Eric Lane Martin’s essay describes his view of world history. This viewpoint shows that politics is involved. He proves this by citing historians’ research questions, tools, and critical thinking methods. The text’s statement about using world history to understand September 11th is the most direct evidence. According to Martin (2005), world historians have developed ways to think about the U.S. public’s broad concerns. He uses the September 11th, 2001 attacks and the war on terrorism to illustrate his point (Martin 2005). This shows Martin’s belief in world history as a political science tool.
His worldview is similar to Jerry H. Bentley’s. Bentley (1996) notes that the proliferation of world history courses, prominent scholars’ works on transcultural interaction and complex social issues, and the World History Association show the historical profession’s growing importance. It is normative as the world has long accepted that a history degree is comparable to a political degree depending on the student’s courses and intent.
Political assumptions are how people collectively understand power and change in political, cultural, and organizational settings. Since theories about past events are often based on cultural, political, and organizational settings, world history reflects political assumptions but does not take any side. Historians make assumptions based on factual knowledge without judging authorities or cultures. Some ideas may reflect ideologies that may lead to controversial approaches to important socio-cultural issues. For instance, John Obert Voll examines Islam as a unique world system. Voll (1994) claims that the Islamic world is a hemispheric community of discourse with Islamic communication patterns. Therefore, this structure goes beyond world empires and economic structures (Voll 1994). This interesting idea evaluates Islam’s presence in relation to a particular theory rather than advocating for a particular religion or social structure.
Understanding history allows for thoughtful decisions that promote innovation and change. Despite the above, the historian and his work have focused on major social, economic, and political issues that affect humans and society. Thus, historians and policymakers are interconnected because the success of future regulations and administrative approaches depends on the repair or reevaluation of past regulations. Historians partially identify policy conflicts, issues, and mysteries in policy discussions. Therefore, history and policy are subjects that are relevant to each other.
References
Bentley, J. H. 1996. Shapes of world history in twentieth-century scholarship. Amer Historical Assn.
Martin, E. L. 2005. “World history as a way of thinking.” World History Connected, 2 (2).
Voll, J. O. 1994. “Islam as a special world-system.” Journal of World History: 213-226.