Search results

This article discusses the challenges and constraints on the way toward more ecumenical forms of world historical scholarship. Refuting the charge that world history is necessarily Eurocentric in nature, the article points out that it is impossible to discuss intercultural conceptions of world history without touching on the international structures, flows, and hierarchies that characterize the field. The article argues that several transformations within the social sciences and humanities may prove to be relevant for transcultural and world history. The article concludes that internationally convincing perspectives can be gained only if the international landscapes of historiography become more ecumenical.

Big History is a seemingly novel approach that seeks to situate human history within a grand cosmic story of life. It claims to do so by uniting the historical sciences in order to construct a linear and accurate timeline of 'threshold moments' beginning with the Big Bang and ending with the present and future development of humanity itself. As well as examining the theory and practice of Big History, this Element considers Big History alongside previous largescale attempts to unite human and natural history, and includes comparative discussions of the practices of chronology, universal history, and the evolutionary epic