「アメリカの過去」と歴史叙述のグローバル化――アメリカ史研究の現在――

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  • The Globalization of Historiography and the “American Past”
  • 「 アメリカ ノ カコ 」 ト レキシ ジョジュツ ノ グローバルカ : アメリカシ ケンキュウ ノ ゲンザイ

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<p>Since the early 1990s, a remarkable intellectual trend has been seen among historians to de-provincialize, or globalize, American History. It now seems that the values that encapsulate the writing history beyond national borders as well as thinking about global issues in the context of human history form the consensus within American academia. Obviously, it is an alternative to “obsolete” national history while at the same time this new approach to the “American past” seems to fit with the present trend toward globalization in the fields of politics and economics. Critics of the trend to globalize historiography have therefore implied complicity with the rise of global capitalism and American hegemony. These "globalization causes" in American historical studies are revisited in this essay in order to shed light on their outstanding achievements and unavoidable limitations.</p><p>First, I search for the origin of this trend by critically reviewing preceding anti-“national history” discourses, especially those that criticize so-called American exceptionalism. This essay diligently considers the impacts of Daniel Bell’s post-exceptionalist analyses as well as the de-nationalized perspectives of social historians in the mid-1970s. It also surveys the post-Cold war intellectual fluidity that led directly to the emergence of “globalization causes.” One intriguing aspect of the situation in 1990s was the strange coexistence of persistent warnings from historians about the concept of national history alongside the newly erupted triumphalism of American ideology.</p><p>Second, I examine contemporary arguments from liberal nationalists that fundamentally conflict with “globalization.” Historians who believed in civic ideals as mechanisms to suppress post-Cold War ethno-nationalism and to restore community life divided by multiculturalism still expected the national sovereign state to form the basis of a healthy civil society. Thus, they tended to be cynical about transnational history, even dubious of its alleged innocence in relation to global power structures. In addition, some historians were conscious of America’s commitment to the globalization of the political economy. As such, some were uncomfortable with the de-centered approach pursued by “globalization causes”.</p><p>In conclusion, I contextualize the emergence of this academic trend and reconsider its meaning in the study of history. This work will show how it visualized a number of stories that had been ignored in the framework of national history. This essay also elucidates how “globalization” in history writings has naturalized actual globalization into an inherent assumption. This recognition process tends to obscure other significant aspects of the past. One such aspect that has been neglected has to do with the historical collaboration of national and global forces in shaping American history. In spite of their struggles against exceptionalism, “globalization causes” have never been free of national issues. Rather, as I historicize them by reviewing the way Americans have interpreted their past, it is clear that the next frontier of historiography lies in forging mutually complementary relationships between national and global histories. By not ignoring, but examining ever transformative American nationalism, we can illuminate how national history can be compatible with global approaches. This will also enable us to move beyond the “limitations” imposed by a conventional national or global dichotomy.</p>

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