Globalisation was the buzzword of the 1990s; it promises to become even more important in the first decade of the new century. There is now a flood of literature on the economics, politics and sociology of globalization, and regular commentary in the serious daily and weekly press. Virtually all of this discussion makes assumptions, and frequently explicit claims, about the novelty of globalisation. According to one view, the globalisation is a new phenomenon that can be dated from the 1980s. A second view holds that globalisation has a long history that can be traced back to the nineteenth century, if not earlier. The importance of these themes scarcely needs elaborating. Yet they have still to attract significant attention from historians. This volume is the first by a team of historians to address these issues. Globalisation in World History has two distinctive features. First, it offers a categorisation of types and stages of globalisation that existed before the late