ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights periods of contraction and expansion, turning points in approaches and methods, the impact of varied ideas in broader social science. It also highlights the power of prejudice and ideology in limiting the influence of certain approaches and individuals, sometimes cutting short their careers and even their lives. The chapter covers the general characteristics of economic history that have played themselves out differently in different contexts. It focuses on distinct ideas and concepts, often developed at the margins of the world system that might usefully complement the tools currently employed by the international mainstream. The chapter considers the way that various ideas and methodologies have been received, adapted or rejected in different environments. Degrees of relative freedom from authoritarianism coupled with existing national histories and intellectual cultures made for considerable variation within the Marxist approaches of the different satellites of the Soviet bloc. The chapter seeks to methodological implications and conclusions for global history-writing.
