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This is a collection of 32 essays by a stellar collection of distinguished scholars in the field of world history, providing a comprehensive guide to current scholarship and current thinking in one of the most dynamic fields of historical scholarship.

"For the past half-century, area studies scholarship has been the principal filter through which scholars, policy makers, journalists, and the general public have organized knowledge about the larger world. The essays presented here deal with diverse issues and contexts but reflect a common interest in reconsidering the political, geographical, and cultural boundaries conventionally observed by area specialists and others. Each highlights the very general theme of cross-cultural interaction and endeavors to put previously separate bodies of scholarship in dialogue with one another. By exploring interactions that have historically linked world regions, the volume contributes to the development of transregional and global historical analysis."--Jacket

Because of its claims to general knowledge, and perhaps even more because of its increasing prominence in the educational curriculum, world history has recently become a principal focus of constituencies seeking to mobilize the past in support of particular political or ideological agendas. In extreme cases these constituencies have made world history little more than a vehicle of propaganda for their ideological preferences. This article recognizes that historical scholarship always reflects some set of political or ideological influences and thus takes the form of situated knowledge rather than a final or definitive assessment of the past. Yet it holds that it is possible for historians to engage the past and present in meaningful dialogue without subjecting the past to rigid ideological constraints. The article discusses and criticizes several visions of the global past that have recently emerged from the conservative and patriotic right as well as the Marxist and postcolonial left. It argues that a more analytical and ecumenical world history would yield deeper understanding of the world and its development through time, and would also serve larger social needs better than ideologically charged visions of the global past.

Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt, welchen Bruch mit den Institutionalisierungsmustern, Denkformen und Beziehungen zur Idee gesellschaftlicher Nützlichkeit Historiker und Historikerinnen vollziehen müssen, wenn sie von der Bindung ihrer Profession an den Nationalstaat Abstand nehmen und Weltgeschichte nicht mehr als periphere Aufgabe betrachten wollen, die eher etwas für Dilettanten als für professionelle Fachvertreter ist. Ausgehend von den Erträgen wirtschafts- und kulturgeschichtlicher Forschung geht der Autor der Frage nach, welches an Stelle des Nationalstaats, der in traditionellen Untersuchungen häufig unreflektiert den Rahmen bildet, geeignete Raumeinheiten sein können und anhand welcher Kriterien man diese bestimmen kann. Der Autor geht hier auf drei Vorschläge ein: an erster Stelle länderübergreifende Wirtschaftsräume, die durch Marktbeziehungen zwischen Produzenten bzw. zwischen Produzenten und Abnehmern kreiert werden, zweitens ökologisch bestimmte Zonen, die durch ähnliche Klimabedingungen, Vorkommen natürlicher Ressourcen und eine Situierung im Verhältnis zu den natürlichen Verkehrswegen der Meere und großen Flüsse gekennzeichnet sind, sowie schließlich drittens kulturelle Gemeinschaften, die als "diskursbasierte Weltsysteme" eine Weiterentwicklung der Toynbeeschen Kategorie der Zivilisation darstellen können. Die öffentliche Wirkung des Essays von Samuel P. Huntington zeigt allerdings auch die Gefahren dieses Begriffs, der Konnotationen in sich trägt, die auf die Essentialisierungen von Kulturkreisen oder Zivilisationen seit dem 19. Jahrhundert verweisen. (ICA2)

Scholars such as Marshall G. S. Hodgson and William H. McNeill have long emphasized
the importance of cross-cultural interactions throughout world history from
ancient times to the present. Yet a persistent and widespread misconception holds that
the peoples of the world began to interact intensively only after 1492. This misunderstanding
reflects both "modernocentrism," an enchantment with the modern world
that has hindered historians from recognizing the significance of cross-cultural interactions
in earlier times, and the powerful influence of national states, which has discouraged
historians from examining interactions between societies. Recent
scholarship on commercial, biological, and cultural exchanges suggests, however, that
during the millennium from 500 to 1500 C.E., cross-cultural interactions fostered the
integration of societies throughout the Eastern Hemisphere.

The era from 1400 to 1800 saw intense biological, commercial, and cultural exchanges, and the creation of global connections on an unprecedented scale. Divided into two books, Volume 6 of The Cambridge World History considers these critical transformations. The first book examines the material and political foundations of the era, including global considerations of the environment, disease, technology, and cities, along with regional studies of empires in the eastern and western hemispheres, crossroads areas such as the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, and the Caribbean, and sites of competition and conflict, including Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean. The second book focuses on patterns of change, examining the expansion of Christianity and Islam, migrations, warfare, and other topics on a global scale, and offering insightful detailed analyses of the Columbian exchange, slavery, silver, trade, entrepreneurs, Asian religions, legal encounters, plantation economies, early industrialism, and the writing of history