Notes on World History and Maritime History

Abstract

The modern notion of world history“ is a rel” atively new, and still largely misunderstood, concept. Yet it is very much on the scholar-ly agenda today. Perhaps confusingly, istory does not aim world hto deal with everywhere on our globe. Nor is it the history ofall all of the world, just as world music is not the music of the whole world. Political economists, especially those associated with Im-manuel Wallerstein’s concept of worldsystems, have for long been -explicitly writing “world history. Over forty” years ago Walle rstein introduced the notion of the Modern World-System, which did not incorporate the whole globe until late in the nineteenth century.