Global intellectual history : some reflections on recent publications

Abstract

Like other branches of history, intellectual history has ‘gone global’ in recent years (although perhaps with a certain delay), and there has been an increase in published research on more ‘global’ subjects. Five years after the publication of the volume edited by Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori (which originated in a 2010 conference), and two years after the journal Global Intellectual History was launched, now is perhaps the moment to take stock. More specifically, it is perhaps the moment to reflect on the questions of how useful the label ‘global intellectual history’ is proving, and what, if anything, is specific about the field—which Martin Mulsow, introducing a special issue of Global Intellectual History, calls a ‘discipline in the making’. Indeed, as Moyn and Sartori make clear, there is as yet no general agreement on what is meant by ‘global intellectual history’. This reflects the uncertainty surrounding global history more generally.