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Seminar in Module 2 “Global Histories”

Winter Term 2013/14
Wed 10am–12: K02, Institute of Latin American Studies
Thu 2–4pm: 127, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut
Michael Goebel: mgoebel@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Office Hours: Thu 4–6pm, A 353 (FMI)

Approaches to Global History

This seminar offers a cursory overview of recent approaches to global history. By
discussing writings and research widely drawn upon by global historians, the seminar
provides students with a toolkit for understanding better the last decades' turn away from
nation-centered ways of seeing history, which have given way to histories focusing on the
movements of people, goods, and ideas across boundaries and on how these movements
have been determinants of historical change. The seminar situates global history within
related fields, such as transnational history or imperial history. It is also designed to guide
students in the exploration of their particular research interests to be followed during the
second year of this MA.

Course Requirements

Since this seminar is the first part of a two-seminar module, students are free to choose in
which of the two seminars to write their research paper of approx. 25 pages (or roughly
10,000 words [including the footnotes, but excluding the bibliography]).

Whoever wishes to write the paper in this course and with me, must submit the paper by
April 14, 2014―an absolute deadline! You are free to choose the topic and question you see
fit, but required to get my approval by seeing me in my office hours before the end of the
winter term.

In order to get to know you better and assuage the common problem of anonymity, I
would appreciate it if each of you came to my office hour before Christmas.

Quite unexceptionally, “active participation” in this seminar consists above all in reading
the required texts for each class and in partaking in discussing them in class. Moreover,
this seminar requires you to

a) Present one book to the course from the list of books suggested for each session
below. Each book presentation should concisely state the content and the argument
of the book, situating it within a broader historiography, followed by a short
critique. Each presentation is between five and ten minutes long: neither less, nor
more!
b) Accompanying your presentation in class is a book review of 800–1,000 words.
This review should follow the common style of book reviews found in major
English-language historical journals, such as The American Historical Review or
the Journal of Global History. I pledge to return a commented version of the
review to you.
c) Write a 600-word abstract of the research paper you envisage to write in this
module (no matter whether you eventually stick to the proposal or not) and submit
it by January 8/9, followed by a discussion during my office hours.
d) Propose a theme, question, and readings for one of the last two sessions by
December 18/19, at which point the whole class will agree on two such topics.

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Course Structure

The course starts out with an overview of different understandings of how global history
can be thought of as the history of globalization. The second part deals with the
relationship between global history and nearby fields of historical enquiry, namely
transnational history, international history, and the history of nationalism. The seminar
then focuses on a particular debate that has ravaged in recent years: namely on the
question of why certain parts of Europe at some point in history grew richer than most
other parts of the world. The course’s final section treats more specific fields or strands of
global history, such as migration history and the intellectual history of the enlightenment
and of human rights.

Each session consists of three parts (not necessarily in that order): a) discussing the
required readings; b) book presentations and their discussions; c) a small third part
introducing methods, techniques, institutions, and research aids that I hope you will find
useful for a better understanding of the field of global history, as well as for your own
research interests.

The last two sessions (before the final goodbye) will address themes to be determined by
you. Each of you should therefore think of one topic, alongside a required reading for all,
and a “Methods, Techniques, and Institutions” part you deem useful. On December 18/19
everyone will present their suggestion and the class will choose two themes for the last
sessions.

1. October, 16/17: Introduction

PART I: Global History as the History of Globalization

2. October 23/24

Required Reading

Jürgen Osterhammel, “Globalizations,” in: Jerry H. Bentley (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of World
History (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 89–104.

Methods, Techniques, and Institutions: Internet Databases and Searches

3. October 30/31

Required Reading

C.A. Bayly, “‘Archaic’ and ‘Modern’ Globalization in the Eurasian and African Arena,” in: A.G.
Hopkins (ed.), Globalization in World History (London: Pimlico, 2002), pp. 47–73.

Methods, Techniques, and Institutions: Podcasts and Youtube

4. November 6/7

Required Reading

Arif Dirlik, “Globalization Now and Then: Some Thoughts on Contemporary Readings of Late
19th/Early 20th Century Responses to Modernity,” Journal of Modern European History, vol. 4, no.
2 (2006), pp. 137–157.

Methods, Techniques, and Institutions: Journals and Publishers

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 5. November 13/14

Required Reading

Frederick Cooper, “Globalization,” in his Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), pp. 91–112.

Book Presentations

Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900 (New
York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2010).

Methods, Techniques, and Institutions: Associations and their Meetings

PART II: Global History, Transnationalism, and Nationalism

6. November 20/21

Required Reading

C.A. Bayly, Sven Beckert, Matthew Connelly, Isabel Hofmayr, Wendy Kozol, and Patricia Seed,
“AHR Conversation on Transnational History,” The American Historical Review, vol. 111, no. 5
(2006), pp. 1441–1464.

Book Presentations

Thomas Bender, A Nation Among Nations: America’s Place in World History (New York: Hill &
Wang, 2006).

Glenda Sluga, Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism (Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press, 2013).

Methods, Techniques, and Institutions: Finding Book Reviews

7. November 26/27

Required Reading

David Armitage, “The Contagion of Sovereignty: Declarations of Independence since 1776, South
African Historical Journal, vol. 52, no. 1 (2005), pp. 1–18.

Mark Philip Bradley, Imagining Vietnam and America: The Making of Postcolonial Vietnam,
1919–1950 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), pp. 107–109.

Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 3–13.

Ho Chi Minh, “Declaration of Independence of Vietnam,” September 2, 1945:

http://www.indiana.edu/~kdhist/H105-documents-web/week15/Minh1945.html (accessed
September 25, 2013).

Book Presentations

Jeremy Adelman, Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2009).

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John H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830 (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007).

Rebecca J. Scott, Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).

8. December 4/5

Required Reading

Erez Manela, “Dawn of a New Era: The ‘Wilsonian Moment’ in Colonial Contexts and the
Transformation of World Order, 1917–1920,” in: Sebastian Conrad and Dominic Sachsenmaier
(eds.), Competing Visions of World Order: Global Moments and Movements, 1880s–1930s (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 121–149.

Rebecca Karl, review of The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International
Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism by Erez Manela, in The American Historical Review, vol. 113,
no. 5 (2008), pp. 1474–1476.

Book Presentations

Cemil Aydin, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and
Pan-Asian Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).

Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of
the Post Cold-War Era (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Methods, Techniques, and Institutions: Framing a Research Question

PART III: Debates on the “Great Divergence”

9. December 11/12

Required Reading

Patrick O’Brien, “Ten Years of Debate on the Origins of the Great Divergence,” Reviews in History:
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1008 (accessed September 25, 2013).

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, review of The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the
Modern World Economy by Kenneth Pomeranz, in Social History, vol. 26, no. 3 (2001), pp. 370–
372.

Book Presentations

André Gunder Frank, ReOrient: The Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1998).

Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of the European Experience
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999).

Methods, Techniques, and Institutions: Writing an Abstract

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 10. December 18/19

Required Reading

Kenneth Pomeranz, “Political Economy and Ecology on the Eve of Industrialization: Europe,
China, and the Global Conjuncture,” The American Historical Review, vol. 107, no. 2 (2002), pp.
425–446.

E.L. Jones, review of The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World
Economy by Kenneth Pomeranz, in The Journal of Economic History, vol. 60, no. 3 (2000), pp.
856–859.

Sucheta Mazumdar, review of The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the
Modern World Economy by Kenneth Pomeranz, in Technology and Culture, vol. 44, no. 3 (2003),
pp. 604–606.

Charles P. Kindleberger, review of The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the
Modern World Economy by Kenneth Pomeranz, in Economic Development and Cultural Change,
vol. 50, no. 2 (2002), pp. 458–460.

Book Presentations

Ricardo Duchesne, The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (Leiden: Brill, 2011).

Prasannan Parthasarathi, Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic
Divergence, 1600–1850 (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Deciding the topics of the last two sessions…

11. January 8/9

Required Reading

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: Norton, 1999),
pp. 403–425.

John McNeill, “The World According to Jared Diamond,” The History Teacher, vol. 34, no. 2
(2001), pp. 165–174.

Book Presentations

Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (New
York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

John McNeill, Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1640–1914 (New
York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Methods, Techniques, and Institutions: Locating Primary Sources

PART IV: Other Fields

12. January 15/16: Migrations and Diasporas

Required Reading

Adam McKeown, “Global Migration, 1846–1940,” Journal of World History, vol. 15, no. 2 (2004),
pp. 155–189.

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Book Presentations

James Belich, Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Anglo-World,
1783–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Donna Gabaccia, Foreign Relations: American Immigration in Global Perspective (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 2012).

Patrick Manning, The African Diaspora: A History Through Culture (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2009).

Adam McKeown, Melancholy Order: Asian Migration and the Globalization of Borders (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2008).

Methods, Techniques, and Institutions: Academic Writing 1

13. January 22/23: Intellectual History and Human Rights

Required Reading

Laurent Dubois, “An Enslaved Enlightenment: Rethinking the Intellectual History of the French
Atlantic,” Social History, vol. 31, no. 1 (2006), pp. 1–14.

Samuel Moyn, “On the Nonglobalization of Ideas,” in: Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori (eds.),
Global Intellectual History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), pp. 187–204.

Book Presentations

Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History (New York: Norton, 2007).

Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2010).

Jeremy Popkin, You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery (New York
and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Methods, Techniques, and Institutions: Academic Writing 2

14. January 29/30: ?

15. February 5/6: ?

16. February 12/13: Concluding Session

Methods, Techniques, and Institutions: The Job Market