Recent Themes
In recent years, the relationship between African and world history has shifted rapidly from one of antipathy to one of engagement and synthesis. Reynolds (2007) surveys the relationship between African and world histories, with an emphasis on the tension between the area studies paradigm and the growing world-history emphasis on connections and exchange across regional boundaries. A closer examination of recent exchanges and debates over the merits of this exchange is also featured. Reynolds sees the relationship between African and world history as a measure of the changing nature of historical inquiry over the past century.
Histories have traditionally been written from the perspective of national governments or of geographically based communities. However, it is also possible to see world history as the story of a single human civilization developing new institutions and forms of expression over successive periods of time. World history can thus be a “creation story” to tell how the world of human society developed. In this mode, the story would include not only political and diplomatic history but also events relating to religion, commerce, education, and entertainment. Technologies of communication would have an important role in this history.
Read more about this topic: World History
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)