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Scholarly interest in hybridity has focused largely on the present and recent past. Yet, one of the great theorists of hybridity is an ancient one: Herodotus. By describing a globe in motion—the motion of people across borders and through time—Herodotus draws a picture of a world that brings the hybrid to the fore. He thinks seriously about how we should regard diversity in light of global hybridity. Reading Herodotus as a theorist of the hybrid not only adds an interesting perspective to contemporary conversations but also reminds us of hybridity's enduring importance as a subject of political inquiry.

The period in which we live is marked by increasingly frequent and intense cultural encounters of all kinds. However we react to it, the global trend towards mixing or hybridization is impossible to miss, from curry and chips – recently voted the favourite dish in Britain - to Thai saunas, Zen Judaism, Nigerian Kung Fu, 'Bollywood' films or salsa or reggae music. Some people celebrate these phenomena, whilst others fear or condemn them. No wonder, then, that theorists such as Homi Bhabha, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, and Ien Ang, have engaged with hybridity in their work and sought to untangle these complex events and reactions; or that a variety of disciplines now devote increasing attention to the works of these theorists and to the processes of cultural encounter, contact, interaction, exchange and hybridization. In this concise book, leading historian Peter Burke considers these fascinating and contested phenomena, ranging over theories, practices, processes and events in a manner that is as wide-ranging and vibrant as the topic at hand.