Not Even Remotely Global? Method and Scale in World History
aburton{at}uiuc.edu
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Abstract |
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This response argues that histories of globalization must take account of histories of empire and of postcolonialism if they are to represent with accuracy the structural conditions which undergird current conditions. In doing so, they must also seek to reverse the directionality of traditional imperial history, which appears to have left its imprint even on narratives that do not attend expressly to imperial histories. That is to say, they must interrogate the presumption that power flowed only from metropole to colony an that "native" political economies and indigenous actors did not push back against imperial forces. We need narratives that explore, in short, how and why the local was not simply created by empire, but exercised a discrete and ultimately provincializing role in global history.