Speaking to a mixed audience of scholars from the full range of disciplines, an audience where historians are in a small minority and global historians form a sub-minority within that minority, I want to make a few fairly general points about the current situation of global history as a field of study. I am not going to give an advertising speech and tell you that global history is the most exciting, the most relevant and the most sophisticated type of historiography practiced today. What we need is a realistic assessment. My weighing of pros and cons has perforce to be highly subjective and cannot do justice to the wealth of activities by global historians across the planet. There are already attempts underway to turn the rise of global history into a subject for historians of historiography. But it is too early for results of broad surveys to be published; many of them will be confined to a single country anyway.
Let me first explain the title of this lecture: fragility in stability. «Stability» means that global history is here to stay. It has proved to be more than an ephemeral fashion and has definitely established itself as one among many sub-disciplines in historical studies. Yet, while some enthusiasts are dizzy with success and even dream of discursive dominance, it has to be admitted that success has stopped short of triumph. It is a fragile and vulnerable kind of success.
