从普遍史到世界史和全球史——以兰克史学为分析始点

From Universal History to World History and Global History——Ranke's Universal History as the Departure Point for Understanding the Current Issues of World History

臆想中,世界史应是史家治史最高的境界或最终的目标,究其实并不然。19世纪中叶以降,世界史在整个历史学科,不得说无足轻重,却是相当边缘。世界史通常只是业余人士的雅好,并不受专业史家所重视。不容讳言,该时的世界史研究与新建制的史学,实格格不入;因是渐次式微,甚至沦为茶余饭后的佐谈,称不得一门正规的学问。但逮至20世纪末,这个态势丕变;研究水平的提升与教学的普及,更加上全球化意识的推波助澜,令其跃居史学的次领域。拙文即旨在阐述此一曲折的过程:从原初追寻世界的意义,至剖析人类往事的知识历程。首先,拟取兰克(Leopold von Ranke,1795-1886)的史学作为分析的起始点,以揭露世界史起承转合的蜕化,最终方得在20世纪末站稳脚步,成为当今史学的核心领域。

From its genre-name,one may expect world history to be the ultimate expression or end-goal of historical studies.But in the mid-19th century,world history occupied only a marginal place in the overall historical discipline,and was usually the provenance of dabblers and not professional historians.The thenworld history was a new field of inquiry that was poorly integrated with other fields.As a result,the study of world history entered a period of decline into popular literature,instead of rising to the dignity of a formal discipline.However,fortunes changed in the late 20th century.With the rise of the research standards,widespread education and globalization-consciousness,world history fully became a sub-discipline of history.This essay narrates the path of its evolution as a field of knowledge,from its original search for an ontological meaning of the world,to its current orientation of approaching the human past from an analytical perspective.The analysis of world history in this essay begins at its departure point with Leopold van Ranke（1795-1886）,and ends with its consolidation as a core field of history at the contemporary time.