Peter Baldwin will speak at the Seminar in Cultural History on Wednesday, April 29, 2015, from 6-8pm. His talk is entitled “Global, Comparative, International, Transnational, and Connected Histories: Is the Methodological Tail Wagging the Historical Dog Again?”

Peter Baldwin is a Professor in the Department of History at UCLA. Previously, he taught in the History Department at Harvard University, where he received his doctorate in 1986.Dr. Baldwin published works on the comparative history of the welfare state, on social policy more broadly and on public health. His latest book is The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle (Princeton University Press, 2014). Prior publications include The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America and Europe are Alike (Oxford University Press, 2009), Disease and Democracy: The Industrialized World Faces AIDS(University of California Press, Berkeley, and the Milbank Memorial Fund, New York, 2005), Contagion and the State in Europe, 1830-1930 (Cambridge University Press, 1999),The Politics of Social Solidarity: Class Bases of the European Welfare State, 1875-1975 (Cambridge University Press, 1990), and Reworking the Past: Hitler, the Holocaust and the Historians’ Debate, edited with an introduction (Beacon Press, 1990). He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a foreign member of the Vetenskapssocieteten i Lund, Sweden, and an honorary professor, faculty of social sciences, Syddansk Universitet, Odense, Denmark.

Dr. Baldwin is interested especially in the historical development of the modern state – a broad field that has led him in many different directions. Two aspects of his work unify it. First, he has attempted to understand contemporary issues in a long historical perspective. Second, he has studied the development of the state trans-nationally.

At the BGC, Dr. Baldwin will speak about Global, Comparative, International, Transnational, and “Connected Histories: Is the Methodological Tail Wagging the Historical Dog Again?” The talk will examine various recent theories dealing with the size and scale that history supposedly should be pitched at and discuss whether or not recent trends towards world, global, trans-national and similar supra-national forms of history bring much new to the table.

Light refreshments will be served at 5:45 pm. The presentation will begin at 6:00 pm.

RSVP is required.

PLEASE NOTE that our Lecture Hall can only accommodate a limited number of people, so please come early if you would like to have a seat in the main room. Registrants who arrive late may be seated in an overflow viewing area.