World History in the Twenty-first Century and Its Critics

Title

World History in the Twenty-first Century and Its Critics

Author

Edoardo Tortarolo

Page

331-345

DOI

Abstract

The paper deals with changes that recently occurred in the views of world history and with challenges coming from the post-modern approach and from subaltern studies. As far as world histories are concerned, it is evident that this subject per se has been deeply revised in a refreshing and innovative way. As historians, we all are, willy-nilly, influenced by the idea that the historian’s responsibility is not so much the recuperation of the past, rather the construction of the past. We all are alert to the historicity of canons, and tend to be more sensitive to contaminations and hybrid texts than even in the recent past. In many cases, that are relevant to our understanding of world history, criticism of traditional historiography has gone beyond the quest for a renewal of research topics and descriptive strategies and has questioned basic assumptions of historiography. This radical challenge has implications that are worth discussing in depth.

Keyword

world history, historiography, sources, subaltern studies

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