Over the past thirty years, a new historiography known as “global history” has emerged in English-language scholarship. It has now substantially changed what is taught as world history in universities and secondary schools in the United States and other English-speaking countries. Guided by the national policy of “bringing ourselves into line with international practice,” Chinese scholars, too, are striving to catch up with this new historiographical trend.
晚近30年来，英语学界兴起一种名为“全球史”（global history）的新史学，如今已在相当程度上改变了美国以及其他英语国家的大学和中学的世界史教学内容。在“与国际接轨”的国策指引下，我国学界也正在奋力追赶这股史学新潮。
The Rise of the West, published in 1963 by William H. McNeill (1917–2016), is said to mark the birth of “global history” or the “new world history.” [1] Indeed, we should take note of its subtitle: “A History of the Human Community.”
麦克尼尔（William H. McNeill， 1917 - 2016）在 1963年出版的《西方的兴起》（the Rise of the West），据说堪称“全球史”或“新世界史”的诞生标志。 [1]的确，我们应该注意到，该书有这样一个副标题：“人类共同体史”（a History of the Human Community）。
It is not easy to understand why The Rise of the West should count as marking the birth of “global history.” Clearly, attention to historical phenomena across broad geographical expanses and long periods of time is not, in itself, enough to inaugurate a new form of world history. Historical narratives concerned with large-scale structures, processes, and comparisons at a highly macroscopic level have been a stock-in-trade of the leading world historians since the eighteenth century. If overturning historiographical “Eurocentrism” is the defining feature of this new form of world history, then McNeill’s use of “The Rise of the West” as his main title to highlight the “universal-historical” significance of modern European civilization makes it difficult to say that he escaped what is commonly called “Eurocentrism.” If the hallmark of “global history” is a shift from centering the state to centering the everyday social life of humanity, then McNeill’s great work, which takes the way of life of modern Western states as its point of departure, plainly fails to meet this criterion.
要理解《西方的兴起》何以算得上“全球史”的诞生标志，并不容易。显然不能说，关注大范围、长时段的历史现象，便足以开创世界史的新样式。着眼高度宏观的大结构、大过程、大比较的历史叙事，是 18世纪以来的世界史名家都有的本领。如果说颠覆史学的“欧洲中心主义”是世界史新样式的关键特点，那么，麦克尼尔用“西方的兴起”这个主标题突显现代欧洲文明具有的“普遍历史”意义，就很难说他摆脱了通常所谓的“欧洲中心主义”。如果说从以国家为本位转向以人类日常社会生活为本位是“全球史”学的标志，那么，麦克尼尔的这部大著以西方现代国家的生活方式为本位，显然并不符合这条标准。
In my view, if The Rise of the West can be said to mark the birth of “global history,” then the true marker is the “cosmopolitanism,” born in the eighteenth century, to which McNeill subscribed. In The Rise of the West, McNeill declared this to be a “powerfully persuasive belief” in which he had unwavering confidence. [2] It is precisely on the basis of this belief that contemporary “global” historiography can claim to overturn the “Eurocentric” habits of historical scholarship and call for a shift from a state-centered approach to one centered on human social life.
在笔者看来，如果《西方的兴起》算得上“全球史”的诞生标志，那么，麦克尼尔所信奉的诞生于 18世纪的“世界公民论”（the cosmopolitanism）才堪称真正的标志。麦克尼尔在《西方的兴起》中宣称，这是他确信不疑的“说服力极强的信念”。 [2]正是基于这样的信念，当今的“全球史”编撰学才得以宣称颠覆史学中的“欧洲中心主义”习性，呼吁从国家本位转向人类社会生活本位。
The enthusiasm with which Chinese historians are now bringing themselves into line with contemporary Western “global history” reminds me that Schmitt’s The Nomos of the Earth (1950), published thirteen years before McNeill’s The Rise of the West, had already inaugurated a kind of “global history” that genuinely overturned “Eurocentrism” in political historiography. [3] Unlike the orientation of recent “global history,” however, Schmitt continued to uphold the state-centered character of traditional political historiography. He did not regard phenomena such as everyday social life or changes in social structure as the primary concerns of world-historical research.
眼下我国史学界热情满怀地与当代西方的“全球史”史学接轨让笔者想起：早在麦克尼尔的《西方的兴起》问世之前 13年，施米特的《大地的法》（1950）就已经开创了一种“全球史”，而且实实在在颠覆了政治史学中的“欧洲中心主义”。 [3]但与晚近的“全球史”研究取向不同，施米特仍然持守以国家为本位的传统政治史学品格，并不把社会日常生活或社会结构的变迁之类的现象视为世界史研究的首要关切对象。
This raises a question worth considering: how can state-centered research in world history overturn “Eurocentrism” in historiography and even in other disciplines of the humanities?
值得思考的问题来了：以国家为本位的世界史研究，何以可能颠覆史学乃至人文学其他学科中的“欧洲中心主义”？