| In assessing the field of history in the United States in the introduction of A Global History (1999), L. S. Stavrianos lauds the successful transition from an irrelevant and misleading, traditional West-oriented history to a new global-perspective history; while in the new introduction to the updated edition of Covering Islam (1997), Edward W. Said laments that the field of history in the United States has become even more insensitive and belligerently hostile towards non-Western societies, giving rise to ever greater misrepresentations, distortions, and stereotypes. How can these extremely divergent views be reconciled? Treating the field of history in the United States as a culture of scholarship, an examination of undergraduate history textbooks and curricula reveals an orientalist globalism. A more all-inclusive, encyclopedic non-Western history has been truly integrated into the field of history in the United States, but the specific process which has integrated non-Western history has given rise to greater misrepresentations, distortions, and stereotypes. Non-Western history, Third World history, and area studies have become required fields of study for gaining perspective on the modernity of the West; and non-Western history, Third World history, and area studies have been distortingly delineated into pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial periods to conform to the periodization of the West. While many colleges and universities in the United States have retained the Western Civilization course, others have replaced the Western Civilization course with the World History course. This change, however, remains cosmetic, as a critical analysis of approaches to World History and of World History textbooks suggests little structural change in the curricula. As a means for remedying the egregious failings of orientalist globalism, an abductive argument is made for the development of the field of World History as a necessary macrohistorical foundation for history curricula for the new millennium. |
