Global History Collaborative Summer School 2015

Report – day 5, Session 7 and 8 at Hokkaido University, September 11, 2015.

The last day of GHC Summer School was held on 11^th of September 2015 at Hokkaido University thanks to generous help offered by professor Morikawa Tomoko of Hokkaido University. Professor Kuroda Akinobu of University of Tokyo moderated the morning session titled “Economy and Finance” with three presenters from Princeton and Ehess. The presenters’ key issues were the question of money and its role in American revolution, the banking system and the rise of public debt in XVIII century Great Britain as well as the question of credibility in Latin American countries as part of the British imperial orders. The session was a particularly good example of the benefit of having closely related topics discussed from different angle and positionality.

Each presenters were able to draw on different aspects of common theme of the period such as public debt and credibility. However, such approach was possible precisely because the imperial framework of the topic had a wide ranging implications in different countries and approaching it from global history perspective was in some cases, the only effective way of looking at given problems.

The afternoon session titled “Transnational” was moderated by professor Sheldon Garon of Princeton University with two presenters from Princeton University and Free University of Berlin. Transnational movement of people and information between nations and its global interpretation was the topic of discussion. After the Q&A and discussion based on the topic, the key taking point from this session was that it is important not to shy away from dealing with the subject matter from national or transnational perspectives before going further with global perspective. This is to suggest that whether to have global or not global perspectives is dependent on the nature and the aim of the research and rather than other way around. In this regard, whether any subject is global enough should not prevent us from looking at local issues and stories to engage in a meaningful way to the national or transnational narratives.

To conclude the Summer School, general discussions was held to reflect on our findings and lessons learnt as well as to outline future issues to be solved. Among the raised issues were the need for discussing more on the point of why should we do global history before the question of how we do it. Particularly the question of how much is global enough or not enough should be dealt carefully in order not to restrict ourselves within the context. However, the intensity and close proximity of whole week enabled us to get to know each other well and this in turn I am sure would enable us to become a historian of global nature. 　　　　　　 　　(Mandkhai Lkhagvasuren)