This volume responds to provocations that Jerry Bentley tendered in his scholarship and through his professional activities. The collection interrogates the institutional settings, disciplinary proclivities, methodological choices, and diverse source bases of world history research and teaching. Several essays in the book address the ways in which present-day concerns influence historical research on local and global scales. Other essays pay particular attention to the production and circulation of knowledge across regional, temporal, and class boundaries, as well as between the academy and th ... More

This volume responds to provocations that Jerry Bentley tendered in his scholarship and through his professional activities. The collection interrogates the institutional settings, disciplinary proclivities, methodological choices, and diverse source bases of world history research and teaching. Several essays in the book address the ways in which present-day concerns influence historical research on local and global scales. Other essays pay particular attention to the production and circulation of knowledge across regional, temporal, and class boundaries, as well as between the academy and the wider public. The book makes a claim for the continued centrality of globally informed and globally focused approaches to historical inquiry. As such, it seeks to continue the conversations that Jerry Bentley carried on through his scholarship, teaching, editing the Journal of World History, participating in many public forums, and contributing to public discussions about the place of history in understanding today’s global integration.