Suchergebnisse

This yearbook is the fourth in the series with the title Globalistics and Globalization Studies.
The subtitle of the present volume is Global History & Big History. The point is that today our
global world really demands global knowledge. Thus, there are a few actively developing
multidisciplinary approaches and integral disciplines among which one can name Global Studies,
Global History and Big History. They all provide a connection between the past, present, and
future. Big History with its vast and extremely heterogeneous field of research encompasses all
the forms of existence and all timescales and brings together constantly updated information from
the scientific disciplines and the humanities. Global History is transnational or world history
which examines history from a global perspective, making a wide use of comparative history and
of the history of multiple cultures and nations. Global Studies express the view of systemic
and epistemological unity of global processes. Thus, one may argue that Global Studies and
Globalistics can well be combined with Global History and Big History and such a multidisciplinary
approach can open wide horizons for the modern university education as it helps to
form a global view of various processes.

In history, the idea of uncertainty has taken on many forms, both in the methodological field, with for example the definition of historical sources as traces, and in epistemological terms, with the major question of causality or even ontological with the infinite extension of the "historian's territory". Nevertheless, more than an operative notion perhaps, it has long remained as an invariant, a kind of epistemological madguard (a "residue" according to the term adopted by Marc Bloch) of historical knowledge. The question of the historicization of the idea of uncertainty in the historical discipline is related to the place assigned to it in the epistemology of historians, always in tension with the desire for scientificity and truth that has long structured the disciplinarization and professionalization of history. Where do we place the cursor between uncertainty and truth for historical knowledge? This could be the guiding question to periodize the place of the idea of uncertainty in history and roughly distinguish after a predominantly scientist phase linked to the professionalization of the historical discipline (19th-first 20th century), a phase of doubts about history's ability to tell the truth, which became clear at the end of the 1970s and could conveniently be characterized as the great reversal of uncertainty in history, which, from an embarrassing limitation to reducing as much as possible, became an operating principle for defatalising history. However, it will be necessary to question this periodization, more or less modelled on the general evolutions of the sciences, marked in particular by the rise in power of probabilistic and indeterministic approaches and more or less directly related to what is perceived by the majority as the rise of uncertainty in the historical world itself ; this will require taking into account another level of analysis that adds to the weight of uncertainty in history, the moral and political dimension around the question of the social function of history.

"The abuse of history is common and quite possibly once more on the rise. Although this is well documented, there is no general theory that enables historians to identify, prove, explain, and evaluate the many types of abuse of history. In this book, the author presents such a theory. Reflecting on the responsible use of history, the author identifies the duties that the living has toward the dead and analyzes the rights to memory and history necessary to fulfill these duties. He concludes his argument by proposing a code of ethics as a guide for responsible historians. This work is vital for any historian who wants to oppose and prevent the abuse of history."-- Book jacket

The subject of the course that I shall offer this year at the Collège de France is the economy and society—or, better, the traditional ecodemography of the world long gone—as they "functioned," if one may use this term, from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, or, more precisely, from 1300-1320 to 1720-1730. Forsake of convenience, this world will be de-limited by the present frontiers of France—a decision of pure form with no implication of tri-color or fleur-de-lys. We shall be concerned with about 15 to 20 million people in every period, although there will be long intervals between actual dates. To be sure, a similar study could be carried out (and probably will be if it has not been already) among our neighbors: Germany, Italy, without a doubt Spain, but possibly not the British Isles. One of the paradoxes of such an undertaking is that the Kingdom of England, where The World We Have Lost was first defined with such penetrating insight, is of all western countries the one where that world was the least typical and the least stable.