The blurb of this book summarizes it excellently: Diego Olstein (prof. University Pittsburgh, USA) identifies four strategies that enable a global view of the past, namely comparing, connecting, conceptualizing and contextualizing. These are four approaches that are indeed applied to a greater or lesser extent in virtually every global history. Next, Olstein looks at how that happens in practice, in 12 areas of historical studies, ranging from transnational history to Big History. All done with expertise. Only: his divisions are so theoretical and sometimes also artificial, that unfortunately they do not add much. Of all the introductions I've read about Global History so far, I found this to be the least inspiring. ( )