Architects of World History: Researching the Global Past

Architects of World History presents an innovative collection of original essays that introduce themes, characteristics, and scholars that are key to understanding contemporary approaches to the study of world history. Taking the form of intellectual biography, each chapter is written by an individual historian considered among the ‘architects’ of the field. The essays cover particular topics including environmental history, gender and world history, cultural interactions and colonialism, legal studies, “big history” among others. In each case the author introduces the theme, defining its parameters within world history, and exploring its potential future development.  The essays also address the authors’ own intellectual trajectories, the encounters and motivations that inspired their development as a world historian. These personal narratives are both engaging and revealing, shedding light on the experiences of these pioneering scholars, and the particular challenges and possibilities of world history.  

Kenneth R. Curtis is Professor of History at California State University, Long Beach. His most recent publication, co–authored with Valerie Hansen, is the second edition of Voyages in World History (2013). The late Jerry H Bentley was Professor of History at the University of Hawaii and editor of the Journal of World History. He wrote written extensively on the cultural history of early modern Europe and on cross–cultural interactions in world history.