This is an introductory meeting to familiarise students with the general outline and requirements of the module. But some works are taken as central texts for the module and as a basis for discussion and reference in the following weeks:

1. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System, 1974, vol. I, esp. chapter 6. You might also wish to consult a recent collection of articles: David Palumbo-Liu, Bruce Robbins, and Nirvana Tanoukhi. Immanuel Wallerstein and the Problem of the World: System, Scale, Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011 (HB 6000.I66).

2. A. G. Hopkins (ed.), Globalization in World History, 2002, esp. chapters by Hopkins, Bayly, Bennison and Ballantyne

3. C. A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914, 2004, esp. ‘Introduction’

4. Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, 2000, esp. Introduction. You might find this review useful: Prasannan Parthasarathi, ‘Review Article: The Great Divergence’, Past and Present, 176 (2002), pp. 275-293. You might also find the articles in Historically Speaking 12.4 (2011) useful.

5. Prasannan Parthasarathi, Why Europe grew rich and Asia did not (2011).