The Middle Ground Journal

From Professor Marc Gilbert: Announcing — World History Connected Volume 12, Number 1, February 2015 issue now available

The confluence of commemorations of the Civil War, the First and Second World Wars, and the Vietnam War is a reminder of the significance of the military in world history. Fortunately, the growth of world history over the past 30 years runs parallel to the expansion of military in terms of methodology and scope of interest. The February 2015 issue of World History Connected offers evidence of the richness of scholarship and teaching that is the result of these mutual developments. Its February Forum section throws fresh light on the role of the military in Mongol, Ottoman and Trans-Atlantic Empires and upends the assumption that the victors always those who shape the history of wars.

The Forum is followed by further articles of value in terms of both scholarship and teaching methodology. Sharika Crawford demonstrates that the role Africa and African soldiers of the British and French Empires during the Second World War are a means to incorporate Africa and Africans into the modern world history course that goes beyond the Scramble for Africa. She also argues that by identifying African wartime experiences in classroom coverage of the Second World War serves to raise subsequent questions regarding African ex-servicemens’ postwar experiences and whether these veterans affected nationalist movements in the 1950s and 1960s. Howard Spodek shows how student efforts to collect oral history interviews, especially from those who have experienced displace by war, are a superior means of “Doing World History.” John Maunu supplies an annotated digital resource for examining writing on military affairs from ancient times to 1450, which is but the first of several such resources that will appear in World History Connected in the coming years.

In the near future, issues of World History Connected will continue to explore dimensions of human conflict, such as the First and Second World Wars, but also address more pacific themes, including religious conversion, port cities, and the place of food in world history.

World History Connected welcomes the submission of articles and reviews on these and any other subject that can advance research and teaching in the still evolving field of world history.

Table of Contents

FORUM: The Military in World History

Introduction to the Forum on the Military in World History
Guest Editor: Douglas Streusand
Command of the Coast: The Mughal Navy and Regional Strategy
by Andrew De La Garza

The Falsest of Truisms: Who Writes History
by Richard L. DiNardo

The Transformational War: A New Understanding of the Ottoman Empire’s Long World War I
by James N. Tallon

The Chinggis Exchange: the Mongol Empire and Global Impact on Warfare
by Timothy May

Currents of Transatlantic Warfare: The European Revolutions and Martial Culture in Mexico, 1848-1867
by E. Mark Moreno
Articles
Beyond the Scramble: African Veterans, the Second World War and Decolonization in the World History Classroom
by Sharika Crawford

Ethnography meets History: The Personal Interview as a “Doing World History” Pedagogy, with Four Model Student Papers
by Howard Spodek

The Military and War in World History: A Digital Resource, Part I to 1450
by John Maunu
Book Reviews
Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker, Journey of the Universe
Roger R. Briggs, Journey to Civilization: The Science of How We Got Here
by Terry D. Goddard

Partha Mitter, Much Maligned Monsters: A History of European Reactions to Indian Art
by Bethe Hagens

Stephen Morillo, Frameworks of World History: Networks, Hierarchies, Culture
by Aiqun Hu

Caroline Elkins and Susan Peterson (eds.) Settler Colonialism in the Twentieth Century
Christopher Lloyd, Jacob Metzer, and Richard Sutch (eds.), Settler Economies in World History
Lionel Pilkington and Fiona Bateman (eds.) Studies in Settler Colonialism: Politics, Identity, and Culture
by Tom Laichas

Mary Jo Maynes and Ann Waltner. 2012. The Family: A World History
by Farid Pazhoohi