On the Research of Global History and Cultural Interaction in East Asia

Abstract

I Compared with previous research that has been conducted on world history, which separately focuses on each geographical region and history as it relates to different fields, the research concepts of global history break the spell of “nation”, the concept which is characteristic of modern times. Its research field is humanity as a whole that is made up of different regions, nationalities, religions, cultures and languages. The disciplinary division between East Asia’s history and the world’s history vanishes accordingly, and they are all integrated into the global history for the overall research. Since the era of great sea voyages, Europe has been accustomed to exporting its interests to every corner of the world by spreading its national or religious ideologies, a trend which is one of the features of modernity and, in a real sense, has contributed to the formation of world trade. The formation of the global trading system has given rise to the reallocation of global resources and the spread of European technology throughout the world. The grand voyage of the aliens stimulates the formation of a national consciousness, and the relationship between sovereign states has been defined in the form of various treaties. From the perspective of the colonial expansion with Europe as the center, the world is merely a collection of places within the reach of Europe. As a discipline, the establishment of global history breaks up the monopoly of the viewpoints of Euro-centrism with the development of cross-cultural interaction. The previous practice which takes the historical experience of Europe as the criteria for measuring other societies’ development has been abandoned by today’s academic circle. William McNeill