William H. McNeill, The Changing Shape of World HistoryBy William H. McNeill, University of Chicago, Emeritus Paper originally presented at the “History and Theory World History Conference, March 25–26, 1994 Histories of the portion of the earth known to the writer are properly classed as world histories inasmuch as they seek to record the whole significant and knowable past. By that standard, therefore, Herodotus and Ssu-ma Chen were world historians
