Universal histories and chronicles in the Middle Ages

The universal chronicle (or world chronicle), tracing history from the beginning of the world up to the present, was an especially popular genre of historiography in medieval Western Europe. The universal chronicle differs from the ordinary chronicle in its much broader chronological and geographical scope, giving, in principle, a continuous account of the progress of world history from the creation of the world up to the author's own times, but in practice often narrowing down to a more limited geographical range as it approaches those times.

The Chronica of Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 275–339) is considered to be the starting point of this tradition. The second book of this work consisted of a set of concordance tables (Chronici canones) that for the first time synchronized the several concurrent chronologies in use with different peoples. Eusebius' chronicle became known to the Latin West through the translation by Jerome (c. 347–420).

Universal chronicles are sometimes organized around a central ideological theme, such as the Augustinian idea of the tension between the heavenly and the earthly state, which plays a major role in Otto von Freising's Historia de duabus civitatibus. In other cases, any obvious theme may be lacking. Some universal chronicles bear a more or less encyclopedic character, with many digressions on non-historical subjects, as is the case with the Chronicon of Helinand of Froidmont.

Other notable universal chroniclers of the Medieval West include Bede (c. 672 or 673–735), the Christherre-Chronik, Helinand of Froidmont (c. 1160—1237?), Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636), Jans der Enikel, Matthew Paris (c. 1200-1259), Ranulf Higdon (c. 1280-1363), Rudolf von Ems, Sigebert of Gembloux (c. 1030–1112), Otto von Freising (c. 1114–1158), and Vincent of Beauvais (c. 1190-1264?).

Christian writers as late as Bossuet (in his Discours sur l'histoire universelle,1679) were still reflecting on and continuing the Medieval tradition of universal history.

Middle East

In the medieval Islamic world, universal history in this vein was taken up by Muslim historians such as al-Tabari and Ibn Khaldun. The 13th century Jami al-Tawarikh ("Compendium of Chronicles") by Rashid al-Din (now held at the University of Edinburgh) and the Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun are significant example of this tradition.

Modern examples

An early European project was the Universal History of George Sale and others, written in the mid-eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, universal histories proliferated. Philosophers such as Kant, Schiller and Hegel, and political philosophers such as Marx, presented general theories of history that shared essential characteristics with the Biblical account: they conceived of history as a coherent whole, governed by certain basic characteristics or immutable principles. For example, Hegel presented the idea that progress in history is actually the progress not of mankind's material existence, but of humanity's spiritual development. Concomitantly, Hegel presented a developmental theory of how the human spirit progresses: through the dialectic of synthesis and antithesis. Marx's theory of dialectic materialism is essential to his general concept of history: that the struggle to dominate the means of production governs all historical development.

Popular conceptions and universal history

Basic ideas of universal history are so prevalent that they are difficult to separate from basic Western assumptions of how the world is or should be. Outside some intellectuals, such ideas continue to predominate as core assumptions. The teleological aspects of universal history remain entrenched. Many people believe that the events of our world, and more specifically, the events within the human community, are directed toward an end or tending toward an end of some sort. 'Linear' pre-suppositions of the theory are no less prevalent. Most people living in Western cultures conceive of time, and therefore of history, as a line or an arrow, that is proceeding from past to future, toward some end. The idea that time may be cyclical, or that there is no fundamental "end" to the human struggle, is unfamiliar.

Historiography

The roots of historiography in the nineteenth century are bound up with the concept that history written with a strong connection to the primary sources could, somehow, be integrated with "the big picture", i.e. to a general, universal history. For example, Leopold Von Ranke, probably the pre-eminent historian of the nineteenth century, founder of "Rankean positivism," the classic mode of historiography that now stands against postmodernism, attempted to write a Universal History at the close of his career. The work of Oswald Spengler and Arnold J. Toynbee are two examples of attempts to integrate primary source -based history and Universal History. Spengler's work is more general; Toynbee created a theory that would allow the study of "civilizations" to proceed with integration of source-based history writing and Universal History writing. Both writers attempted to incorporate teleological theories into general presentations of the history.

20th century writers

Influential writers who have reached wide audiences including H. G. Wells, Oswald Spengler, Arnold J. Toynbee, Pitirim Sorokin, Christopher Dawson^[11], and Lewis Mumford. Scholars working the field include Eric Voegelin^[12], William H. McNeill and Michael Mann.^[13].

Spengler's Decline of the West (2 vol 1919-1922) compared nine organic cultures: Egyptian (3400 BC-1200 BC), Indian (1500 BC-1100 BC), Chinese (1300 BC-AD 200), Classical (1100 BC-400 BC), Byzantine (AD 300-1100), Aztec (AD 1300-1500), Arabian (AD 300-1250), Mayan (AD 600-960), and Western (AD 900-1900). His book was a smashing success among intellectuals worldwide as it predicted the disintegration of European and American civilization after a violent "age of Caesarism," arguing by detailed analogies with other civilizations. It deepened the post-World War I pessimism in Europe, and was warmly received by intellectuals in China, India and Latin America who hoped his predictions of the collapse of European empires would soon come true.^[14]

In 1936-1954, Toynbee's ten-volume A Study of History came out in three separate installments. He followed Spengler in taking a comparative topical approach to independent civilizations. Toynbee's said they displayed striking parallels in their origin, growth, and decay. Toynbee rejected Spengler's biological model of civilizations as organisms with a typical life span of 1,000 years. Like Ssu-ma Cheng-chen Toynbee explained decline as due to their moral failure. Many readers rejoiced in his implication (in vols. 1-6) that only a return to some form of Catholicism could halt the breakdown of western civilization which began with the Reformation. Volumes 7-10, published in 1954 abandoned the religious message and his popular audience slipped away, while scholars gleefully picked apart his mistakes.^[15],

McNeill wrote The Rise of the West (1965) to improve upon Toynbee by showing how the separate civilizations of Eurasia interacted from the very beginning of their history, borrowing critical skills from one another, and thus precipitating still further change as adjustment between traditional old and borrowed new knowledge and practice became necessary. McNeill took a broad approach organized around the interactions of peoples across the globe. Such interactions have become both more numerous and more continual and substantial in recent times. Before about 1500, the network of communication between cultures was that of Eurasia. The term used to describe these areas of interaction differ from one world historian to another and include "world-system" and "ecumene." But whatever it is called, the importance of these intercultural contacts has begun to be recognized by many scholars.^[16]

Academic historians, who increasingly specialize and demand the use of primary sources, tend to disparage scholarship in world history as attempting the impossible.

Europe

While the Chinese, Muslim, and Indian traditions continued their theocentric historiography, there was a radical challenge to it in Christian Europe during the Renaissance. Historians such as Machiavelli ignored divine intervention and stressed that men made their own history, and that rulers should study history in order to shape the future. European scholars began a more systematic study of history. Voltaire (1694-1778), the leading intellectual of the French Enlightenment used comparative history, as in Essay on Manners (1753), to ridicule Christian folly and promote the rule of reason. Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) introduced the perspective of the Scottish Enlightenment in An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767).

Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) in Italy broke new ground with his Scienza nuova seconda (The New Science) in 1725. Vico saw history as the expression of human will and deeds. He argued that men are historical entities and that human nature changes over time. Each epoch should be seen as a whole in which all aspects of culture--art, religion, philosophy, politics, and economics--are interrelated (a point developed later by Oswald Spengler. Vico showed that myth, poetry, and art are entry points to discovering the true spirit of a culture. Vico outlined a conception of historical development in which great cultures, like Rome, undergo cycles of growth and decline. His ideas were out of fashion during the Enlightenment, but influenced the Romantic historians after 1800.

A major thoeretical foundation for world history was given by German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, who saw the modern Prussian state as the highest stage of world development.

Overview

World History looks for common patterns that emerge across all cultures. World historians use a thematic approach, with two major focal points: integration (how processes of world history have drawn people of the world together) and difference (how patterns of world history reveal the diversity of the human experience).

The study of world history is in some ways a product of the current period of accelerated globalization. This period tends to both integrate various cultures and to highlight their differences.

Organization

The advent of World History as a distinct field of study was heralded in the 1980s by the creation of the World History Association ^[1] and of graduate programs at a handful of universities. Over the past 20 years, scholarly publications, professional and academic organizations, and graduate programs in World History have proliferated. It has become an increasingly popular approach to teaching history in American high schools and colleges. Many new textbooks are being published with a World History approach.

The World History Association publishes the Journal of World History.] every quarter since 1990^[2]. The H-World discussion list^[3] serves as a network of communication among practitioners of world history, with discussions among scholars, announcements, syllabi, bibliographies and book reviews.

Teaching

In college curricula, it became a popular replacement for courses on Western Civilization, beginning in the 1970s. Professors Patrick Manning at Northeastern University and Rosee Dunn at San Diego State are leaders in promoting innovative teaching methods.^[4]

Theoretical and scholarly studies

Herodotus (5th century BC) was a world historian as well as founder of Greek historiography.^[5] His History presents insightful and lively discussions of the customs, geography, and history of Mediterranean peoples, particularly the Egyptians. However, his great rival Thucydides promptly discarded Herodotus's all-embracing approach to history, offering instead a more precise, sharply focused monograph, dealing not with vast empires over the centuries but with 27 years of war between Athens and Sparta. In Rome, the vast, patriotic history of Rome by Livy (59 BC-17 AD) approximated Herodotean inclusiveness^[6]; Polybius (c.200-c.118 BC) aspired to combine the logical rigor of Thucydides with the scope of Herodotus.