Articles
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Unweaving Sven Beckert’s “Empire of Cotton: A Global History”
Pause for a moment while reading this review and check out the inside collar of your shirt or blouse. There’s a good chance that the garment you’re wearing is not only made…
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Of Nation-States and the United States: An Interview with Ryan Irwin
It’s hard to escape the conclusion today that writing about American decline is a growth industry. For at least the last decade, pundits have spoken of a “post-American century” in which, China,…
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Dipesh Chakrabarty, “From Globalization to Global Warming: A Historiographical Transition”
The 2014 Toynbee Prize Lecture was delivered by Dipesh Chakrabarty (University of Chicago) on Saturday, January 3, 2015, at the 2015 American Historical Association Annual Meeting. In his lecture, entitled “From Globalization…
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Immigrants, Railroads, America, Germany: An Interview with Julío Robert Decker
People often ask scholars of history what, exactly, the discipline constitutes–what its unique methodologies are, what precisely its subject of study is, and what contemporary questions it offers to clarify. As our…
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Sven Beckert on the “Empire of Cotton”
Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton: it’s one of the most keenly anticipated works of history this year, and you can read an adapted excerpt here at The Atlantic. The Toynbee Prize Foundation will…
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Peace Without Victory: Adam Tooze on “The Deluge: The Great War, America, and the Remaking of the Global Order 1916-1931”
In case you haven’t noticed, this year marks the 100-year anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. Visit a bookstore, and you’re likely to be greeted at the entrance by scores…
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The Sino-Soviet Split and the Left as Global History: An Interview with Jeremy Friedman
Among the crimes cartographical and otherwise perpetrated by the Mercator projection, the Cold War projection of an Asia dominated by the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China numbers among the…
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Conference Report: “Development and Underdevelopment in Postwar Europe” (Columbia University)
It’s no secret that one of the most booming sub-disciplines in international and global history today is the history of development–the interaction of the rich world with the poor world before (but…
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Empire of the Air, Empire of the Earth: American History in a Global Context with Jenifer van Vleck
Scan through recent headlines, and it will quickly become clear how much modern societies and international politics revolve around the airplane. During the ongoing Ebola crisis, national health authorities–even those for countries…