Basics

Question 1

What does emic and etic means?

Answer 1

emic = from the insight
etic = from the outsiders perspective

Question 2

What are the main arguments for and against keeping the term “Middle Ages”?

Answer 2

For the term Middle Ages: for some countries its a political statement and empowering to claim “their” Middle Ages - disconnected from the European logics

Against: the term implies, that it was “only the middle” - between the glorious periods of antiquity and modernity, a period without history and a lack of progress and evolution

Question 3

World-System Analysis - when do Wallerstein and Abu-Lughod see the turning point towards world economy - world-system and what is the other difference between both theorists?

Answer 3

Immanuel Wallerstein - 16th century (battle of Lepanto 1571) - sees it as one World-System

Janet L. Abu-Lughod - 13th century - 13th - 16th century - transition period as opportunity for Europe - because “the Orient” was temporarily in disrray
- sees 8 subsystems that are connected through long-distance trade - no global system but systems which are connected

Question 4

What is the “Great Divergence” (1800 - or even before) from Kenneth Pomeranz (2000)?

Answer 4

The Making of modern world economy - Western Europe and the New World overcame pre-modern growth constraints

Question 5

What is the Little Divergence (Jan Luiten van Zanden)

Answer 5

1300-1800: real wages in Northern Europe remain well above the subsistence level

Question 6

What changes according to Jan de Vries during the “Industrious Revolution” from 1600-1800?

Answer 6

The spending behaviour
- Shift from goods and services to marketable goods
- increasing demand in market-supplied goods while the value of domestic goods drops

Question 7

What are the critics on the Term “Middle Ages” from a Medievalist´s perspective?

Answer 7

Medievalist Perspective

• pejorative (abwertende) connotation of backwardness
• a period without history - lack of progress and evolution

Question 8

What are the critics on the Term “Middle Ages” from a Global Historians perspective?

Answer 8

• eurocentric periodisation of world history - eurocentric
• the image of the “middle ages” as an uncivilized, non-market society without historical progres - modernist-centric