Research Projects

Field of Symbiosis

The "Great Divergence" and the "Great Convergence": Restructuring World History with Asian Perspectives

Project Leader
College of International Relations

Professor Norihisa Yamashita

Creating a new history textbook that breaks away from a Eurocentric world history

Until now, the concepts of "modern" and "modernization" in History were created based on the standards of European experiences from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. However, in a world where various Asian countries, including Japan and China, have developed so much, it is becoming clear that the road to modern society is not always that which was followed by Europe. In this way, each of the disciplines of social science, which is based on the premise of conventional European-centric "world history," are once again being shaken from their foundations. This project breaks away from such a Eurocentric world history and historical perspective, disseminating from Asia a new "world history" that includes the historical experiences of Asia, starting with an awareness of the issues of re-founding it upon social science from a historical perspective. As an outcome of the project, an attempt will be made to design a new "history textbook" that can be commonly used around the world, to be studied by students living in the world today.

In the first year since the start of this project seven research meetings have taken place, considering the contents that should be included in the textbook. First, the project reconsiders "History" itself, which is narrated based on era and regional divisions centered around Europe, considering afresh divisions based on global regions and eras, and discussing "narratives" of history in order to compare each of these, and historical descriptions. It is intended that the issue of rethinking concepts with diverse interpretations depending on the region or the era, for example "nation" or "medicine," will also be included in the textbook. On the other hand, one cannot look away from the fact that social science itself is currently experiencing a paradigm shift. It is thought that it is necessary to grasp the changes in social science, such as the perception of a "human" in Europe-led social science, and the continuing, significant change in human perspectives, and bring them together with those changes in historical perspectives. From hereon in there will be much consideration and the structure of the textbook will take shape, with the goal of a textbook suitable for the name "Global Liberal Arts' World History."

Research Projects