Abstract

This chapter first states the concept’s basic assumptions in order for “globality” to be looked at from a historical perspective. It then recaptures in short the transformation of intercultural approaches to history, thereby reconstructing the—decreasing, but still persisting—dominance of Western perspectives and locating the advance of global perspectives on history. The three phases of globalization are being tracked, to define the object of study: globality. Finally, fundamental questions of research are shortly introduced—regarding the mere existence of a “global history”; a possible “natural” convergence of global societies; the effects of societies’ structures on economics and politics; the interrelations between globality, religions, and cultures; and the non-solvable tensions between, to some degree, opposing understandings of globality and globalization as structures or processes and the implications thereof.