A need for world history

To the question “ What is the story for? ? », Serge Gruzinski responds with a plea in favor of global history, an antidote to methodological nationalism and “ comfortable eurocentrism “. Another way of thinking about globalization.

In the foreword to his book, historian Serge Gruzinski retraces his childhood in the popular and cosmopolitan town of Roubaix, where a history and geography teacher invited him to meet his students. and answer their questions – in question, the second year history program and the study of “ new geographical and cultural horizons of Europeans in the modern era », of which the historian is one of the best specialists. He dialogues with students who were inspired by one of his books, The Eagle and the Dragon (2012), to think about and stage the situations of encounters, exchanges and incomprehension which mark the history of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards and the fiasco of a Portuguese expedition on the shores of China in XVIe century. In doing so, these high school students implement a decentered approach to history, off the beaten track of “ comfortable eurocentrism » (p. 14).

During this dialogue this concise question arises, provocative if not ingenuous, and yet essential: “ History, for what purpose ? » A fundamental questioning of historical practice and discipline which is reminiscent of another question formulated half a century earlier, “ Dad, explain to me what the story is for ? », to which Marc Bloch responded in a famous essay, Apology for history or the profession of historian (published in 1949).

To answer this question, the historian chose to write an essay likely to interest a wider audience than just “ circles of specialists “. Easy to read and following an educational approach, the work is divided into eight short chapters and an epilogue: the first four question the multiple representations of the past in our contemporary globalized society, while the following four expose, in the light of these uses of the past, the reason for history. This response here takes the form of a plea in favor of a global history, the only one capable of understanding the world as it is and, consequently, of still being heard there.

Political and artistic uses of the past

In the first chapters, Serge Gruzinski uses dance, photography, cinema, opera, manga and video games in turn to think about the relationship between present times and the past. It is also a photograph by Kader Attia, contemporary artist, reproduced on the cover of the book, which offers a first exemplary case to illustrate this complex relationship with the past: we see young adolescents playing football on dry and stony ground , in the Aurès plain, in Algeria. In the background, serving as goals guarded by a boy with swinging arms, a rather damaged Roman arch: “ A forgotten relic of a bygone past, it has therefore been recycled into a sport that has become one of the most spectacular and profitable sporting flagships of globalization. » (p. 20)

This is the starting point for a vast reflection on the traces left by the past and the relationships we maintain with it on a daily basis. By analyzing some television or cinematographic presentations of history, the inauguration ceremonies of the Olympic Games in London and Beijing, the continuous waltz of commemorations or the creation of major museums like that of the Quai Branly, Serge Gruzinski draws up a picture very critical of the uses of history: “ Embarrassment in the face of the local, clumsiness, blockages or impasses regarding elsewhere, history in the hands of politicians and large public institutions struggles to embrace the multiple faces of a largely globalized contemporary. » (p. 44)

However, the invasive force of the image, whether its support is the screen of a television, a cinema, a computer or a smartphone, questions the place of writing in dealing with the past. : “ The flow of images which flood the planet have not yet dethroned the written word, but they are shaking the couple which, for millennia and on part of the planet, has associated writing and history. » (p. 63) This bitter observation is not the manifestation of contempt or rejection of the image, nor of contempt for globalized cultural practices which, although using and abusing the past, stifle the voices of historians. On the contrary, the author emphasizes how certain works of art are likely to open up new perspectives for historians.

Image specialist and informed cinephile, Serge Gruzinski devotes beautiful pages to the staging of the story in the work of Russian director Alexandre Sokurov. He focuses in particular on the subjective reconstruction of the past at work in this photographic UFO that is The Russian Ark (2001), 90-minute sequence shot shot inside the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. The work of the Russian filmmaker questions our relationship to history, through temporal montage and the assumed infidelities that he makes to history, here daring to imagine and recreate the hiatuses of the memory of the past where the historian does not would hardly dare to venture, for lack of archives. In doing so, such a staging of history opens new avenues for the historian.

With the double observation of the growing empire of the image and the multiplication of virtual worlds, Serge Gruzinski then rephrases the question asked by the high school students of Roubaix: “ What’s the point of making history in these conditions? ? » (p. 94)

Apology for global history

It is therefore the path of global history which seems to best answer the questions of the high school students of Roubaix, because it alone can “ bringing the pasts of our globe into dialogue with its presents. » (p. 96) We still need to agree on the definition to give it – the opportunity for the historian to produce on a few pages a global history essay as brief as it is enlightening, which is obviously nourished by older thoughts:

Favoring a global perspective means focusing on the links that societies establish between themselves, on the articulations and the wholes that they constitute, but also on the way in which these human, economic, social, religious or political arrangements homogenize the globe or resist movement. » (p. 96)

This perspective makes it possible to break with the impasses of methodological nationalism and also to escape the temptations of Eurocentrism. This global approach in no way implies renouncing the local, to the extent that such anchoring presupposes considering the latter not as a circumscribed and contained space, but rather as a “ privileged interface area that responds to an infinitely larger environment » (p. 112).

In order to illustrate this theoretical postulate, Serge Gruzinski turns to this XVIe century with which he is familiar. Because “ the zones of contact, confrontations and exchanges which have multiplied during the XVIe century lends itself even more to a global history » (p. 122). The intermingling of societies which followed the great Iberian maritime expeditions is, according to Serge Gruzinski, the first step in the construction of this global world which is ours and which only a history capable of confronting this globality is likely to take. in charge.

Of course, the phenomenon is complex and cannot be reduced to a simple imposition of European domination on the world. Westernization, this “ projection of the Old World outside itself » (p. 158), does not boil down to a dual relationship between dominants and dominated. The concept of crossbreeding, which Serge Gruzinski used in his work, allows us to think about the unequal encounter between the Iberians and the “ Indians » of America, to write the plural and complex history of these “ American laboratories » of globalization.

The salvation of History ?

Finally, in an epilogue entitled “ What history to teach ? », Serge Gruzinski reiterates the injunction to open the field of his discipline, so that historians can remain in touch with the world as it is going, under penalty of “ locking himself into a routine academicism which constantly causes him to lose ground. » It is through a practice of history which dialogues with other writings of the past (artistic, cinematographic, etc.) and takes the full measure of the global dimension of its objects that historians can hope to continue to make themselves heard beyond the academic circle.

There is no doubt that such a breath of fresh air appears necessary to the reader. This reflection on the way of writing history also extends other stimulating reflections to rethink the “ profession of historian » – such as these recent questions about the relationship between history and literature, at a time when the popularity of the historical novel questions the way in which history is written.

In his own way, Serge Gruzinski aspires to restore momentum to a discipline undermined by the race for “ Excellency », the sometimes sterile disciplinary logics and the increasing specialization of researchers which tend to distance them from the surrounding world. The reader will, however, regret that the overall rather gloomy picture drawn up of historical practice today is not more nuanced. Because, if the global dimension of history is now present in secondary education programs – however imperfect they may otherwise be – this reflects more broadly the “ global turning point » of a historical science whose scope goes far beyond the mixed worlds of XVIe century.

Without denying the weight of history in its disciplinary and academic dimensions, it seems essential to include this “ apology for global history » (to paraphrase Marc Bloch) in a broader movement, that of a profound historiographical renewal in the direction of connected and transnational history, the present and future results of which offer new reading keys to understand the history of our globalized societies.