligent way. Their assertions that the current global culture being experienced did actually originate from the political structures and monetary power held by the western world and japan, are very true. There has also been a change in the manner of writing world history. Many changes in historical approach have occurred. However, the definition of what a nation is made of has never changed. The changes occurred due to the cultural and linguistic turns that took place after the Cold War. The change has indeed been expressed by the neglect of life experiences exhibited by what is considered as the ordinary person, and instead focused on large, anonymous structures and various processes. I tend to agree with the above argument. The theory of modernization has also affected the way world history has been written since it assumed that the entire world will have to fall into the pattern that was set by western states. Besides, there has been an unquestionable concentration on empirical evidence which is made up of the studies, quantitative, and the belief that such an approach would be able to give what is considered as objective knowledge. This was a change from the linguistic approach that saw world history in the eye of literature. The relationship between history and the social sciences was thus redefined (Bentley 8-42; Iggers and Wang 365-401). Much as we can laud the work done by these two authors, one thing comes out as not well addressed. This is the idea of evidence. The intelligible account is turning out to be mere rhetoric since very little impression can be made of the elusive character of the histographies that have been described. For instance, we do not seem to find any tangible passages relating to actual writing of history. All we come across are pragmatic statements with no tangible evidence from the historical backing. This turns the whole thing lifeless. Many forms of historical consciousness had arisen in various parts during the start of human civilization as it has been shown in many records and writings of history through many millennia. However, there were no systematic efforts that were geared towards describing, analysing and evaluating the works of history until recently in the 20th century. What is ironical however, when looking at modern historical writings, is the lack of separation of political interests and the scientific objective. There has also been a change from the nationalist approach to history towards a trans-national method of tackling history. A few countries in East Asia and Eastern Europe are still stuck in this nationalist approach. China and Japan are presented as evidence on this issue where the two countries have been seen to adopt a trans-national approach to historical analysis. The argument presented for failure of nationalist approach to histography in the modern world is based on the fact that school of thoughts of culturalists indicated that nationalist way of thinking only worked from the point of view of representation, which was implicit in the same power (colonialism) it collided with and sought to expel. Authoritarian states served to extend these nationalist tendencies (Iggers and Wang 365-401; Prakash 383-408). Much attention turned to world history and the global history after the end of cold war. The modern period has been marked by intercultural history which helps define the globalization idea. The Chinese view of the universe shaped the perception of world history and was used as a model for explaining many historical events, especially in the 18th century. This model was to be overturned in the 19th century with the emergence of a nationalist view of world history (Hunt and Bonnell 1-27). The basis for such a turn was the idea that western superiority gave way for legitimizing colonial and imperial expansions witnessed at the time where western nations did believe in the nation-state as the driving force towards civilization and progress. This is actually true based on the historical developments of the 19th century (Baker 185-204). Broad generalizations of history arose with the emergence of writing history based on comparing the civilizations. This was indeed disputed by the argument that they were too generalized and lacked scholarly support (Iggers and Wang 365-401). The global context and approach given to what is termed as globalization of history is a mere assertion of the influence that the westernization phenomenon has on the non-western world. If indeed we need to have a global history, isn’t there a need of delinking western culture from the world studies? If we duplicate western culture as a basis for globalization and write global history based on the western perception, we will still get drowned in the same manner that writers and thinkers of theories of modernity did. The authors should have delinked the intellectual hegemony of the west from the studies. There are greater efforts being made to delink historical facts from politics in the modern history. In the current world after the cold war, social patterns have taken centre stage in writing history. Issues such as infectious and contagious diseases based on societal and cultural orientations, political, trade, and other social orders have been dealt with in today’s historical studies (Salvatore 187-192). Issues concerning the environment and biological aspects have also received much publicity in historical studies thus shaping the trend of modern day world history. However, world history in the 80s and 90s was defined by two schools of thought, those of social sciences and those aligned to economics and sociology who were interested in assessing the effect brought about by the capitalism of the west. The current world history has taken a global perspective in addressing historical issues where large-scale movements of population and major economic fluctuations attract much attention, besides transfer of technologies across cultures, and the wide spread of religious ideas, ideals and faiths (Iggers and Wang 365-401). The historical derivative approach cannot be ignored at the moment because it still brings out the sophistication aspect and politicises the whole thing. If we need to have a global historical writing, then we must delink western modes of thinking while doing this. There is need to develop a more original approach to analysing global history. As it can be seen in these authors’ presentation, the world history still takes two paths: the first one is in line with the traditional methods that did focus mainly on civilizations, social history and nations; and the other path is that which is considered recent, which is scientific cultural, made up of new sources that are not archival, and borrows from the fields of evolutionary biology, palaeontology, chemistry, environmental science, and archaeology, besides encompassing linguistic and studies of literature (White 221-236). Such an approach is detrimental to the factual writing of modern history if we are to consider it as being in the global context. The modern day history can only be well defined and histologically addressed if a link is found between speculation to logic to what could be considered as evidence and doing this in a coherent manner where a broader, interpretive, and good documentation of the assessment of transformations in the past and their connections are made (Eley 35-61; Spiegel 1-31). The point raised by these two authors that global history can be analysed in light of the trans-national and trans-cultural approaches is indeed well thought and highly appreciated. Historical studies related to globalization must take into account the role played by local traditions and the peculiarities that do influence their transformation into the modern world and thoughts. Very little has been researched in terms of the history of globalization in relation to social and cultural effects. What is more accepted is the fact that indeed globalization has done little or nothing at all in coming up with a homogeneity. The current trend of modernization has not followed the theories applied to its spread and development such as that of modernization where it was assumed that copy pasting western developments to non-developed countries would be the basis for their development of both economy and cultures. Earlier trends such as secularism have not found a position in the globalized world. There has been development towards fundamentalism, international cooperation and association. The idea of globalization bringing about de-nationalization has not been fully realized because of the persistent existence of nationalism in the current global world (Baker 185-204; Iggers and Wang 365-401). The complexity within the context of global history has demanded application of histographical methods that were not met by the postmodern conceptions. A broader approach to recording and analysing this global history is needed if accuracy is to be realized. Divergent views that are not in line with the globalization ideals need to be accommodated in order to soberly address this global history. An analytical approach to social sciences within the global history must be well tackled if meaningful global history is to be written. As this school of thought argues, it is true that this is not the time to evaluate whether the attempts made in writing global history and the globalization of historical studies have resulted into any form of definitive transformation or not since this is still too early. However, what is apparent is the need to find a new approach to writing the global history. This approach should be able to put to task the notion that using western models in writing history is the best way to go. This kind of move has the ability to shift historical writings in global and multi-polar perspectives and be able to recognize the dynamics that come with historical developments. Such an approach should incorporate different sources and these sources should be global in terms of origin (Iggers and Wang 365-401). Works Cited Baker N. Thomas, A Companion to Western Historical Thought, eds. Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza (Blackwell, 2002), 185-204 Bentley Michael, Modern Historiography: An Introduction (Routledge, 1999), 8-42 Eley, Practicing History: New Directions in Historical Writing After the Linguistic Turn (Routledge, 2005), 35-61 Hunt Lynn and Bonnell Victoria, Beyond the Cultural Turn, eds. Hunt and Bonnell (University of California Press, 1999), 1-27 Iggers Georg and Wang Edward, A global history of modern historiography, (Pearson Longman, 2007), 365-401 Prakash Gyan, “Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32:2 (1990): 383-408 Salvatore Nick, “Biography and Social History: An Intimate Relationship,” Labour History 87 (2004): 187-192 Spiegel Gabrielle M., Practicing History: New Directions in Historical Writing After the Linguistic Turn, ed. Spiegel (Routledge, 2005), 1-31 White, The History and Narrative Reader, ed. Geoffrey Roberts (Routledge, 2001), 221-236 Read More