This chapter will not question the terms of comparison and analogy in abstract methodological models; instead, it will place actors and debates in their appropriate historical context in order to understand why they were interested in comparison and why, in a given context, they practised it in one particular way and not in another. Moreover, each context will be resolutely trans-regional and comparison will be identified as a cross-cultural practice. I will therefore take some distance from current arguments relating comparison only to European colonial expansion. Infra-European tensions and competition were no less important in justifying comparisons than encounters with non-European worlds.

The introduction leverages the insights and interventions of world, global, and transnational histories to bring a rich world of interaction between China and the Philippines in the early twentieth century to life. After overviewing the layered connections that formed the Sino–Philippine link, which is the subject of the book, the introduction turns toward methodological approaches that best expose and explore the depths of those connections. It starts this endeavor by highlighting some limitations of world, global, and transnational history, such as their tendency to be prescriptive rather than responsive, their tendency to privilege actors and institutions from the Global North, and the high cost of entry for new scholars to the field. It argues that, while these limitations are important to recognize, transnational, global, and world histories still have much to offer if they can become more accessible, flexible, and representative. Finally, the introduction outlines the approach of the book, which adopts an interdisciplinary, decolonial, connected approach to world history that pays attention to disintegration as well as creation, implements selective silences, centers cultural and discursive flows between peoples of the Global South, and explores unencumbered articulations of race, modernity, and gender.

The Introduction situates the issues discussed in the manuscript within the existing historiography of Iranian and South Asian Studies and provides an overview of the "Persianate" framework, focusing on Persian and Urdu languages and literatures. The central arguments of the book are presented: that Urdu should be seen as a continuation of the Persian tradition in India, and furthermore that Urdu played a crucial role for Iranians seeking to modernize the Persianate heritage. Therefore, Urdu is vital to the story of the emergence of Persian literary history. This argument disrupts the conventional, dominant view that Persian heavily influenced Urdu, but Urdu had no impact on Persian. The chapter concludes with an outline of the rest of the book.

The introduction opens with a methodological discussion. I explain my preference for the method of connected history over other approaches to global history. There follows a look at the changing meaning of ‘India’, from the fuzzy notion of an entity without clear territorial boundaries c.1750 to a nation-state with well-defined borders by 2000. I propose to chart the transition between these two moments in time, not through a close chronological account that would involve embarking upon a narrative of world history but through a thematic approach. I take a retrospective look at some of the main features of India’s global history prior to 1750, which brings out the fact that it was involved in a variety of connections that made it an important participant in the world economy and in the world political system, connections that were, however, not always recognised by the Indian elites as significant, a paradox that is a recurring theme in the book. The introduction ends with an outline of the book’s chapters.