New Global Studies

Local, universal, world-historical, world-systemic, or global historiographies as well as work in sociology, anthropology and international relations have shed increasing light on the common history of humankind. Only comparatively recently, however, has human global self-awareness broken through the confines of scholarly specialization, and begun to enter the everyday popular life, action, psyche, imagination and consciousness on a mass, global scale. The step into space and the resultant view of the planet, the new computer and media technologies of mass communication, the global spread of multinational corporations and human rights, the unprecedented environmental changes and challenges, the promise and threat of nuclear power and explosions, all have led to the increasing self-experiencing of the globe as a “spaceship earth.”

The field of interest of New Global Studies (NGS) therefore is both multidisciplinary and global. New Global Studies interprets globalization with a historical and sociological angle as opposed to history or sociology with a global angle. The journal addresses the process going on around us as a whole, and developing over time. It addresses globalization with a holistic perspective, which gives us a view on the past and present of the globalizing phenomena that will be invaluable to all who seek to comprehend this fundamental aspect of our society and its development. Our focus is unabashedly on the new globalization that has manifested itself so vigorously in the period starting sometime after World War II. Starting from this relatively contemporary perspective, we are fully aware that there are deep roots in the past that must be explored. Nevertheless, and in contrast with most historical journals, our primary emphasis is on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.