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A CENTRE GROUND IN THE GLOBAL

History of the Global History and Culture Centre at the University of Warwick

With expertise in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe, the interests of the Global History and Culture Centre's members span the globe, and it is the connections between these different regions that are the main focus of the Centre's activities.

Established in 2007, the Centre forms an important part of the Department of History and the wider University. The Centre is at the fore of the development of global history as an integral part of the field of history.

Our directors

Maxine Berg (Founding Director, 2007-11)
Anne Gerritsen (2011-13, 2014-15, 2017-2021)
Dan Branch (2013-14)
Giorgio Riello (2013-14, 2016-17)
Guido van Meersbergen (2021- )

2007-2010: The Global Turn

The early 2000s witnessed the “global turn” in historical writing. Representing a mix of approaches drawing alternatively from economic and comparative history, postcolonial studies, historical sociology, and the new globalisation studies, “global history” challenged national histories and traditional area studies. Founded in 2007 by Professor Maxine Berg, the Global History and Culture Centre helped establish the global history approach in the UK and internationally and gave visibility to the new field of global material culture.

A major milestone was the “Writing the History of the Global: Challenges for the 21st century” conference held at the British Academy in 2009. It brought together world-leading historians including Kenneth Pomeranz, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Linda Colley, and Jack Goldstone to reflect on the concept of the “global”, the pressing challenges it posed, and possible future directions for the global historical approach. Edited by Maxine Berg, essays based on the conference were published in the landmark volume Writing the History of the Global (2011). The event also featured a set of “Global Conversations”, which are recorded in full and can be accessed here.

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua." - Maxine Berg GHCC director 2007-2011

HIGHLIGHTS

Global Microhistory conference

Text about the global microhistory project

Global Microhistory: AHRC Network

This is content on the network as well

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The Material Culture of Global Connections

Building on its members' expertise in economic history and material culture, the Centre established itself at the forefront of debates on global histories of consumption, commodities, and luxury. Many key projects, including “Global Arts: East meets West”, “Europe's Asian Centuries”, and “The Material Culture of Global Connections”, featured a particular focus on Asian material culture and its circulation in Europe. Yet these connections were explored within the context of a globalising world, addressing questions such as: what makes a good “global”? And how does one write the history of global material culture?

The breakthrough ‘trilogy’ edited by Giorgio Riello and Anne Gerritsen published in this period continues to shape material culture methodologies. Writing Material Culture History (Bloomsbury, 2015), The global lives of Things (2016, Routledge) and Global Gifts (2018, Cambridge University Press, co-edited with Zoltán Biedermann) all considered the global connections of material culture, thinking about objects as a reflection of multiple cultural contexts. Consumer culture remained a central concern of the Centre’s global historians, with Maxine Berg’s Good from the East (2015) aiming to answer how global goods were constructed, distributed and desired between Asia and Europe.

GHCC members also contributed major monographs and edited volumes that are now milestones in the field of global history. These include Giorgio Riello’s The Spinning world: a global history of cotton textiles (2009), edited alongside Prasannan Parthasarathi and Cotton: The fabric that changed the world (2013), Rebecca Earle’s The body of the conquistador (2012), and Anne Gerritsen’s Microspatial histories of global labour (2016), edited alongside Christian de Vito.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

Giorgio Riello, GHCC director (2013-2014; 2016-2017)

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

Anne Gerritsen, GHCC director (2011- 2013; 2014-2015)

Between the Local and the Global

Department of History