Cross The Boundaries

Eric Robert Wolf (February 1,1923-March 6,1999) was an famous American Anthropologist and historian, best known for his Marxian perspectives. His Europe and the People without History is an important achievement of the intercross of historiography and Anthropology. And this article tries to analyze its theoretical and practical values about writing world history.There are five parts:Introduction, General views on Wolf's thoughts, Understanding on Europe and the People without History, Reappraising and rethinking, and Conclusion.Introduction is to introduce Wolf's life and research career, and expound the study destination of this article after analyzing on the current research achievement of China and aboard.In the second part, we'll first explore the thought resources of Wolf, and then, summarize the continuous theory and approach of his research based on the reading of his several important works. It is not only helpful in realize the general thought features, but also in realize the meaningful of Europe and the People Without History within the developing process of Wolf's own thought.In the third part, firstly, explain the writing background of Europe and the People without History, which means the conditions of society, times, and coupled with the changing of social thoughts and the development of discipline. And then, show its criticisms on the modern sociology and human-science and a wonderful description and interpreting of the modern world history.The fourth part is try to explore the distinguishing features and the value of Europe and the People Without History to writing about world history which lies on the analysis of various criticism. It can be summarized as followings, the intercross explanation of epistemology and ontology, pay attention to the weak and the other, show the modern world historical process through a main clue, Marxian culture views, and historical anthropology orientation. We'll analyze its limits as well as merits.In the last part, we'll give a brief conclusion on the theoretical means of this multi-discipline and anti-Eurocentric world history work.