Writing World History
26. March 2010
Prof. Jürgen Osterhammel and Sir Christopher Bayly in debate
“My book is not an Anti-Bayly, but an alternative from a kindred spirit”, writes Jürgen Osterhammel in his landmark publication “The Transformation of the World: A History of the Nineteenth Century”. Die Verwandlung der Welt was published in German in 2009, instantly praised, and its 1,568 pages are currently being translated by Princeton University Press. The Transformation has been written in dialogue with Christopher Bayly’s masterpiece and bestseller The Birth of the Modern World 1780-1914. This workshop brings these scholars together for the first time. It is time for the debate to begin: How do we write world history?
This question immediately relates to problems of historical writing on such a scale. Is Bayly’s general thesis about growing homogenization and differentiation as a hallmark of the modern world “a bit trivial and disappointing”, or does it serve a meaningful analytical purpose? Osterhammel’s alternative is to affirm a need for grand narratives, which must, however, be particular to different aspects of historical societies in their individual logic. Osterhammel also refuses the notion that a historian can be a “neutral sage” who seemingly observes “globally”. Instead he proposes a world history which “consciously plays with the relativity of perspectives”. Yet we need to ask why certain perspectives seem much more prominent in Bayly than in Osterhammel. Why does gender, for example, seem to disappear from Osterhammel’s grand narratives of different areas of nineteenth-century change? Does an emphasis on changing bodily practices offer the best mode of integrating gender analysis? Both important works pose multiple and fascinating questions, which concern periodisation, the balance between different societies, centre-periphery models, and questions of causation. Osterhammel is a specialist of Chinese history; Bayly specialises in Indian history: what difference does this make for their accounts?
To explore these issues, Prof. Osterhammel has been asked to pre-circulate a paper to Prof. Bayly and a team of experts: Profs. Rosalind O ‘Hanlon and Chris Clark, as well as Drs. Leigh Denault. William O’ Reilly and Andrew Arsan. Prof. Osterhammel will read the paper at the workshop, and Prof. Bayly will respond; followed by statements from the roundtable participants, a roundtable discussion and an open discussion, for which we invite lively participation from the audience.
To register, please email Mary-Rose Cheadle kmrc2[at]cam.ac.uk.
Any further questions about the proceedings should be directed to Dr. Ulinka Rublack, ucr10[at]cam.ac.uk
26 March 2010
St John’s College, Cambridge, UK
Chair and organiser
Dr. Ulinka Rublack
Supported by the Cambridge/Harvard Centre for History and Economics, the Trevelyan Fund, and St John’s College