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Historiography and Pedagogy in the Postclassical World

Daniel Cooper
History 401: Social Science for Teachers
Professor Luhr
22 September 2016
The Postclassical World dating from 500-1450 CE has been characterized by historians
in a few different ways, but there is clearly a more prevailing approach to Postclassical history
when considering the historiography of the era that seldom makes an appearance in a classroom
environment. Historiography is defined by Bruce Vansledright as being that study of how
historians have written about the past and to what end, exists as it does because of the deep
interests investigators possess in understanding the shifting, changing, revisionist nature of
historical knowledge.1 Historians that have researched this era have overwhelmingly placed the
maritime regions along the Indian Ocean at the center for global analysis because as historians
Lynda Shaffer, Xinru Liu, Fernand Braudel,2 and K.N. Chaudhuri3 have all pointed out that
there is a considerable amount of movement, interaction, and diffusion in these maritime regions
1 Bruce VanSledright, The Case of Thomas Becker: Using Knowledge of History as a Domain
to Structure Pedagogical Choices, in Collective Memorialization and Persistent Instruction, 47.

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that has often been neglected in history and the pedagogy must reflect the same realities that
these historians are uncovering to allow students to gain a full understanding of the period.
Historiography matters when considering how to teach a lesson because there is much more
information that goes beyond what would be the generally accepted view of history that one may
find in a secondary school textbook. There are many parts to consider when looking at history
which is why it is also true that there are many views to consider.
When looking at the California Content Standards especially the seventh grade standards, the
topics actually do cover at least in general a good coverage of information for each region.
Standards such as 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, and 7.4 all deal with separate themes that were indeed significant
to the era such as the structures of China, the growth of Byzantine Empire, and the rise of Islam
but there is little connection between the themes. Lynda Shaffer specifically argues that the
Southern Asian region is crucial to building the foundations of later societies, she refers to this as
southernization.4 India is not brought up really at all in the standards and Shaffer argues that
there is a clear importance India serves in the Postclassical World era, numerals and the
mathematics that the Indians developed with them are now universaljust one indication of the
global significance of southernization.5 The rejection of India in the standards as a unit of study
is at the center of the key issue that historians who look into this era have been finding, that there
is a significant disconnect when thinking of the Postclassical World on the global scale rather
2 Jerry Bentley, The New World History, in A Companion to Western Historical Thought, ed.
Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 401.
3 Ibid., 401.
4 Lynda Shaffer, Southernization, in Journal of World History (Hawaii: University of Hawaii
Press, 1994) 7.
5 Ibid., 7.

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than the national scale. Meaning history in this era has always been taught as mostly regional and
fails to grasp the larger spatial framework6 at play. Xinru Liu emphasizes the importance of the
trade route and reinforces Shaffers southernization theory by showing the vast connectedness
that can be found throughout Southern Asia along the silk routes and from there on to other
regions beyond just the south, the Silk Road was Eurasias most significant carrier of goods and
cultural influences before the eleventh century, when maritime routes expanded and eventually
took over the lions share of intercultural trade.7 The concept of vast cross-cultural
interaction8 is what is severely lacking in the content standards.
There are several ways to approach the issues in the gaps developed by the content standards
when considering the pedagogy. The difference between assigning work that pertains to basic
memorization and assigning work to develop skills is vital to developing history as a discipline
rather than a subject as Bob Bain emphasizes, History as a discipline and a course of study
demands meaning over memory.9 There of course are many things to consider when delving
into epistemology, or how students should begin to think about history. The basic frameworks to
studying and understanding history as a process are laid out by Deborah Johnston as temporal,

6 Deborah Johnston, World History Education, in Palgrave Advances in World History ed.
Marnie Hughes-Warrington, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 261.
7 Xinru Liu, The Silk Road ed. Michael Adas, (United States of America: American Historical
Association, 1998) 1.
8 Jerry Bentley, The New World History, in A Companion to Western Historical Thought, ed.
Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 403.
9 Bob Bain, Into the Breach, in Knowing, Teaching, and Learning History: National and
International Perspectives, ed. Peter Stearns, Peter Seixas, and Sam Wineburg, (New York: New
York University Press), 332.

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spatial, and thematic.10 These frameworks act as good guidelines that could help a student to
grasp the larger picture and help them to arrive at that level of understanding on their own by
thinking about these structures. When considering temporal framework11 in the Postclassical
World for instance, a student may look into how history has been periodized and how can they
organize their own themes into a specific periodization. Peter Stearns for example provides
different levels of periodization that pertain to world history. His periodization extending from
500-1500 CE and focusing on belief-systems and a movement towards an era dominated by
monotheism12 would be a great place for a student to begin searching for historical significance
and also interactions, in this case especially through diffusion of religion which also plays well
into the thematic framework.13
The focus of recent historians on this era has been mainly on cross-cultural
interactions,14 which brings with it a larger spatial scale and can hopefully move the students
toward understanding history as patterns of change.15 This would be the ultimate goal of the

10 Deborah Johnston, World History Education, in Palgrave Advances in World History ed.
Marnie Hughes-Warrington, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 261.
11 Ibid., 261.
12 Peter Stearns, Periodization in World History Teaching, (1994), 575.
13 Deborah Johnston, World History Education, in Palgrave Advances in World History ed.
Marnie Hughes-Warrington, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 261.
14 Jerry Bentley, The New World History, in A Companion to Western Historical Thought, ed.
Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 403.
15 Ross Dunn, Constructing World History in the Classroom, in Knowing, Teaching, and
Learning History: National and International Perspectives, ed. Peter Stearns, Peter Seixas, and
Sam Wineburg, (New York: New York University Press), 127.

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educator, the patterns of change model.16 This model considers all interactions and movements
of societies and considers all parts as one large process that effects all other pieces. This is the
level of thought that students need to arrive at on their own in order to begin to understand
history as a discipline and be able to relate it to the larger Postclassical World.

16 Ibid., 127.