World History

World History is a field of Historical Study that emerged as a distinct academic field in the 1980s . It examines history from a global perspective.

OVERVIEW

Unlike history writing of the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, which focused on narratives of individuals, and on national and ethnic perspectives, World History looks for common (how processes of world history have drawn people of the world together) and difference (how Pattern s of world history reveal the Diversity of the human experience).

The study of world history is in some ways a product of the current period of accelerated Globalization . This period is tending both to integrate various cultures and to highlight their differences.

The advent of World History as a distinct field of study was heralded in the high schools and colleges. Many new Textbook s are being published with a World History approach.

PRECURSORS

William McNeill 's '' The Rise Of The West '' (1963).

Marshall Hodgson's writings were a precursor to the modern World History approach (see Marshall G.S. Hodgson, ''Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam, and World History'', Cambridge, 1993).

Arnold J. Toynbee was a precursor of the modern World History movement with his vast project the synthesis of global history within a single framework based ostensibly on empirical scholarship rather than metaphysical or religious speculation. Toynbee's magnum opus is '' A Study Of History '', printed over a series of years (1945-1961) by the Oxford University Press. In this work, Toynbee traces the birth, growth and decay of some 21 to 23 major civilizations in the world.

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World History