| ID | 179100 |
| Title Proper | On Global Historical Sociology |
| Other Title Information | the inaugural Fletcher Prize Forum |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Zarakol, Ayşe |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | Joseph F. Fletcher, Jr. (1934–1984) was a historian of China and Central Asia1, but not just a historian of China and Central Asia: he was also a scholar of Asia broadly understood, writing on topics ranging from Islamic Inner Asia to the Turco-Mongolian tradition in the Ottoman Empire. When the Historical IR (HIST) Section of the International Studies Association decided to institute an annual prize for edited volumes, I – as the chair of the section2 – suggested that we name3 the prize after Joseph F. Fletcher, for two reasons. First, perhaps because he died relatively young, most of Fletcher’s output is found in edited volumes. Second, and more importantly, even while he is writing about a specific region, Fletcher’s writing sparkles with a comparative perspective, unearthing unexpected similarities and connections. This is unusual, especially in a historian of his generation. You could say that Fletcher was doing global history (or even global IR) before it became a ‘thing.’ The combination of these two factors made Fletcher the ideal historian to name our prize after, not the least because the HIST section advocates not only for historical scholarship but for historical IR scholarship that has a global comparative and international outlook as its starting point. |
| `In' analytical Note | Cambridge Review of International Affairs Vol. 33, No.6; Dec 2020: p.888-890 |
| Journal Source | Cambridge Review of International Affairs Vol: 33 No 6 |