Thinking History Globally

by Diego Olstein

Thinking History Globally means thinking about the past and the present beyond national borders, language barriers, and enclosed regions. There are four thinking strategies to gain global perspectives: comparing, connecting, conceptualizing, and contextualizing. Comparing is about contrasting between several cases and drawing new conclusions. Connecting is tracking the interdependences between cases and assessing their importance. Conceptualizing is recognizing that developments in one or several cases belong within a larger recurring pattern. Contextualizing is making sense of one case amidst developments world-wide. This book offers a practical guide into these strategies of thinking by applying them to multiple historical cases, ranging from the first civilizations and up to the First World War. While doing that, Olstein also presents the twelve branches of history that outstand in the application of these four strategies and in thinking history globally: comparative, relational, international, transnational, oceanic, global, world, and big histories, historical sociology, civilizational analysis, world-system approach, and history of globalization.

239 pages, Paperback

First published November 4, 2014

Reviews

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

The blurb of this book summarizes it excellently: Diego Olstein (prof. University Pittsburgh, USA) identifies four strategies that enable a global view of the past, namely comparing, connecting, conceptualizing and contextualizing. These are four approaches that are indeed applied to a greater or lesser extent in virtually every global history. Next, Olstein looks at how that happens in practice, in 12 areas of historical studies, ranging from transnational history to Big History. All done with expertise. Only: his divisions are so theoretical and sometimes also artificial, that unfortunately they do not add much. Of all the introductions I've read about Global History so far, I found this to be the least inspiring.

[Sense of History]

There are people that like to distinguish, define and categorize. Diego Olstein is one of them. The first quarter of his book is an accumulation of definitions, strategies, concepts and categories, all about Global History. And then he explains in detail how all these things relate to each other, and sometimes even overlap. As a result, this book becomes a kind of literature study on a very theoretical level, and therefore only for advanced students and academics. Olstein certainly ticks all the boxes, he knows what he is writing about, and he even makes meritorious efforts to apply his approach to 2 concrete cases: the historiography on the Argentine president Peron, and on the First World War. But in his attempt to appear as scientific as possible, he has clearly lost sight of his reader.

[Gladys · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thinking History Globally ambitiously sets out to revolutionize our understanding of history through a global lens, but ultimately falls flat due to its overwhelming methodological complexity and Eurocentric bias. While Olstein introduces twelve branches of global history and the four big C’s as his methodological pillars, the execution is so densely packed with theoretical jargon and convoluted frameworks that it becomes virtually inaccessible to the average reader.

[Aura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to Historical Methodology! Will quickly clarify any doubts on the definitions of "World", "Transnational" and "Global" histories. This work is very accessible for all academic audiences, even beyond History, and will serve for both national scholars and those who wish to look beyond borders. It won't be long before Holstein's "Four Cs" become the norm in teaching how to construct academic narratives.