David Ludden’s suggestion in “Historians and Nation States” (Perspectives, April 1986) that history departments redefine their discipline in “global rather than national terms” is not as avant garde as it might first seem. There are many in the profession who sense the need to advance the internationalization of historical studies and we may be further along the “rocky road” to change than one might think. Two years ago the belief that present and future generations of American students need urgently to be exposed to a broader view of history led our department at Central Washington University to require all history majors obtaining a teaching certificate to take a course in comparative history.
Our course title, A Global Approach to Local History, describes the framework of the course and reflects its evolution. At the outset we intended to treat both universal themes of human development—identity, family life, work, adversity, communication—and their differing cultural variations. The cultural variations and the comparisons were based on studies of small cities in our areas of expertise: Worms, Germany; Shibetsu, Japan; and Lagos de Moreno, Mexico. Since we also felt there were pedagogical advantages to drawing upon the history of Ellensburg, our university’s locale, we added it to our comparison. Many of our students hail from small towns in Washington state, and an exploration of life in a similar, as well as a foreign entity, facilitates their cross-cultural understanding.
A course that contains so much varied material needs a conceptual framework and from the beginning, we have used a Fernand Braudelian structure. Because of our emphasis on local history, we originally used his essay on towns in the Structures of Everyday Life (Harper & Row, 1982). The notion that towns have lives of their own, that their patterns can vary from culture to culture while continuing their universal functions, provided us with the anchor we needed to combat the more traditional nationalistic approach. Having used one aspect of Braudel’s work, it only required a short leap to add the global framework he sets forth in the first chapter of The Perspective of the World (Vol. III, Harper & Row, 1984). His exposition of the various aspects and cycles of human activity—the economic, social, political, cultural, the short, medium, and long-term trends—shifts the student’s attention away from the national to more cosmopolitan settings.
One might object that Braudel’s concepts of hegemonic core, semiperiphery, and periphery perpetuate a neo-imperialistic view of the world. On the other hand, there are two advantages to this framework. First, it groups nations together into new conceptual bundles. Second, it makes explicit the idea that core status shifts from time to time, successfully undermining the pretense of permanent hegemony and neo-imperialistic arrogance. To a certain extent, we have supplemented Braudel’s framework with insights from Immanuel Wallerstein’s The Modern World System (Vol. I, Academic Press, 1980), but we increasingly find the latter’s sociological approach too rigid.
As historians, we cannot escape the fact that the different aspects of life—regionally, nationally, and globally—change over time. This exploration of change, combined with a cross-cultural comparison, can create pedagogical difficulties. Students tend to be overwhelmed by juggling so many variables. In seeking to manage this problem—to introduce the fact of change but keep it low enough to be comprehensible—we have concentrated our materials and presentations on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particularly heavy emphasis on the twentieth. In effect, we have adapted Braudel’s model for the early modern to the contemporary period.
Anglo-Americans must be careful about introducing comparative studies, including comparative history, lest it be assumed that the standard for comparison is the United States.
We begin the course with discussions of Braudel’s structural concepts. There after we explore each theme in its universal aspect and in its national manifestation. Lastly we lecture on the theme’s variation at our respective local levels. For example, when studying the subject of identity, we assign readings that deal with the characteristics of Germans, Japanese, Mexicans, and Anglo-Americans. We dissect the problem of stereotyping and go on to show how local identities are separate from national ones. In the case of work, we move from a broad consideration of work’s function individually and socially, developed by an anthropologist, an economist, and a psychologist, to a discussion of the history of work in Germany, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. Finally, we lecture on the types and meaning of work in each of the localities.
One problem we have encountered is finding materials for all our cultures that treat the topics in a parallel fashion. This problem has been partially overcome by the social scientists’ treatment of the themes in the universal context. In addition to the above mentioned treatments of work, we use an anthropologist’s explanation of the family, a sociologist’s analysis of responses to disasters, and a semiologist’s approach to communication. Discussing the universal aspects of a topic makes up considerably for the lack of materials.
Our other major difficulty is the dearth of materials in English for each of our foreign towns. Despite this lack, students seem able to make the connections between the universal and national levels based on their readings and discussions and the lectures describing the local picture. Some students have expressed a preference for a personalized history of the towns, and it may be that such a treatment helps them to understand the relationships.
The course appeals to better students, but even they initially have difficulty grasping the complexity of the Braudelian model. The idea of a model for use in historical study needs to be explained carefully and slowly. One student has recently objected that we should stick to the stories and forget about the “theories.” Most students, however, fall in with the approach once they understand the goal.
So far we have taught this course twice using a combination of seminar and lecture techniques. We currently view it as a permanent experiment in introducing students to global history, and our choice of structures, themes, readings, and techniques will continue to evolve. For instance, we know that we have to develop more parallel lectures on our individual towns. When we first devised the course, we planned to gather similar materials in each of the localities, but circumstances have forced modification on this plan. First, the localities have developed differently. Second, each has preserved different types of materials. Finally, there are dissimilar cultural approaches to historical study.
To some extent, we can overcome this deficiency with more imaginative research. We can also build into the course an explanation of the differences. Such explanations may help us to achieve an important subsidiary objective: the development of a model for comparative history that is transferable and can be used at other institutions and levels with different localities in other nations. Every time we have taught the course, students agree that the focus on individual towns makes the cross-cultural com parisons more meaningful.
Anglo-Americans must be careful about introducing comparative studies, including comparative history, lest it be assumed that the standard for comparison is the United States. In many respects, comparative studies as a whole are products of “core” countries in the modern world system as defined by Braudel and Wallerstein. For this reason, comparison of three or more units, only one of which is Anglo-American, is more desirable than two. With greater variety the student may be pleased to see one of the other units as representing a standard to which the United States may be compared.
This particular method of comparative history works for us. Others might want to experiment with a less complex scheme. What is most important is to find a way to encourage students to think beyond the narrow national histories with which they are familiar. By exposing a new generation to a global historical approach, we might be able to develop a new global awareness of the sort advocated by Ludden and by William McNeill in his recent presidential address to the AHA (see AHR, February 1986). We believe that placing the com parisons at the local level enhances the prospect of “breaking free of the cultural constraints imposed by national consciousness,” a phrase used by David Ludden in his excellent Viewpoints article.
Earl Glauert, Beverly Heckart, and Daniel Ramsdell, Chair, are all professors of history at Central Washington University.
