Transcript Slides of the lecture - World History Center

Locating Africans on the World Stage:
A Problem in World History
Patrick Manning
World History Center
October 28, 2015
Achievements in World History
• Analysis
• Comprehensiveness
• Disciplinary specialization
• Comprehensiveness
• Rhetoric
• “World stage” – and the world beyond the stage
• Institutions
• Associations
• Journals
• Programs of study
Multiple Perspectives in World History
• Standpoint
• By time, place, social position and interest
• Knowledge
• Many types of knowledge; many levels
• Debate
• Facts vs. outlooks
• New research, new facts
• Identifying and balancing perspectives
• Tension: * search for synthesis;
* expression of perspectives
World History in the perspectives of
Africa and African diaspora
• “absence” of black people in major
interpretations
• The “Eurocentrism” debate 1990s . . .
• . . . failed to end include blacks in narratives.
• The problem, I think: predominance of elite
and civilizational perspectives
Analysis in World History
• Comprehensiveness
• Subfields – empire, economy, environment, health,
migration, social movements
• Disciplinary specialization
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Crosby on environment
Benton on law in history
Economic history
• Coherence – logic of change
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Cause-and-effect, interactions, correlations
Rhetoric in World History
• The World Stage and the wider world
• Contrast of “world stage” & “master
narrative”
• Successful examples:
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Crosby, Columbian exchange
McNeill, Plagues and peoples
Benton, legal pluralism
Pomeranz, great divergence
• Analysis, Synthesis, Narrative
More on “the world stage”
Others:
– Darwin
– McKeown
– Matsuda
– Abu Lughod
– Goldstone
– Aslanian
Africans in World History
• Is there a lack of information on black history?
– Studies of Africa, Americas, Europe, Asia
• Has no one argued for inclusion of blacks?
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WEB Du Bois
CLR James
Colin Palmer
R. Kelley & T. Patterson
M. Gomez
V. Mudimbe
A Look at Leading World-Historical
Narratives
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Bayly, Birth of the Modern World
Osterhammel, Transformation of the World
Wallerstein, Modern World-System
Textbooks
• Bentley
• Fernandez-Armesto
• Princeton
Analytical and rhetorical practice
reconsidered
• History in vertical and horizontal terms
• Civilizations
• Elites
• Initiative and response
• Systemic logic
• Reconsidering The African Diaspora (2009)
Narratives of black initiative and
engagement
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Enslavement
Atlantic creoles; Palmares (mid 17th)
Code noir; Moroccan black army (late 17th)
Rise in slave prices (early 18th)
Slave rebellions (late 18th)
Emancipation (19th)
White supremacy (19th-20th)
Black cultural renaissance, post-emancipation (20th)
1968 in white perspective
1968 in black and white perspective
Code Noir, 1685
Mulay Ismail (Morocco) , 1672-1727
Palmares (Brazil), c. 1605 - 1694
Extending the Logic
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Linking social history to world history
Linking bottom-up to top-down
Linking regions, seeking global interactions
Linking topics and themes
Examples?
Narratives we may see
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Family and community (more than empire)
Work (more than industry)
Unfree labor (as much as free labor)
Diaspora (more than civilization)
Political protest and citizenship (more than nationhood)
Basic education (more than higher education)
Popular culture (more than elite culture)
• Recurring problems in social and economic inequality