Abstract

Globalization has become an issue of the greatest urgency in the firstdecade of the new century. Recent world events, especially theterrorist attacks on the United States and the evolving conflicts inthe Middle East, have sparked wider concern for global issues ingeneral. There is now a flood of literature on the economics, politics,and sociology of globalization and regular commentary in the seriousdaily and weekly press. Virtually all of this discussion makes assumptions, and frequentlyexplicit claims, about the novelty of globalization. According to oneview, globalization is a new phenomenon that can be dated from the1980s. A second view holds that globalization has a long history thatcan be traced to the nineteenth century, if not earlier. These areimportant claims, but until now they had not attracted significantcritical attention from historians. This volume is the first by a teamof historians to address these issues. Globalization in World History has two distinctive features. First, ittraces the history of globalization across nearly three centuries. Second, it emphasizes a feature that the current debate greatlyunderestimates: the fact that globalization has non-Western as well asWestern origins. Globalization is much more than a new way to tell theall-too-familiar "rise of the West" story. The contributors bring theirexpertise to bear on themes that give prominence to China, South Asia,Africa, and the world of Islam, as well as to Europe and the UnitedStates; these themes span the last three centuries while also showingan awareness of more distant antecedents. The result is a coherent andthought-provoking collection of essays. Globalization will become amajor theme of historical research during the next decade; this bookwill help set the new agenda.