Macrohistory and Macrohistorians: Perspectives on Individual, Social, and Civilizational Change

by Johan Galtung, Sohail Inayatullah

Overview

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.

Johan Galtung, Sohail Inayatullah, and the other contributors to Macrohistory and Macrohistorians 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275957551
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/30/1997
Series:	American Literature; 2
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

JOHAN GALTUNG is Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, Universitet i Tromsö, and Universität Witten/Herdecke. He is a past winner of the Right Livelihood Award (informally known as the alternative Nobel Peace Prize). He is the author or editor of more than 71 books.

SOHAIL INAYATULLAH is presently Senior Research Fellow at Queensland University of Technology and author of numerous books on Islamic and Indian perspectives on social theory./e

Table of Contents

Preface
An Introduction to Macrohistory and Macrohistorians by Johan Galtung
Twenty Macrohistorians: A Presentation, edited by Sohail Inayatullah
Macrohistorians Compared: Toward a Theory of Macrohistory by Sohail Inayatullah
Macrohistorians Combined: Toward Eclecticism by Johan Galtung
Social Macrohistory as Metaphor for Personal Macrohistory by Johan Galtung
Social Macrohistory as Metaphor for World Macrohistory by Johan Galtung
Appendices
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

After an introduction the idea of macrohistory, the theories of 20 macrohistorians are presented and explained. Augustine, Hegel, Marx, Weber, and Toynbee are discussed, with special emphasis on Pitirim Sorokin and Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar. Later chapters articulate a theory of macrohistory and macrohistorians, look at how biography can contribute to macrohistory, analyze different theories of individuals' life stages, and discuss anti-macrohistory and world macrohistory. Includes pictorial representations of the 20 theories. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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