Journal•ISSN: 1045-6007
Journal of World History
World History Association
About: Journal of World History is an academic journal published by World History Association. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Empire & World history. It has an ISSN identifier of 1045-6007. Over the lifetime, 886 publications have been published receiving 11414 citations.
Topics: Empire, World history, Colonialism, China, Politics
Papers published on a yearly basis
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TL;DR: This article argued that the historical study of borderlands has been unduly restricted by an emphasis on the legal, political, and geographical aspects of borders and by a state-centered approach and argued that borderland studies provide an indispensable corrective to historical narratives that accept the territoriality to which all modern states lay claim.
Abstract: The historical study of borderlands has been unduly restricted by an emphasis on the legal, political, and geographical aspects of borders and by a state-centered approach. Too often, the question has been how states have dealt with their borderlands rather than how borderlands have dealt with their states—culturally, economically, and politically. This article outlines a comparative approach to the social dynamics (struggles, adaptations, and cross-border alliances) in regions bisected by borders, and it argues that borderland studies provide an indispensable corrective to historical narratives that accept the territoriality to which all modern states lay claim.
405 citations
TL;DR: The distinctive feature of Western economies since 1800 has not been growth per se, but growth based on a specific set of elements: engines to extract motive power from fossil fuels, to a degree hitherto rarely appreciated by historians, and the marriage of empirically oriented science to a national culture of educated craftsmen and entrepreneurs broadly educated in basic principles of mechanics and experimental approaches to knowledge.
Abstract: The "Rise of the West" has been treated by economic historians as stemming from the onset of rapid economic growth, driven by technological advances. In contrast, all premodern and non-Western economies have been treated as showing only slow or no growth, interrupted by periodic crises. This is an error. Examined closely, many premodern and non-Western economies show spurts or efflorescences of economic growth, including sustained increases in both population and living standards, in urbanization, and in underlying technological change. Medieval Europe, Golden Age Holland, and Qing China, among other cases, show such remarkable efflorescences of impressive economic growth.Yet these did not lead to modern industrialized societies. The distinctive feature of Western economies since 1800 has not been growth per se, but growth based on a specific set of elements: engines to extract motive power from fossil fuels, to a degree hitherto rarely appreciated by historians; the application of empirical science to understanding both nature and practical problems of production; and the marriage of empirically oriented science to a national culture of educated craftsmen and entrepreneurs broadly educated in basic principles of mechanics and experimental approaches to knowledge. This combination developed from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries only in Britain, and was unlikely to have developed anywhere else in world history.
371 citations
TL;DR: The authors show that migrations to northern and southeastern Asia were comparable in size and demographic impact to the transatlantic flows and followed similar cycles of growth and contraction, and a global perspective suggests ways in which that economy extended beyond direct European intervention.
Abstract: European migrations to the Americas and Australia have often been noted as an important part of world history, but movements to the frontiers, factories, and cities of Asia and Africa have largely been overlooked. This paper will show that migrations to northern and southeastern Asia were comparable in size and demographic impact to the transatlantic flows and followed similar cycles of growth and contraction. These migrations were all part of an expanding world economy, and a global perspective suggests ways in which that economy extended beyond direct European intervention. A global perspective also compels us to extend the traditional ending point for the era of mass migration from 1914 to 1930, and to be more aware of how political intervention has shaped the world into different migration systems and led scholars to wrongly assume that these systems reflect categorically different kinds of migration.
320 citations
TL;DR: The role played by the Silk Roads in exchanging goods, tech nologies, and ideas between regions of agrarian civilization is well understood as mentioned in this paper, but the fact that they also exchanged goods and ideas among the pastoralist and agrary worlds is less well understood.
Abstract: Modern historiography has not fully appreciated the ecological complexity of the Silk Roads. As a result, it has failed to under stand their antiquity, or to grasp their full importance in Eurasian his tory. The role played by the Silk Roads in exchanging goods, tech nologies, and ideas between regions of agrarian civilization is well understood. Less well understood is the trans-ecological role of the Silk Roads?the fact that they also exchanged goods and ideas between the pastoralist and agrarian worlds. The second of these systems of exchange, though less well known, predated the more familiar "trans civilizational" exchanges, and was equally integral to the functioning of the entire system. A clear awareness of this system of trans-ecolog ical exchanges should force us to revise our understanding of the age, the significance, and the geography of the Silk Roads. Further, an appreciation of the double role of the Silk Roads affects our understanding of the history of the entire Afro-Eurasian region. The many trans-ecological exchanges mediated by the Silk Roads linked all regions of the Afro-Eurasian landmass, from its agrarian civ ilizations to its many stateless communities of woodland foragers and steppe pastoralists, into a single system of exchanges that is several mil lennia old. As a result, despite its great diversity, the history of Afro Eurasia has always preserved an underlying unity, which was expressed in common technologies, styles, cultures, and religions, even disease patterns. The extent of this unity can best be appreciated by contrast ing the history of Afro-Eurasia with that of pre-Columbian America. World historians are becoming increasingly aware of the underly ing unity of Afro-Eurasian history. Andre Gunder Frank and Barry
238 citations
TL;DR: In the United States, a person may decline to take the oath of loyalty to the U.S. Constitution if this oath conflicts with a religious belief as discussed by the authors, which is the case in East Asia.
Abstract: izenship, a person may decline to take the oath of loyalty to the U.S. Constitution if this oath conflicts with a religious belief. Despite the nation-state's prerogative to make deep claims upon the loyalty of its citizens, it often recognizes that the highest truths are not necessar ily to be found within the national community, but in a transcendent or universal realm. Indeed, nations tend to recognize the superiority of religious truths because their own raison d'?tre is often founded in a spiritual or universal truth. The discourse of civilization in the era of nation-states is closely tied to this yearning for a transcendent spiritual purpose. This essay deals with the transformations in the discourse of civi lization in the twentieth century and its complex relationship with nationalism, particularly in East Asia. Nationalism and racism were not the only sources of identity in the twentieth century. For many millions of people in the world, the older spiritual and religious ideals
194 citations