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This essay explores the links among intellectual history, social history and cultural history. It suggests that the recent turn in American historiography to cultural history is vitally important for communication studies because communication has now been thrust to center stage in virtually every subfield of history. But it warns that communication historians should not rashly and heedlessly jump into cultural history before an adequate foundation has been laid in the economic and institutional social history of mass media.

Books reviewed in this article:Shawn Johansen, Family Men: Middle–Class Fatherhood in Industrializing AmericaMartin A. Berger, Man Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age ManhoodMatthew Basso, Laura McCall and Dee Garceau (eds), Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the American West

This study aims to provide new insights into the connections between maritime history and global history. It demonstrates the significance of maritime activity as a conduit of global exchange by examining local, national, and international interdependencies and trade networks, and a broad range of time periods, geographical areas, and various sub-divisions of maritime historical research. It is composed of ten essays, with an introductory chapter and concluding chapter. The first five essays discuss the effects globalisation on shipping in the early modern period; the following three discuss maritime transportation and the economics of industrialisation from the nineteenth century to the present day; the next discusses the impact of global entrepreneurialism on maritime history; the penultimate discusses the connections and variables between maritime and global history; and the concluding chapter examines the theoretical assumptions surrounding the two disciplines, using the globalisation of Early Modern Spain as a case study to do so. The study demonstrates that the core strength of maritime history is its essential place in global history, and that the process of globalisation began at sea

Germany and all things German have long been the primary concern ofCentral European History(CEH), yet the journal has also been intimately tied to the lands of the former Habsburg monarchy. As the editor stated in the first issue, published in March 1968,CEHemerged "in response to a widespread demand for an American journal devoted to the history of German-speaking Central Europe," following the demise of theJournal of Central European Affairsin 1964. The Conference Group for Central European History sponsoredCEH, as well as the recently mintedAustrian History Yearbook(AHY). Robert A. Kann, the editor ofAHY, sat on the editorial board ofCEH, whose second issue featured a trenchant review by István Deák of Arthur J. May'sThe Passing of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914–1918. The third issue contained the articles "The Defeat of Austria-Hungary in 1918 and the Balance of Power" by Kann, and Gerhard Weinberg's "The Defeat of Germany in 1918 and the Balance of Power." That same year,East European Quarterlypublished its first issue.

This article discusses the challenges and constraints on the way toward more ecumenical forms of world historical scholarship. Refuting the charge that world history is necessarily Eurocentric in nature, the article points out that it is impossible to discuss intercultural conceptions of world history without touching on the international structures, flows, and hierarchies that characterize the field. The article argues that several transformations within the social sciences and humanities may prove to be relevant for transcultural and world history. The article concludes that internationally convincing perspectives can be gained only if the international landscapes of historiography become more ecumenical.