Abstract
World history as a field of historical studies emerged in the first half of twentieth century. After 1960, more scholars engaged in the study of world history in U. S. Among them, William H. McNeill was an important historian to do great contributions to the study of world history, and promote the study of world history. This thesis will research into McNeill’s historiography of world history, and his influence on the study of world history in U. S. The famous work of McNeill was The Rise of the West. This book synthesized the achievements of previous study of world history, and it adopted civilization as unit of historical analysis and applied the concept of cultural diffusion to interpret the advancement of world history. This is a thesis of historiography. I will focus on the intellectual framework and base on his memoir, The Pursuit of Truth, to analyze and interpret McNeill’s historiography of world history. There are five chapters in this thesis. The first chapter is an introduction. I will sketch in the intellectual growth of McNeill, and analyze his viewpoints on the character, meaning, and teaching of world history. In chapter two, I will discuss the methodology of world history from three problems: units of historical analysis, periodization scheme of world history, historical dynamic in world history. I will investigate the factor of environment in McNeill’s historiography in chapter three. McNeill emphasized more on the natural environment’s influence on the development of world history in his later works. McNeill brought up evolutionary worldview and human ecological history these two important arguments. I will comment on McNeill’s historiography, and account for his inspiration on the study of world history in U. S. Chapter five is the conclusion of this thesis. I shall explain how McNeill set a new paradigm of world history writing. This paradigm is to view world history as an interconnection between human history and environmental history.