Lynn Hunt on Thinking Globally in Historical Studies
Recorded on December 2, 2015 Lynn A. Hunt, Distinguished Research Professor and Eugen Weber Endowed Chair in Modern European History Prof. Hunt explains that recent worldwide interest on global history provides an opportunity to revitalize the discipline of history itself, which has often privileged nation-state history above others. The relationship between national histories and global history, however, is a complicated one, as Prof. Hunt describes: “Learning about world history is central to forming national coherence.” In going beyond national history, a challenge for historians and other scholars who respond to globalization is to productively engage the both “top down” world system processes and “bottom up” interconnections of diverse places without reducing globalization to economic and other structural explanations. In her opinion, “how it all fits together” is a puzzle in global history that requires the synthesis of both top-down and bottom-up approaches.
