Writing world history

The term ‘world history’ describes one of the oldest, most persistent and most pliable forms of history writing. No simple definition is possible, for world histories vary widely in narrative style, structure and spatiotemporal scope. Furthermore, a wide assortment of labels have been used to describe them, including ‘universal history’, ‘ecumenical history’, ‘regional history’, ‘comparative history’, ‘world systems history’, ‘macrohistory’, ‘transnational history’, ‘big history’ and the ʼnew world’ and ʼnew global’ histories. Despite terminological differences, however, world histories share the purpose of offering a construction of and thus a guide to a meaningful ‘world’ or ‘realm or domain taken for an entire meaningful system of existence or activity’ by historians or people in the past. Thus all histories are world histories. Where histories differ is in the degree to which the purpose of world construction is explicit. Indigenous universal histories Surveys of history making typically begin with ancient Greece, but there are strong grounds for giving consideration to the narratives constructed by Indigenous communities around the world to make sense of the past, present and future. Far from being fanciful constructions, they are better described in the sense coined by Mircea Eliade, as ‘sacred history’. Eliade used this terminology to capture the idea of the past as being the source of rules or mores that not only explain the present, but also help people living in the present to create a better future. This is akin to universal histories of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, but the format of these works can be a challenge to anyone who assumes that histories are chronologically ordered written accounts. Indigenous universal histories are painted, sung, danced and traced across landscapes. Deborah Bird Rose’s work on Australian Indigenous histories, for example, highlights the importance of events taking place rather than being in time.