ABSTRACT
Yet despite this trend towards globalization, historical studies have lagged behind. In this volume we intend to examine the transformation of historical thinking and writing within this larger global context. In the past two centuries, and particularly in the twentieth, a number of histories of historiography have been written. Yet the focus has always been Western or national, and where it has been Western, it has generally not been comparative but subdivided into national traditions. As far as historical studies in general have been concerned, writings, particularly in the past decade and a half after the momentous developments since 1989-91, have increasingly turned to the non-Western worlds and, to a much greater extent than earlier, have included aspects of culture and society. But this has not been the case with histories of historiography, including those published as recently as the turn from the twentieth to the twenty-first century.2 A fair
number of studies, particularly anthologies, have treated historical cultures in various non-Western societies. But, except for a just-published short survey in German by Markus Völkel,3 there are as yet no comprehensive studies dealing comparatively with historical thought and inquiry globally. And the larger histories of historiography continue to be Western oriented, and like earlier works generally have continued to be restricted to the English, French, German and occasionally Italian literature.4
