講題三：How Multiple Paths from the Early Modern & Modern Global Past Could Help Guide Us to a Feasible & Desirable Future or Lead Us Toward Disaster（近現代以來全球多重路徑的指向：可欲的未來還是災難？）

日期： 2024/11/01

時間： 10:00~12:00

地點： 檔案館第二會議室

主持人： 連玲玲教授（中研院近史所研究員兼副所長）

主講人：王國斌R. Bin Wong教授（Distinguished Research Professor, UCLA）

主辦單位： 近史所

Abstract,
The previous two lectures have presented evidence that diverse paths of historical change have been studied by historians but that their research has not been used by the social sciences in the ways that Western European history has proved essential. This raises questions of the adequacy of the social sciences to grapple effectively with identifying a desirable and feasible global future. I will draw on issues of governance in political and economic contexts to address two pressing issues: (1) a recognition that the complexity of contemporary geopolitics and the global economy is quite different from what existed in early modern and modern history; (2) the growing awareness of people across the globe that we face the consequences of the accelerated pursuit of modern era aspirations after WW II that created climate changes that have forcefully and at times brutally caused catastrophic disruptions. Together, these lectures offer suggestions for how the academic discipline of history can and should better inform our social sciences’ understanding of the contemporary world and the types of futures that humanity faces but can also choose to pursue those possible futures that are feasible and desirable.