world history - Overview
Unlike most history writing of the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, which focused on narratives of individuals, and on national and ethnic perspectives, World History looks for common patterns that emerge across all cultures. World historians use a thematic approach, with two major focal points: integration (how processes of world history have drawn people of the world together) and difference (how patterns of world history reveal the diversity of the human experience).
The study of world history is in some ways a product of the current period of accelerated globalization. This period is tending both to integrate various cultures and to highlight their differences.
The advent of World History as a distinct field of study was heralded in the 1980s by the creation of the World History Association http://www.thewha.org/
and of graduate programs at a handful of universities. Over the past 20 years, scholarly publications, professional and academic organizations, and graduate programs in World History have proliferated. It has become an increasingly popular approach to teaching history in United States high schools and colleges. Many new textbooks are being published with a World History approach.