\u201cIf you don\u2019t know\nhistory, you don\u2019t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn\u2019t know it is part\nof a tree.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m reminded of the above\nquote, penned by late author Michael Crichton, in my attempts to process what I\nthink and feel about transnational history. As a novel, emerging approach to an\nancient field, transnational history is difficult for me to conceive. Perhaps I\u2019m\ntoo invested in the idea of the nation or nation-state as a historical starting\npoint, but I find the idea of rooting history in \u201clinks and flows,\u201d as put by\nKonrad Lawson, an incredibly difficult task. This post, however\nincomprehensible as it may end up being, is my attempt to organize my thoughts\non transnational history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I took a course with\nKonrad last semester titled \u201cDecolonizing Asia,\u201d and in it he always emphasized\nthe \u201cso what?\u201d question when talking to my class about our essays. Essentially,\nthe \u201cso what\u201d question was this: \u201cwhy does this history \/ argument matter?\u201d I\nsuppose a good way of thinking about transnational history is considering why\nit matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
History has always been a means by which humankind understands the present and attempts to guide its future. In this increasingly globalized, interconnected world, its important that historians can reference a history that speaks to the needs of humanity. In my personal view (in this I\u2019ve been heavily influenced by Professor Gerard DeGroot), historical work must be able to justify its existence on the basis of its relevance to the public. In my understanding, transnational history matters because it is a new history for a new age: it allows us to comprehend the past in a way that complements our understanding of the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today\u2019s issues demand the analytic approaches of transnational history, as do certain historical topics themselves. For instance, how can we even conceive of contemporary issues such as migration, disease, and climate change without thinking transnationally? How can we think about historical concepts like \u201cempire\u201d or even \u201cculture\u201d or “commerce” without thinking transnationally? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s like what Crichton\nsaid: it\u2019s essential to understand the bigger picture. Studying historical\nconnections will only help us better understand our interconnected world.\nHistory is a discipline that must always justify itself to the world; it must matter.<\/strong>\nIn doing and practicing history, we must not lose the forest for the trees, nor\nthe honeycomb for the hive as Clavin might put it. The practice of\ntransnational history will help us stay conscious of this fact. We need to\nwrite history that is relevant and comprehensible. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cIf you don\u2019t know history, you don\u2019t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn\u2019t know it is part of a tree.\u201d I\u2019m reminded of the above quote, penned by late author Michael Crichton, in my attempts to process what<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5wNtZ-oQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1541,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions\/1541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}