ABSTRACT
The field of global studies developed as a response to the proliferation of global processes known collectively as globalization. As explained in Part One, these processes are not confined to any one discipline, interconnecting and spanning as they do such disparate phenomena as climate change, outsourcing, migration, transnational corporations, social networks, antiwar movements, human rights, gender and sexuality issues, world musics, and more. Also noted in Part One is the fact that the word globalization entered into popular discourse long after the phenomena it describes began. The term itself has been transformed from a new and contested word to a commonplace, if ambiguous, buzzword. Its ambiguity derives from the fact that it functions as shorthand for a vast number of related concepts and phenomena.
