This chapter studies global histories that consider aspects of the material world. It exposes the – often tacit – assumptions that guide these global material histories and holds them up for careful inspection. Its particular interest is in the grounds on which global material historians associate matter and material culture with a specific scale, context or level of observation: with world-making, the global scale and ‘connectivity’, but also with the concrete, the ‘micro’ and the intimate. In that context, the chapter discusses a wide range of themes, from the risk of fetishising material things – as in, reverencing them for properties, including ‘global’ ones, merely projected onto them – to the inevitability of canvassing some forms of materiality on a global scale: the pollution of air, for instance, or, for the post–Cold War era, the issue of resource shortages. The chapter argues that, like any form of historical writing, global material histories are under the influence of their practitioners’ own times’ socioreligious texture, global imaginary and discursive habits; mindful of the telos and conceptions that pervade their work, they will be better prepared to see the world of matter and material culture in all its changeability, elusiveness and polysemy.

This chapter shifts to an assessment of the main currents of globalization theory. It traces the twists and turns taken by different approaches, placing the rationale for Globalization Matters in the context of the strengths and limits of current theoretical orientations. A central paradox emerges. Recognition of the importance of understanding globalization as a generalizing category came to the fore at the very same time that an aversion to generalizing theory emerged. Our exposition is framed by a critical overview of the conventional three-wave model—widely distinguished as the hyperglobalizers, the sceptics, and the transformationalists. This model does not work for many reasons. To be sure, waves and corresponding schools of thought are accessible metaphors that possess descriptive utility for introductory surveys. But they have less value for the development of global theory beyond entrenched and rather petrified positions. Our synchronic framework conveys a much messier picture of simultaneous and frequent interactions among four analytically distinct modes of theorizing the global: neoclassical theorists, domain theorists, complexity theorists, and generalizing theorists.

Contrary to influential theses of the ‘end of ideologies’, the early twenty-first century has witnessed the revival of political ideologies deeply opposed to democratic liberalism. The most recent of these ideational clusters is what we call ‘anti-globalist populism’—a particular strain of right-wing national populism that focuses on the alleged negative impacts of globalization. The remarkable success of anti-globalist populism is most spectacularly reflected in the electoral victory of Donald Trump in the United States and the triumph of the Brexit alliance in the United Kingdom. This chapter maps and critically evaluates the core ideological concepts and claims of anti-globalist populism. We employ a morphological discourse analysis—a qualitative method for a contextually sensitive mapping and assessing of the structural arrangements of political ideologies—that attributes connected meanings to a range of mutually defining political concepts. Ultimately, the chapter seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the shifting ideological landscape in the twenty-first century and the crucial role that globalization is still playing in this transformative process.