Die Verwandlung der Weltgeschichtsschreibung

Recent Transformations in the Fields of Research on Global History and of World History Writing: A Story from the Beginning of the 21st Century

These introductory remarks focus besides the presentation of the articles in the thematic issue on two phenomena. World History got over the recent two decades again a prominent place within historiography and it is more and more characterized by a transnational practice in doing research, publication, and academic teaching. Back in 2000 when reviewing the previous decade it has been argued that global history turned into a field driven by archival studies different places and based on a division of labour inevitable in a highly specialized research landscape. An increasing number of workshops, a more and more sophisticated methodological debate, and the emergence of academic journals are among the indicators for a process of professionalisation. Insofar, this period was distinguished from a time when general histories and grand narratives had been written often by just one author synthesizing secondary literature dominating the field. Recently large syntheses are back on the book market, although some of them different in style and empirical foundation. Therefore, the relationship between the revival of the demand and the production of such master pieces and the ongoing development of global history as a field with emphasis on empirical research merits attention. A second point in case is the multilevel organizational pattern, namely the simultaneity of national audiences, local traditions of history writing and continental as well as global networks of scholars.

Global History 2008–2010: Empirical results, conceptual debates and new synthesis

Since the late 1980s world and global history is on its current road to success within the discipline of history and has thus invited for comments, which have been made from different angles. This article continues these accompanying, reflective voiced by both limiting itself and enlarging the perspective. It is confined narrowly since it focuses on the developments of the last three years while it simultaneously takes into consideration a broader spectre of publication compared to other review articles. At its centre is the observation of a double trend: on the one hand a revival of large syntheses takes place, reflecting the interest of a wider audience global interpretation of the past as a preliminary to understand the present (and these including publications designed for teaching at the Bachelor and Master level); on the other hand in terms of research an “empirical turn” has asserted itself, more and more world and global history is published in specialized monographs. Added to that the article notices an increasing number of workshops, multilateral research groups and academic journals with an internationally composed authorship, which reminds that world and global history today is evolving as a transnational practice and in doing so is forerunner in the future course of the academic historiography and neighbouring discipline.

Raumkonzepte in der Globalgeschichte – Ein kurzer Überblick zur Forschung in den USA und in China

Der Aufsatz betrachtet neuere Entwicklungen in der Diskussion um Welt- und Globalgeschichte und verändert dabei gegenüber vielen westlichen Überblicken die Perspektive, indem er neben amerikanischen auch chinesische Beiträge zu dieser Debatte näher analysiert und zum Ausgangspunkt einer Erörterung der zugrunde liegenden Raumkonzete macht, die nicht nur den historischen Gegenstand sondern auch die historiografische Praxis in einem neuen Licht erscheinen lassen.