A global history of modern historiography / Georg G. Iggers and Q. Edward Wang with the assistance of Supriya Mukherjee.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Iggers, Georg G.

Contributor:

Wang, Q. Edward, 1958-

Mukherjee, Supriya.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Historiography--History.

Historiography.

History.

Physical Description:

xii, 436 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Harlow, England ; New York : Pearson Longman, 2008.

Summary:

Has global historical writing and scholarship undergone a process of westernisation over the last two and a half centuries?

How far have historians of other cultures built on their own traditions to adapt, and at times resist, western influences outright?

This is the first text on historiography to adopt a comparative, global perspective on the topic, looking not just at developments in the West but at the other great historiographical traditions in Asia and the Middle East, and at more localised historiographical developments elsewhere in the non-Western world, from Latin America to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Beginning in the late eighteenth century it examines the various kinds of historical thinking and writing which pre-dated western influence, the impact of western ideas of history as these began to be exported through trade and empire, and the rise of professional and 'scientific' history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The authors argue that what happened here was not a simple process of assimilation, but of adaptation into long standing intellectual and cultural traditions, often in the service of specific ideological concerns, for instance that of nationalism. Finally the book turns to the twin challenges to the western historical paradigms of 'objectivity' and 'progress' mounted by postmodernism and post-colonialism, critically examining the extent to which these might undermine the commitment of the historian to an honest and truthful representation of the past.

Contents:

1 Historiographical traditions in the world: a view of the eighteenth century 19

Where we begin? 19

Transcultural comparisons 19

Characteristics of historiographical thought in different cultures 20

The West 21

Characteristics of Western historiography 21

The emergence of an Enlightenment worldview 22

Erudition and critical historical scholarship 24

Enlightenment historiography 26

German forms of Enlightenment 27

The emergence of a republic of letters 29

From universal history to Eurocentric ideas of progress 29

The Middle East 32

The rise of Islam and the origin of Muslim historiography 33

Main styles in Muslim historiography 35

The bureaucratization and secularization of historiography 36

The decline of the Muslim world and Muslim historiography? 37

India 38

Western views on Indian historical consciousness 38

Indian forms of historical writing 40

Social and intellectual transformations during the early modern period 43

East and South East Asia 46

Shamanism and history: the origin of the 'shi' 46

The formation of Confucian historiography 47

The History Bureau and dynastic history 49

The spread and influence of dynastic historiography 50

'To seek the truth from facts': the rise of evidential learning 52

2 The advance of nationalism and nationalist history: the West, the Middle East and India in the nineteenth century 69

Historiography in a revolutionary age between 1789 and 1848 69

The political context 69

Romanticism and historiography 70

The impact of emergent nationalism on historiography 71

The relationship between professional scholarship and nationalism 73

The liberal reinterpretation of the Middle Ages 75

The colonial perspective and historiography 76

The decline of liberalism in historiography 77

Ideas of progress and of crisis 79

Hegel's philosophy of history 80

Nationalism and the transformation of Muslim historiography 82

The Muslim 'discovery' of Europe 82

Whose pharaohs? - (re)writing the history of Egypt 87

National identity and historical writing 91

Bridging the old and the new: the 'encyclopedists' and the 'neo-chroniclers' 95

Nationalism and the transformation of Indian historiography 97

Historiography during early colonialism 97

The new pedagogy and the emergence of a modern historical consciousness 100

Religious revivalism and the search for a glorious past 101

The birth of the rationalist paradigm 104

The birth of the nationalist paradigm 105

Nationalism, communalism and historical writing 107

Secular narratives and the emergence of economic nationalism 108

3 Academic history and the nineteenth-century shaping of the historical profession: transforming historical study in the West and in East Asia 117

The cult of science and the nation-state paradigm (1848-90) 117

The political context of historiography 117

The social context of historiography 119

The turn to 'scientific' history 119

The crisis of Confucian historiography and the establishment of the modern historical profession in East Asia 133

Accommodating the Western influence 134

Civilization and history: a new worldview 137

The interplay of the old and the new 139

George Zerffi, Ludwig Riess and the Rankean influence in Japan 141

Japan's 'Orient' and the changing of the Sinitic world 145

4 Historical writings in the shadow of two world wars: the crisis of historicism and modern historiography 157

The reorientation of historical studies and historical thought (1890-1914) 157

The changing political and cultural climate 157

The challenge to traditional historiography 158

The existential crisis of modern civilization 171

Historiography between two world wars (1918-39) 172

The historians in World War I 172

The critique of rationality and modernity and the defenders of the enlightenment 175

5 The appeal of nationalist history around the world: historical studies in the Middle East and Asia in the twentieth century 194

Ottomanism, Turkism and Egyptianization: nationalist history in the Middle East 194

The rise of modern education 194

Writing Turkish history in/for modern Turkey 197

The Egyptianization of historical writing 201

Academic history and national politics 207

Nationalism, scientism, and Marxism: modern historiography in East and South East Asia 208

'New historiography' in China 209

The tension between national history and scientific history 213

Modifying the Rankean model: national history in Japan 217

Myth and history: in search of the origin of the Korean nation 221

War and revolution: the appeal of Marxist historiography 224

Nationalist historiography in modern India 227

Late nineteenth-century antecedents: romantic nationalism 227

The role of religion in nationalist historiography 230

The nation as history and history as science 232

The romance of the local and the emergence of alternative narratives 234

The nation re-imagined: the Nehruvian synthesis 237

Post-independence historiography: old and new trajectories 238

Towards a social science history 241

6 New challenges in the post-war period: from social history to postmodernism and postcolonialism 250

The Cold War and the emergence of the new world order 250

Varieties of social history (1945-68/70) in the West 251

The United States: from consensus to the New Left 252

France: the Annales 256

Germany: from Historismus to a critical historical social science 262

Marxist historiography between orthodoxy and new directions 266

The 1970s and 1980s: the cultural turn and postmodernism 270

From social science history to the cultural turn 270

Micro-history, the history of everyday life, and historical anthropology 275

Oral history and the history of memory 277

The 'history workshop' movement 278

Feminist and gender history 279

Postcolonialism 281

The Subaltern Studies 284

Latin America: from Dependencia theory to Subaltern Studies 290

The emergence of modern historiography in-Sub-Saharan Africa 295

Postmodernism and the linguistic turn 301

7 The rise of Islamism and the ebb of Marxism: historical writings in late twentieth-century Asia and the Middle East 317

The ebb and flow of Marxist historiography in East and South East Asia 317

Reinventing Japan: post-war reform of historical education and writing 317

The dominance of Marxist historiography in the People's Republic of China 320

Challenges to Marxist historiography and Eurocentrism 325

Between Marxism and nationalism: academic history in Vietnam 327

The resurgence of national history 329

The Annales School, postmodernism and new changes in Japanese historiography 331

China's search for alternatives to Marxist historiography 334

Islamism and Islamic historiography: the Cold War and beyond 337

Globalizing Islamic historiography 337

The interplay of history and historiography 339

Edward Said and the critique of Orientalism 342

The appeal of Marxism and socialism 344

The Islamic revival: Islamism and nationalism 348

History and politics: the challenges to nationalist historiography 351

8 Historiography after the Cold War, 1990-2007: a critical retrospect 364

The globalization of the world 364

The reorientation of historical studies 367

The cultural and the linguistic turn 368

Feminist and gender history 371

Redefining the alliance between history and the social sciences 375

New challenges to nationalist history 380

World history, global History and history of globalization 387.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [410]-424) and index.

ISBN:

9780582096066

0582096065

OCLC:

177068949