The Transnational Historical Turn In Global History

From the perspective of global history and transnational history,this paper studies the turn of transnational history under the background of global history.The article holds that the compilation of world history has been based on the nation-state for many years,and “World history” seems to be the sum total of the history of all nation-states.Therefore,world historians have been reflecting on the impact of the nation-state perspective on the compilation of world history.Ever since the 1960 s,and especially since the 1990 s,World-systems theory and global history theories have attempted to transcend the nation-state in the compilation of world history.The World-systems theory emphasises the existence of a “Centre-periphery” world system over the nation-state,while global history emphasises that,there is a “Global network”with “Node-hub” that transcends the nation-state.Yet World-systems theory and global history have not fulfilled the task of transcending the nation-state.For example,World-systems theory still “Tend to understand the world economy on the basis of the nation-state system” and thus remain fundamentally “State-centric”,global history,on the other hand,cannot clearly define what “Connections” are in global history.In this situation,some new theoretical turns have appeared in the compilation of world history,among which the transnational turn in the study of global history is a major trend and direction.Transnational history as a concept began in the 1980 s,and gradually set off a trend of transnational history research in the 1990 s.This paper points out the characteristics of “Transnational history”,that is,the“Interdisciplinary characteristics” and “Monographic studies” of “Transnational history”.Traditional historians often study a period of history in a defined unit of human geography,such as a city,country,ocean,or continent.Transnational history is a thematic narrative,focusing on the common theme of one or more countries to start the narrative.With the acceleration of the process of globalization,various thematic studies have emerged,multinational corporations,women’s movements,Alzheimer’s disease,sports,international travel,racial prejudice,environmental history studies,and immigration are not unique to one country,it’s a worldwide phenomenon.The transnational historical turn referred to in this paper is committed to adopting new research methods to find more complete commonalities in such topics.Therefore,the study of the transnational turn of global history can provide a brand-new idea and perspective for the study of history.The paper will be divided into five sections.The introduction introduces the reasons for the topic,literature review and research methods,and makes a distinction between confusing concepts,which lays the foundation for this article.The first chapter introduces the background of the emergence of transnational history,pointing out the limitations of nation-state as a basic unit in writing history.To highlight the relationship between global history,national history and transnational history,we want to show that transnational history can be studied on the basis of sublating the paradigm of global history.The second chapter compares transnational events in the perspective of nation-state with transnational events in the perspective of transnational,highlighting the specific advantages of transnational history in the study of event history.Chapter three begins with the “New historiography” of immigration history,Empire History,women history and sports history,paying attention to the marginalized theme of national historiography,and then explores the significance of the event itself.The fourth chapter expounds the advantages and disadvantages of transnational history,and finally summarizes the significance of transnational history for the study of national history.