Globalization was the buzzword of the 1990s; it promises to become even more important in the first decade of the new century. There is now a flood of literature on the economics, politics and sociology of globalization, and regular commentary in the serious daily and weekly press.Virtually all of this discussion makes the assumptions, and frequently explicit claims, about the novelty of globalization. According to one view, globalization is a new phenomenon that can be dated from the 1980s. A second view holds that globalization has a long history that can be traced to the nineteenth century, ifnot earlier. The importance of these themes scarcely needs elaborating. Yet they have still to attract significant attention from historians. This volume is the first by a team of historians (including C.A. Bayly, Richard Drayton, A.G. Hopkins and David Reynolds) to address these issues.The book has two distinctive features. First, it offers a categorization of types and stages of globalization that existed before the late twentieth century. No such taxonomy exists at present. Secondly, it emphasizes a feature that the current debate greatly underestimates- the fact that globalization has non-Western as well as Western origins. Globalization is much more than the 'rise of the West' presented in new terminology. The contributors bring their expertise to bear on themes that give prominence to China, south Asia, Africa and the world of Islam as well as to Europe and the United States, and span the last three centuries while also showing an awareness of more distant antecedents. The result is a coherent and thought-provoking collection of essays. Globalization will become a major theme of historical research during the next decade; this book will help to set the new agenda