Global History Network
About the Network
What is Global History?
Global history—the search to understand how human societies have developed as an interactive community across the world – has come into its own as a scholarly enterprise at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Whether we describe the epoch in which we live as one, for example, of Asia’s reemergence, intensified migrations, religious revivals, an epidemic of social networking, or climate change that challenges us all, a global perspective on historical development is required to make sense of it. Spurred by ongoing processes of globalization and drawing on students and researchers better trained in languages and social science methods than ever before, global history flourishes as one of the most important developments in the discipline of history today. Indeed, globalization, in its contemporary sense, has a history of its own, which ultimately will contribute to the process that it studies.
Global history approaches do not dilute the understanding of particular national narratives, but in fact enhance them. Self-enclosed national histories tend often to celebrate their countries’ supposed exceptionalism, or conversely propose their respective outcomes as the norm for developmental tendencies. Using global history to bring one’s own society into focus thus demonstrates that the approach does not abolish differentiation, but allows the distinctions that persist in diverse human communities to be put in a framework that best illuminates the continuing tension between the similar and the different, genus and species, that has served since antiquity as a basis for systematic knowledge. It allows historians to apply analogy with more refinement and to communicate more intensively with the other social sciences, such as anthropology, sociology, political science and economics.
Who We Are
The Global History Network brings global historians worldwide into a sustained conversation. With a member on every continent, the Network embeds the study of global history in a collaboration of like-minded institutions around the globe. Global history, or the analysis of the interconnections—cultural, economic, ecological and demographic—among world societies, is a one of the most important developments in the field today. The Network provides a structure for exchange of ideas by allowing PhD students to spend a semester with a partner institution, as well as organizing conferences and facilitating joint teaching and faculty exchanges. Global history is in fact a global activity, and we hope to play a key role in helping to shape this cooperative endeavor.
The Global Network is partially funded by a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation.