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Macrohistory and Macrohistorians: Perspectives on Individual, Social, and Civilizational Change
This dazzlingly original collaboration between two international authors focuses on 20 macrohistorians―that is to say, historians who have helped shape our entire way of conceiving ourselves―from Ssu-Ma Ch'ien and Ibn Khaldun to Oswald Spengler and Marx and Piritim Sorokin and Arnold Toynbee. The authors move toward a general theory of grand social change based on the writings of these macrohistorians and provide a comparative view of macrohistory and sociology.
The book brings a cross-cultural and transhistorical perspective to the study of social change, analyzing macrohistorians and macrohistory comparatively and synthetically, from the traditional linear-cyclical divide as well as including broader transcendental and feminist approaches. Like a road map par excellence for the study of civilizational change, the book captures the panoramic sweep of history and helps readers learn to appreciate, and henceforth include in the circle of greats, those non-Western thinkers whose work they may until now have neglected.^L ^L Johan Galtung, Sohail Inayatullah, and the other contributors to ^IMacrohistory and Macrohistorians^R demonstrate that each generation may give new perspectives to ideas that we thought we understood. The book covers the vital perspective out of which the 21st century emerges, and in the cases of Sorokin, Toynbee, and Eisler, deals with theories directly bearing on the potential shape of the next thousand years. It brings a cross-cultural and transhistorical perspective to the study of social change and will be of considerable interest to historians and sociologists as well as students of philosophy, historiography, and political science.
The book brings a cross-cultural and transhistorical perspective to the study of social change, analyzing macrohistorians and macrohistory comparatively and synthetically, from the traditional linear-cyclical divide as well as including broader transcendental and feminist approaches. Like a road map par excellence for the study of civilizational change, the book captures the panoramic sweep of history and helps readers learn to appreciate, and henceforth include in the circle of greats, those non-Western thinkers whose work they may until now have neglected.^L ^L Johan Galtung, Sohail Inayatullah, and the other contributors to ^IMacrohistory and Macrohistorians^R demonstrate that each generation may give new perspectives to ideas that we thought we understood. The book covers the vital perspective out of which the 21st century emerges, and in the cases of Sorokin, Toynbee, and Eisler, deals with theories directly bearing on the potential shape of the next thousand years. It brings a cross-cultural and transhistorical perspective to the study of social change and will be of considerable interest to historians and sociologists as well as students of philosophy, historiography, and political science.
- GenresHistoryWorld History
288 pages, Hardcover
Published September 30, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 17, 2024
The editors have chosen selected writings on twenty macrohistorians in order to illustrate different approaches to "big history". Their conceptions include both linear and cyclical approaches. The subject writers are: Ssu-Ma Ch'ien, St. Augustine, Ibn Khaldun, Giambattista Vico, Adam Smith, Hegel, Comte, Marx, Spencer, Pareto, Weber, Steiner, Spengler, de Chardin, Sorokin, Toynbee, Gramsci, Sarkar, Eisler and the Cosmic Gaia hypothesis. There are also visual representations for each author and suggestions for further reading.
October 13, 2018
A comprehensive collection of historical essays and thoughts on the grand sweep of "big history".
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews