World History Association's Foundation and Development

Maryam Yari^*
*Correspondence: Maryam Yari, Department of Business Administration, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran, Email:

Editorial

World history, often known as global history, is a subject of historical research that looks at history from a worldwide viewpoint. In the late twentieth century, the discipline became significantly more active (in terms of university teaching, textbooks, scholarly journals, and academic organisations). It should not be confused with comparative history, which, like world history, deals with the history of multiple cultures and nations but does so on a smaller scale. The study of world history seeks out common patterns that arise across all societies. World historians take a thematic approach, focusing on two primary themes: integration (how processes of world history have brought people from all over the world together) and difference (how patterns of world history reveal the diversity of the human experience). World history emerged as a distinct academic subject of study in the 1960s, but the pace intensified in the 1980s. The establishment of the World History Association and graduate programmes at a few universities was a critical milestone. Scholarly publications, professional and academic organisations, and graduate programmes in World History increased throughout the next few decades. World History has frequently superseded Western Civilization in the mandated curriculum of American high schools and universities, and is reinforced by new world history textbooks. World history studies networks, linkages, and systems that traverse traditional historical boundaries such as linguistic, cultural, and national borders.

World History is typically concerned to study societal forces that have led to large-scale changes. With the advent of universal history in the twentieth century, world history became a popular genre. Several best-sellers in the 1920s dealt with world history, notably surveys The Story of Mankind (1921) by Hendrik Willem van Loon and The Outline of History (1918) by H. G. Wells. H. G. Wells, Oswald Spengler, Arnold J. Toynbee, Pitirim Sorokin, Carroll Quigley, Christopher Dawson, and Lewis Mumford are among the influential writers who have gained a wide readership. Eric Voegelin, William Hardy McNeill, and Michael Mann are among the researchers researching in this area. Modern historians have access to fresh knowledge thanks to changing technologies such as dating methodologies and surveying laser technology known as LiDAR, which modifies how historical civilizations are researched [1-3].

The World History Association (WHA) is a professional organisation of scholars, instructors, and students dedicated to the advancement of world history through teaching, research, publications, and personal interactions. It was formed in 1982 by a group of university professors and secondary school instructors who were motivated to meet the demands of a newly growing historical sub-discipline. The purpose of the organisation, as stated in its constitution, is to "encourage activities that will improve historical awareness, understanding among and between peoples, and world consciousness." The World History Association brings together university professors, college and community college instructors, secondary school teachers, graduate students, and independent scholars in a congenial fellowship rarely found in more narrowly focused academic and professional organisations.

World history originated in the United States in the 1970s, a field founded by historians and educators seeking to shift away from a focus on national and regional histories and toward broader cross-cultural, comparative, and global perspectives. Some of these trailblazing world historians were educated in area studies programmes that concentrated on regions other than Europe and the United States, while others were self-taught. They all conducted research and established theoretical foundations for the field [4,5]. They established world history courses that stressed links, parallels, and large-scale processes because they were dissatisfied with the scope of most history courses at the secondary and university levels. In the early 1980s, a group of these educators and scholars established the WHA, established a governance structure, and began holding meetings.

Conflict of Interest

None.

References

1. Abel, Guy J., Bilal Barakat, K.C. Samir and Wolfgang Lutz, et al. "Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals leads to lower world population growth." Proc Natl Acad Sci 113 (2016): 14294-14299.

Google Scholar, Crossref, Indexed at

2. d’Amour, Christopher Bren, Femke Reitsma, Giovanni Baiocchi and Stephan Barthel, et al. "Future urban land expansion and implications for global croplands." Proc Natl Acad Sci 114 (2017): 8939-8944.

Google Scholar, Crossref, Indexed at

3. Weitzel, Matthias, Toon Vandyck, Kimon Keramidas and Markus Amann, et al. "Model-based assessments for long-term climate strategies." Nat Clim Chang 9 (2019): 345-347.

Google Scholar, Crossref, Indexed at

4. Folke, Carl, Reinette Biggs, Albert V. Norström and Belinda Reyers, et al. "Social-ecological resilience and biosphere-based sustainability science." Ecol Soc 21 (2016).

Google Scholar, Crossref, Indexed at

5. Campagnolo, Lorenza, Carlo Carraro, Fabio Eboli and Luca Farnia, et al. "The ex-ante evaluation of achieving sustainable development goals." Soc Indic Res 136 (2018): 73-116.

Google Scholar, Crossref, Indexed at