Macrohistory

Like the term world history, macrohistory means different things to different people. For the purposes of this course, I define macrohistory as the study of any historical event or process that has had substantially meaningful significance beyond the confines of its normal locale, across both geographical space and historical time. So, for example, while the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism in Germany was a local event in that it was a European event (or at the beginning even simply a German event), in time, it acquired global significance with the precipitation of the Second World War and the consequences that ensued in the wake of this war, not least among them the remaking of the entire world order. In contrast, world history, for our purposes, may or may not include macrohistory, because it is simply history on a global level where the events studied may or may not have implications outside their locale. For example, comparing agricultural practices in different communities across the planet at a particular point in time is a legitimate exercise in world history but it is not macrohistory. On the other hand, the spread of a particular practice to other places immediately renders it the subject of macrohistory. By the way, you will also find in the literature reference sometimes to “big history.” By big history one means the history of the universe including that of our own planet; that is beginning with the “Big Bang” coming all the way to the present.