Marshall G. S. Hodgson is known primarily as the author of the masterful three-volume The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974). That he was also a world historian who in addition to a number of seminal articles left a posthumous work, “The Unity of World History,” is known to few. Hodgson died in 1968 at the age of 46, leaving this work unfinished.

Although I was never privileged to know Marshall Hodgson, I have been continually nourished by his thoughts about world history. For some time, I have felt that a collection of the best of Hodgson's writings on world history could provide an important contribution to current discussions about world history and the place of Europe in it. Many of the essays included here were published previously, although only a few have received anything like the audience they deserve. They date from the 1940s to the 1960s; however, their conceptual brillance and methodological rigor are still relevent today.

The essays in Part I of this book explore the place of Europe in world history, challenging adherents of both Eurocentrism and multiculturalism. The Part II essays are concerned with Hodgson's parallel effort to locate the history of Islamic civilization in a world historical framework. The essays in Part III argue that in the end there is but one history – global history – and that all partial or privileged accounts must necessarily be resituated in a world historical context.