From details to the whole: cultural history and global biographies

Abstract

This article discusses some of the new directions taken by cultural history nowadays, with particular focus on the works by scholars using a global perspective. It argues that this choice of a global perspective raises several problems, especially the apparent contradictions between the traditional micro-approaches, typical of cultural history, and the macro ones often used in economic or political analyses. The question is how to deal with individuals from a global perspective. Based on reflections by Peter Burke and Natalie Zemon Davis, among others, the essay shows that this concern is an important issue today, in an increasingly interconnected era, and that it responds to our cultural and intellectual needs, enriching and relativizing our perspectives. Moreover, the text also considers that global history is an emerging field that can be practiced in several ways that include micro- perspectives, as in the so called global biographies or the global microhistory. In fact, these studies present examples of intense cultural encounters in the past, focusing on the different types of individual intermediaries that made it possible, experimenting with stories of individual lives in global contexts, connecting communities and the outside world, juxtaposing micro and macro perspectives. In other words, the life of a single individual may serve to understand the connections across cultures and groups from the perspective of the actors involved.