This volume considers the confluence of World History and the method of historical materialism, exploring the question of why - despite developments in the field of historical materialism concerned with the intersection of race, gender, labour, and class - historical materialism has been marginalized within the field of World History.

1. Material Matters: Recognizing the Confluence of World History and Historical Materialism Tina Mai Chen, David S. Churchill, and Susie Fisher Stoesz 2. What is World History? A Critique of Pure Ideology Rebecca Karl Section One: The "Blind Spots" of Historical Materialism 3. Language, State, and Global Capitalism: "Global English" and Historical Materialism Peter Ives 4. Open Secrets: Class, Affect, and Sexuality Rosemary Hennessy 5. "As Its Foundations Totter": International Imperialism, Gendered Racial Capitalism, and the U.S. Literary Left in the Early Cold War John Munro Section Two: World History and Interconnectivity: Re-engaging Materialism and its Abstractions. A. Spatial Categories and Norms of Interconnectedness 6. World History and International Relations: Disrupting the Discipline of the State Todd Scarth 7. Local Struggles, Transnational Connections: Latin American Intellectuals and the Congress for Cultural Freedom Jorge Nállim B. Denaturalizing Economic Thought 8. Perpetual Peace, Technology, and Effeminacy: Adam Smith and Eighteenth-Century Debates Erik Thomson 9. Understanding Global Interconnectedness: Catastrophic Generic Change Mary Poovey Section Three: Dialectical Inquiry, Historical Materialism, and the Localities of World History 10. Where the Dead Queued for Fuel: Zimbabweans Remember the Fuel Crisis and its Impact on the Funeral Industry, 1999-2008 Joyce M. Chadya 11. "We Are All Migrant Laborers": Democracy and Universal Politics Hyun Ok Park