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Notes on the lectures from the course (2022) Global History. INCLUDES lectures 1-13 and the final
review session (Total: 43 pages).
1
Global History Lecture Notes (Lectures 1-13 and Review Sessions)
Table of Contents
Lecture 1: Why Study Global History in an International Relations Degree? 2
Lecture 2: The Rise and Fall of European Empires 4
Lecture 3: Europeans Far Behind 6
Lecture 4: Land vs. Sea Empires 9
Lecture 5: The ‘Great Divergence’ Debate 13
Lecture 6: The ‘Origins of Capitalism’ Debate 16
Lecture 7: The ‘Military Revolution’ Myth 19
Lecture 8: The Crucial Role of Mercantile Companies 22
Lecture 9: Civilization, Race, and International Order 25
Lecture 10: Case Study - The French and Haitian Revolutions 29
Lecture 11: 1870-1914 High Imperialism 31
Lecture 12: 1914-1945 Winds of Change 35
Lecture 13: Bandung, the Tricontinental, and the NIEO 39
Review Session 42
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Lecture 1: Why Study Global History in an International Relations
Degree?
I. Introduction
“The End of Sykes-Picot”
➔ The Sykes-Picot Agreement: A 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France,
with approval from the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, to define their mutually
agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire
(present-day Middle East).
II. Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ#1: “Why study the past rather than try to analyse the present or predict the future?”
● Knowledge of the past is the most useful tool for understanding the present. However, the
present CANNOT be understood fully.
FAQ#2: “I want to theorise about the present, I want to be a theorist rather than a historian, do I
really need to study history? Will I ever use it for theory-building?”
● History is a laboratory to test claims about how variables are associated with each other and
their proposition about causation.
● History is a “closet of facts”.
● Good theory comes from good history.
FAQ#3: “What is good enough history for students who are not future historians but future
international relations (IR) specialists?”
● IR and history are so fundamentally intertwined.
● There is NOT always much reflection of how to use history properly.
● Approaches to history are used frequently in IR.
Approaches to history in IR; an extreme spectrum:
● “Closet of Facts”: The idea that the past is just a lot of facts to test theories about the present
(especially neorealism).
➔ History as monochrome flatland; always the same.
➔ Emphasis on continuities.
● Middle-Way: Uses history in some detail, while trying to establish patterns.
➔ Includes constructivism, the English School, historical sociology, conceptual history,
etc..
➔ Focus on continuities and discontinuities.
● “Shopping List”: The idea that the past is a list of minor events/accidents that have a huge
impact (especially poststructuralism).
➔ There are NO discernible patterns in history; it’s always different.
➔ Emphasis on discontinuities.
III. What are the essential conceptual tools for studying history?
History: A nonfictional account and general study of the past. It is a craft, aiming to construct some
sense of what happened in the past. It aspires to:
● Construct and tell stories about relevant discovered evidence that has been “sifted through” by
historians.
, 3
● Understand and explain past events by interpreting their meaning.
● Find structure/meaning in the chaos of the past.
Historians do NOT just tell stories, they develop a specific argument that they believe is accurate
based on existing evidence (evidence approaches).
● Why and how did events happen?
● What caused an event?
● Which individuals play important roles?
● What is the meaning of the events studied, in terms of the past and of the present? Why do
they matter?
Metahistory: Emphasises patterns and regularities as a greater driver of development, and the larger
meaning of history. It is about big ideas (e.g. class struggle).
➔ It was popular in the 19th century as a way to think about history but developed a bad
reputation in the 20th century following its employment by Nazi Germany.
➔ The Longue Durée: An idea by French historian Fernand Braudel, that takes a long view of
history to identify long-term trends/patterns and distinguish the contingent from the
permanent.
Antihistory: The idea that when history is spoken of, fiction = non-fiction. It is fiction/speculation,
NOT history proper.
➔ This is a particularly relevant concept in the age of ‘fake news and ‘post truth’ (e.g. the
Holocaust never happened, the moon landing was a hoax).
➔ Relativism: A closely related concept claiming that there is NO truth out there and all
narratives are equal. Extreme relativists turn to what they find the most useful fictions for
their purposes.
IV. What is global history?
Big history vs. global history:
● Big/Universal/World History: Concerned with the history of the world since the Big Bang. It
integrates natural sciences (e.g. cosmology, geology, biology).
● Global/World History: Specifically the story of connections within the global human
community. It looks beyond a single country/region and into the development of the
connected whole.
To integrate different parts of the connected whole, a shared timeline/calendar is needed.
➔ The first attempt was Biruni’s Chronology of Ancient Nations in the 11th century, based on
astronomy.
➔ The homogenization of time/creation of ‘time-as-we-know-it’ happened much later
(1870-1950).
➔ The discipline of global history is much more recent.
The crucial global history insight for IR = The human world comprises a Tdof co-existing societies
(the fact of the “international”). Five implications of multiplicity:
1. Co-existence; of societies.
2. Difference; in the nature of global development.
3. Interaction; practises of managing external environment.
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