Global History and the History of Consumption: Congruence and Divergence

Abstract

Over the past quarter of a century, a new sub-discipline in academic history departments known as ‘world history’ has emerged at the edges of economic history and in tandem with the rise of the International Political Economy (IPE) subfield in political science. The point of overlap in the research agendas of world historians, economic history and IPE has opened up some of the strongest connections between the historical profession and other social science disciplines in many a year. A key element of the shared research agenda is the documentation of the timing, direction and volume of commodity flows of both raw materials and manufactured goods around the globe. The study of the early modern ‘consumer revolution’ is a sine qua non for the rise of world history.