ENGLAND, EMPIRE AND THE WORLD SLICING UP TIME ENGLAND, EMPIRE AND THE WORLD

Periodization How do historians slice up time? What makes a ‘period’ of history? What defines the break between periods? And how easily does periodization travel? Not even all European nations share the same periodization of the history of their continent Slicing up time is subjective, and depends upon perspectives and approaches to history If we view history from a different place, how does the periodization change?

Is World History just the story of European (or American) domination? The Eurocentric World What is the conventional Eurocentric chronology of World History? Monarchs, dynasties, empires Exploration, ‘discovery’ and ‘expansion’ Conquest, colonisation and imperialism Technology, science, knowledge Trade and economic development Political systems & the ‘rise of the West’ Is World History just the story of European (or American) domination?

Beyond Europe Is a non-European periodization necessarily any better? Chinese? Ottoman? Mughal? How might we achieve a ‘cross cultural’ periodization? Bentley: interactions suggest a global periodization that transcends individual societies or regions Northrup: sweeping global trends mark different eras, of ‘convergence’ and ‘divergence’

Whose history is ‘Big History’? Can we draw together a global history that cuts across spatial and temporal boundaries? (David Christian) How do we incorporate the ‘local’ into the global? What breaks might we chose to define periods and changes? What defines a ‘global change’? Whose history is ‘Big History’?

Alternatives Global exchange, commodities, trade (Flynn & Giraldez) - silk, spices, silver ….. The rise of global Networks, eg from the 13th century (Abu-Lughod) Alternative ‘explorations’ – Ethiopia’s discovery of Europe (1306-1458) (Salvadore) Ocean histories – the Atlantic world, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean

Thinking about the past – an African example Maasai age-sets Named sets for each cohort Linear, progressive ‘a ladder that you climb down into the past’ Kalenjin age-sets eight cyclical sets, repetitive, based on notion of reincarnation History only has the depth of one complete cycle of the eight sets: there is only the history of the living How do we think about time?

- and the Cold War The Eurocentric Cold War The Global Cold War conventional history of international relations The Global Cold War Actors, events, watersheds all different An African periodization The Age of Illusions, 1945-1973 The Age of Plunder, 1974-1994 The Age of Atonement, 1995-c.2012 (?)