OC1.05 Professor David Lambert 3-4pm, 27th February 2017 Carving up space OC1.05 Professor David Lambert 3-4pm, 27th February 2017

Carving up space How do historians carve up space? What geographical units form the basis for how we interpret the past – and where do these come from? Are there natural containers for the past, such as nation-states, regions and continents? Where is ‘the West’ and why? What are the implications for how historians have divided up the world for Global History and are there alternatives?

James Gillray, famous British caricaturist James Gillray, famous British caricaturist. The world (1805) being carved up into spheres of influence between British PM, William Pitt the Younger and French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

Lecture structure How do historians carve up the world (at Warwick and beyond)? Continents: Divisions Histories Consequences Different ways of carving up the world: oceanic histories

Carving up space: My 1st claim Historians are defined as much by which places they study as by which periods

The world is carved up into continents. How many are there in total? Five Six Seven

Seven continents

Six continents

Six continents

Five continents

Martin W. Lewis and Kären E Martin W. Lewis and Kären E. Wigen (eds), The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography (1997).

Definition of “metageography” “Every global consideration of human affairs deploys a metageography, whether acknowledged or not. By metageography we mean the set of spatial structures through which people order their knowledge of the world: the often unconscious frameworks that organize studies of history, sociology, anthropology, economics, political science, or even natural history”. Martin W. Lewis and Kären E. Wigen (eds), The Myth of Continents (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. ix.

Other metageographies: Global North and Global South

Other metageographies: The West and ‘the rest’

Other metageographies: First, Second and Third Worlds

Carving up space: My 2nd claim The world does not come in ready-made geographical units

What is the world’s biggest island? Australia Borneo Greenland Madagascar New Guinea

What is the world’s biggest island? Australia – 1st (7,600,000 km2) Borneo – 4th (748,168 km2) Greenland – 2nd (2,130,800 km2) Madagascar – 5th (587,713 km2) New Guinea – 3rd (785,753 km2) Antarctica – 14,000,000 km2 Americas – 42,300,000 km2 Afro-Eurasia – 84,400,000 km2 Usually classified as ‘continents’ (Australia often is too)

Carving up space: My 3rd claim There are few, if any, ‘natural’ geographical divisions or units

Seven continents

Classical Greek divisions of space Asia Europe Libya/Africa

Medieval European divisions of space A T and O map or O-T or T-O map (orbis terrarum, orb or circle of the lands; with the letter T inside an O).

‘Voyages of discovery’

Voyages of Christopher Columbus

‘Discovering a New World’

World map, 1513 - after Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (87-150) was an Egyptian astronomer and geographer living and studying in the 1st and 2nd century CE.

Seven continents

Seven continents

Europe/Asia boundary

Ural Mountains

Europe/Asia boundary

Six continents

Seven continents

Carving up space: My 4th claim Europe’s status as a continent is linked to the history of European expansion

Seven continents

Definition of “environmental (or geographical) determinism” “[T]he belief that social and cultural differences between human groups can ultimately be traced to differences in their physical environments. As this philosophy took definitive shape in the Anglo-American academy at the turn of this century, it tended to support the self-serving notion that temperate climates alone produced vigorous minds, hardy bodies, and progressive societies, while tropical heat produced races marked by languor and stupefaction”. Martin W. Lewis and Kären E. Wigen (eds), The Myth of Continents (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 42.

‘The four races of man’ (early 20th century)

Eric Jones, The European Miracle: Environments, Economies, and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (1981, 1987, 2003).

David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why some are so Rich and some so Poor (1998).

Jim Blaut, Eight Eurocentric Historians (2000).

Definition of “Eurocentrism” “I use the term ‘Eurocentrism,’ then, to indicate false claims by Europeans that their society or region is, or was in the past, or always has been and always will be, superior to other societies or regions…It is Eurocentric to make the claim that Europeans are more inventive, innovative, progressive, noble, courageous, and so on, than every other group of people; or that Europe as a place has a more healthy, productive, stimulating environment than other places”. Jim Blaut, Eight Eurocentric Historians (New York: Guilford Press, 2000), p. 4.

Seven continents

The Atlantic world

The Indian Ocean world

Carving up space: My 5th claim Histories based on oceans provide an alternative to continental (or national) frameworks

Take home messages The way in which space is carved up… is not ‘natural’ (the world is not divided into ready-made units for historians to use) has a history (which we, as historians, need to understand) can have unrecognised consequences (by shaping how historians study the past and tell stories about it) Terms to remember: Metageography Environmental (or geographical) determinism Eurocentrism

OC1.05 Professor David Lambert 3-4pm, 27th February 2017 Carving up space OC1.05 Professor David Lambert 3-4pm, 27th February 2017