ABSTRACT
As is probably clear to the readers of this volume, it is now a fundamental and nearly-universally recognized truth that the medieval and early modern worlds were far more interconnected and global than most moderns—from the seventeenth century forward—have traditionally acknowledged. Thanks to trade routes, missions of religious conversion, and the expansion of global empires—the Ottoman, British, and Holy Roman among them—the medieval and early modern worlds must be recognized not as eras cut off from globalization, but as precursors to the twenty-first century's global and globalizing culture and economy.
