• Global Representations and Reactions: The Impact of Historiographies on the “New World History” Narrative

In the past generation, World History has undergone considerable change as a field. Having cast off the Western Civilization tinge of previous global narratives, “new world historians” have ventured into new territory. Or have they? This paper evaluates the impact of recent historiography on recently produced world history narratives. These texts are analyzed with regard to developments in social and cultural history, to ascertain the impact that these historiographies have had on the wider story of world history. World historians have engaged this scholarship at a variety of levels, absorbing trends from regionally-based history in the content and organization of their texts. This paper evaluates the success of this process of rethinking world history along cultural lines, and the pedagogical impact that this restructuring may be having in the classroom. The research for this paper is based on textual analysis of core world history textbooks, as well as an ongoing research project on best classroom practices in world history at the college and advanced high school levels.