ABSTRACT
The historical profession has been slow to appreciate the importance of globalization. One reason appears to be the confusion caused by the claims of world history, which has been struggling to achieve its own identity. In its fight against more traditional, national approaches, world history has generally seen global history—that is, the study of globalization—as a dilution of its challenge to the establishment. Hence, world historians have tended either to ignore the New Global History or to claim that it is already encompassed by what they are doing. Is their response legitimate? What exactly is world history? And what is global history?
