Abstract
SummaryThe emergence of global history has been one of the more notable features of academic history over the past three decades. Although historians of disease were among the pioneers of one of its earlier incarnations—world history—the recent “global turn” has made relatively little impact on histories of health, disease, and medicine. Most continue to be framed by familiar entities such as the colony or nation-state or are confined to particular medical “traditions.” This article aims to show what can be gained from taking a broader perspective. Its purpose is not to replace other ways of seeing or to write a new “grand narrative” but to show how transnational and transimperial approaches are vital to understanding some of the key issues with which historians of health, disease, and medicine are concerned. Moving on from an analysis of earlier periods of integration, the article offers some reflections on our own era of globalization and on the emerging field of global health.
Highlights
Globalization and Global HistoryWhile global history began as a response to globalization, it is no longer defined by it
Most continue to be framed by familiar entities such as the colony or nation-state or are confined to particular medical “traditions.” This article aims to show what can be gained from taking a broader perspective
Moving on from an analysis of earlier periods of integration, the article offers some reflections on our own era of globalization and on the emerging field of global health
Summary
While global history began as a response to globalization, it is no longer defined by it. The historical coverage of most of Africa prior to 1800 is even more limited, in this case it is the absence of documentation that is largely to blame.[47] Only in the north of the continent—in Ethiopia and the Islamic caliphates—is it possible to determine the origins and impact of disease with accuracy.[48] To date, most of this scholarship has concentrated on ancient and medieval plagues, but recent work on the Ottoman Empire has begun to examine the relationship of disease to environmental change, imperial expansion and commerce in later centuries.[49] Before long, it may be possible to chart the spread of disease through a large swathe of North Africa and Asia during the early modern period, as well as the ways in which environments changed as a consequence of conquest, war, and commerce. Aggravated by the proliferation of actors in the field of global health and by the diminishing power of the state
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