World History

Philip Pomper is William F. Armstrong Professor of History at Wesleyan University. He is also Associate Editor of History and Theory. He has written primarily on the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia and on the uses of psychology in history. Richard H. Elphick is Professor of History at Wesleyan Univeristy. He has written on the origins of white dominance in Southern Africa and on the history of Liberalism and Christianity in the region. He is currently interested in missions and Christianity in world history. Richard T. Vann is Professor of History and letters at Wesleyan University. He is Senior Editor of History and Theory and has written on the history of family life in a world perspective.

List of Contributors vii

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction: The Theory and Practice of World History 1
Philip Pomper

Part 1 Mapping the Field

1 The Changing Shape of World History 21
William H. McNeill

2 Crossing Boundaries: Ecumenical, World, and Global History 41
Bruce Mazlish

3 Periodizing World History 53
William A. Green

Part II Rethinking Structure, Agency, and Ideology

4 The World-System Perspective in the Construction of Economic History 69
Janet Lippman Abu-Lughod

5 Bringing Ideas and Agency Back In: Representation and the Comparative Approach to World History 81
Michael Adas

6 World Histories and the Construction of Collective Identities 105
S. N. Eisenstadt

Part II Unbinding Identities

8 History’s Forgotten Doubles 159
Ashis Nandy

9 Identify in World History: A Postmodern Perspective 179
Lewis D. Wurgaft

Part IV Charting Trajectories

10 World History, Cultural Relativism, and the Global Future 217
Theodore H. Von Laue

Notes 235

Index 272