already narrowing, with states emerging in other parts of the formidable “modern” world. The overseas spread of Western influence was always accompanied by and the transfer of power and to non-Europeans, ultimately “leakages intellectual skills” ensuring both that Western dominance was temporary and that was “modernity” everywhere inevitable. The origins of change might have been “multi-centric”—they did not all derive from Europe or the West—but ultimately they all pointed in the same direction. Bayly argues that in the long nineteenth century the entire world thus took a common towards “step-change” forward, “contested uniformity.” Does Bayly offer Imperial historians a more useful model of comparative and connected history than tools of and Pomeranz’s “reciprocal” “encompassing” comparison? We would argue of Global history exhibits some of the not. Bayly’s brand key characteristics of World history, in terms of its attempt to offer a single, essentially narrative-driven, account: a unified, world-encompassing story. Although the book’s subtitle evokes themes of comparison and connection, it is not a work of “connected as Subrahmanyan or as most Transnational historians would understand that history” approach. Bayly is interested more in the analytical connections and comparisons that can be created in the mind of the historian, than in the connections and comparisons that contemporaries themselves created or perceived. His themes of convergence and homogeneity, and his desire to take the entire world as his frame of analysis, ultimately work to obscure the complex ways that individuals and groups created global connections, within and across the boundaries of empires, to serve a wide range of often conflicting agendas. Comparative Methods in Imperial History As already noted, the debate over the has tended to focus the “great divergence” attention of Global historians on the period before 1830, at least in terms of their discussions of empire: Bayly is a notable exception here. Meanwhile, Imperial historians with comparative interests have primarily concentrated either on the “New of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or on Imperialism” European This chronological disjuncture has compounded “decolonization”. some of the wider differences between Imperial and Global approaches to the history of empire.
already narrowing, with formidable “modern” states emerging in other parts of the world. The overseas spread of Western influence was always accompanied by “leakages and the transfer of power and intellectual skills” to non-Europeans, ultimately ensuring both that Western dominance was temporary and that “modernity” was everywhere inevitable. The origins of change might have been “multi-centric”—they did not all derive from Europe or the West—but ultimately they all pointed in the same direction. Bayly argues that in the long nineteenth century the entire world thus took a common “step-change” forward, towards “contested uniformity.” Does Bayly offer Imperial historians a more useful model of comparative and connected history than Pomeranz’s tools of “reciprocal” and “encompassing” comparison? We would argue not. Bayly’s brand of Global history exhibits some of the key characteristics of World history, in terms of its attempt to offer a single, essentially narrative-driven, account: a unified, world-encompassing story. Although the book’s subtitle evokes themes of comparison and connection, it is not a work of “connected history” as Subrahmanyan or as most Transnational historians would understand that approach. Bayly is interested more in the analytical connections and comparisons that can be created in the mind of the historian, than in the connections and comparisons that contemporaries themselves created or perceived. His themes of convergence and homogeneity, and his desire to take the entire world as his frame of analysis, ultimately work to obscure the complex ways that individuals and groups created global connections, within and across the boundaries of empires, to serve a wide range of often conflicting agendas. Comparative Methods in Imperial History As already noted, the debate over the “great divergence” has tended to focus the attention of Global historians on the period before 1830, at least in terms of their discussions of empire: Bayly is a notable exception here. Meanwhile, Imperial historians with comparative interests have primarily concentrated either on the “New Imperialism” of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or on European “decolonization”. This chronological disjuncture has compounded some of the wider differences between Imperial and Global approaches to the history of empire.
Potter_Saha_Connected_Histories_FINAL.docx