Table of Contents

Preface and acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: Historiographical traditions in the world: A view of the eighteenth century
1. Where we begin?
2. The West.
3. The Middle East.
4. India.
5. East and South East Asia.
Part II: The advance of nationalism and nationalist history: The West, the Middle East and India in the nineteenth century.
6. Historiography in a revolutionary age between 1789 and 1848.
7. Nationalism and the transformation of Muslim historiography.
8. Nationalism and the transformation of Indian historiography.
Part III: Academic history and the shaping of historical profession: Transforming historical study in the nineteenth–century West and East Asia.
9. The cult of science and the nation-state paradigm (1848–90).
10. The crisis of Confucian historiography and the creation of the modern historical profession in East Asia.
Part IV: Historical writings in the shadow of two world wars: The crisis of historicism and modern historiography.
11. The reorientation of historical studies and historical thought (1890–1914).
12. Historiography between Two World Wars (1918–1939).
Part V: The appeal of nationalist history around the world: Historical studies in the Middle East and Asia in the twentieth century.
13. Ottomanism, Turkism and Egyptianization: Nationalist History in the Middle East.
14. Nationalism, scientism, and Marxism: modern historiography in East and South East Asia.
15. Nationalist historiography in modern India.
Part VI: New challenges in the post-war period: from social history to postmodernism and postcolonialism.
16. The Cold War and the emergence of the New World Order.
17. Varieties of social history (1945–1968/70) in the West.
18. The 1970s and 1980s: the cultural turn and postmodernism.
19. Postcolonialism.
20. The ebb and flow of Marxist historiography in East and South East Asia.
21. Islamism and Islamic historiography: the Cold War and beyond.
22. Historiography after the Cold War, 1990–2007: A critical retrospect.
23. The globalization of the world.
24. The reorientation of historical studies.
Glossary.
Further reading.
Index.

Preface and acknowledgements     

Introduction   

Historiographical traditions in the world: A view of the eighteenth century

Where we begin?

• Transcultural comparisons
• Characteristics of historiographical thought in different cultures

The West

• Characteristics of Western historiography
• The emergence of an enlightenment worldview
• Erudition and critical historical scholarship
• Enlightenment historiography
• German forms of enlightenment
• The emergence of a republic of letters
• From universal history to eurocentric ideas of progress
• Concluding observations

The Middle East

• The rise of Islam and the origin of Muslim historiography
• Main styles in Muslim historiography
• The bureaucratization and secularization of historiography
• The decline of the Muslim world and Muslim historiography?

 India

• Western views on Indian historical consciousness
• Indian forms of historical writing
• Social and intellectual transformations during the early modern period

East and South East Asia

• Shamanism and history: the origin of the ‘shi’
• The formation of Confucian historiography
• The history bureau and dynastic history
• The spread and influence of dynastic historiography
• ‘To seek the truth from facts’: the rise of evidential learning

The advance of nationalism and nationalist history: The West, the Middle East and India in the nineteenth century   

Historiography in a revolutionary age between 1789 and 1848

• The political context
• Romanticism and historiography
• The impact of emergent nationalism on historiography
• The relationship between professional scholarship and nationalism
• The liberal reinterpretation of the Middle Ages
• The colonial perspective and historiography
• The decline of liberalism in historiography
• Ideas of progress and of crisis
• Hegel’s philosophy of history

Nationalism and the transformation of Muslim historiography

• The Muslim ‘discovery’ of Europe
• Whose Pharaohs? – (re)writing the history of Egypt
• National identity and historical writing
• Bridging the old and the new: the ‘encyclopedists’ and the ‘neo-chroniclers’

Nationalism and the transformation of Indian historiography

• Historiography during early colonialism
• The new pedagogy and the emergence of a modern historical consciousness
• Religious revivalism and the search for a glorious past
• The birth of the rationalist paradigm
• The birth of the nationalist paradigm
• Nationalism, communalism, and historical writing
• Secular narratives and the emergence of economic nationalism

Academic history and the shaping of historical profession: Transforming historical study in the nineteenth–century West and East Asia

The cult of science and the nation-state paradigm (1848–90)

• The political context of historiography
• The social context of historiography
• The turn to ‘scientific’ history

The crisis of Confucian historiography and the creation of the modern historical profession in East Asia

• Accommodating the Western influence
• Civilization and history: a new worldview
• The interplay of the old and the new
• George Zerffi, Ludwig Riess and the Rankean influence in Japan
• Japan’s ‘Orient’ and the changing of the sinitic world

Historical writings in the shadow of two world wars: The crisis of historicism and modern historiography

The reorientation of historical studies and historical thought (1890–1914)

• The changing political and cultural climate
• The challenge to traditional historiography
• The existential crisis of modern civilization

Historiography between Two World Wars (1918–1939)

• The historians in World War I
• The critique of rationality and modernity and the defenders of the enlightenment

• The rise of modern education
• Writing Turkish history in/for modern Turkey
• The Egyptianization of historical writing
• Academic history and national politics

Nationalism, scientism, and Marxism: modern historiography in East and South East Asia

• ‘New historiography’ in China
• The tension between national history and scientific history
• Modifying the Rankean model: national history in Japan
• Myth and history: in search of the origin of the Korean nation
• War and revolution: the appeal of Marxist historiography

Nationalist historiography in modern India

• Late nineteenth–century antecedents: romantic nationalism
• The role of religion in nationalist historiography
• The nation as history and history as science
• The romance of the local and the emergence of alternative narratives
• The nation re-imagined: the Nehruvian synthesis
• Post-independence historiography: old and new trajectories
• Towards a social science history

New challenges in the postwar period:from social history to postmodernism and postcolonialism

The Cold War and the emergence of the New World Order

Varieties of social history (1945–1968/70) in the West

•  The United States: from consensus to the New Left
• France: the ‘Annales’
• Germany: from Historismus to a critical historical social science
• Marxist historiography between orthodoxy and new directions

The 1970s and 1980s: the cultural turn and postmodernism

• From social science history to the cultural turn
• Micro-history, the history of everyday life, and historical anthropology
• Oral history and the history of memory
• The ‘history workshop’ movement
• Feminist and gender history

Postcolonialism

• The subaltern studies
• Latin America: from Dependencia theory to subaltern studies
• The emergence of modern historiograph  historical writings in late twentieth–century Asia and the Middle East

   

  The ebb and flow of Marxist historiography in East and South East Asia

  • Reinventing Japan: post-war reform of historical education and writing
  • The dominance of Marxist historiography in the People’s Republic of China
  • Challenges to Marxist historiography and eurocentrism
  • Between Marxism and Nationalism: academic history in Vietnam
  • The resurgence of national history
  • The Annales School, postmodernism, and new changes in Japanese historiography
  • China’s search for alternatives to Marxist historiography

  Islamism and Islamic historiography: the Cold War and beyond

  • Globalizing Islamic historiography
  • The interplay of history and historiography
  • Edward Said and the critique of Orientalism
  • The appeal of Marxism and Socialism
  • The Islamic Revival – Islamism and nationalism
  • History and politics: the challenges of nationalist historiography

   

  Historiography after the Cold War, 1990–2007: A critical retrospect

  The globalization of the world

  The reorientation of historical studies

  • The cultural and the linguistic turn
  • Feminist and gender history
  • Redefining the alliance between history and social sciences
  • New challenges to nationalist history
  • World history, global history and history of globalization

  Glossary  

  Further reading

  Index     

    

Promotional Information

A critical survey of historical thought and writing since the late eighteenth century from an intercultural, comparative global perspective.

About the Author

Georg Iggers is a distinguished professor emeritus from the State University of New York. He is a respected academic who has taught in the US, Asia and Europe. From 1995 - 2000 he was president of the International Commission for the History and Theory of Historiography. Having fled the Nazi's as a child, he has been active in the Civil Rights movement in the US Q. Edward Wang is professor and chairperson of the History Department at Rown University in Glassboro New Jersey. His main field is Asian history, but he has also taught courses on Western Civilization and Historiography and Historical Methods. Supriya Mukherjee teaches at the University of Memphis with a focus on the history of the German Kaiserreich and Weimar periods, Contemporary History, and modern Indian issues.

Reviews

“It is no longer adequate to tell the story of the history of historical writing as if it were exclusively the creation of the west. This new book is an excellent contribution towards globalizing our understanding of the development of modern historical writing.” Dr Daniel Woolf, University of Alberta, Canada "Encyclopaedic in scope and erudition, non-partisan in approach but interested in forging connections across national contexts, this book will do much to enliven and inform contemporary debates in historiography. It represents a truly impressive scholarly achievement." Dr Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago, USA