From the Critique of Metanarratives to New Generalisations: New Approaches to the Study of World History

Abstract

The article is devoted to a new interpretation of world history, macro-processes, and “longue durée” which has already been characterised as a “global” (“transnational”) turn. The author aims to explain the reasons for this “turn”, as well as describe the real results of the new interest towards macro-processes, and finally, interpret the present vision on the combination of the micro- and macro-scales in historical research. The article determines the place of the “global” (“transnational”) turn M20in the contemporary historiographical situation with its paradoxical combination of the demand for “decentralisation” (first of all, for the overcoming of Eurocentrism) and simultaneously the Anglo-Americanisation of knowledge. The benefits of the turn are obvious and are connected with a new critical attitude towards conventional stereotypical generalisations (e.g. the achievements of the period between the second half of the 1970s and the 2000s in the struggle with metanarratives) and generally with a growing number of sources available to historians (digital humanities). The interest, on the one hand, in history transcending conventional national, regional, and ethno-confessional boundaries (the enlargement of the space-scale) and, on the other hand, in the “longue durée” (the enlargement of the time-scale) does not mean abandoning micro-historical methods but sets a new requirement: a case should represent an important large trend. The failures of the turn are also clear: the publications race and the wish to keep up with the most fashionable historiographical trends may lead to a weakness of narratives and unconvincing conclusions.