ONE WORLD DIVISIBLE. A global history since 1945. By David Reynolds. 861pp.

Allen Lane The Penguin Press. Pounds 25. TLS Pounds 20. 0 713 99461 4

From Cold War to globalization

Once upon a time there was a respectable subject called diplomatic history which explained the origins of international

crises and world wars. It tortured generations of undergraduates with concepts like the balance of power and the Eastern Question until, despite the best endeavours of brilliant showmen like A. J. P. Taylor, the whole approach was mort-

ally wounded in the 1960s. New historiographical trends questioned the validity of an approach to the world's affairs that assumed all that mattered was what happened in the various embassies and foreign ministries of the Great Powers.

Urged to become aware of new forms of power - economic and cultural - and hemmed in by the practitioners of a vigorous and revitalized social history, scholars of the

history of international relations went in for a spot of rebranding and now called what they did "international history". The change was not purely cosmetic. Influenced, however subliminally, by theorists ranging from Gramsci to

Robert Gilpin, international historians covered previously obscure and unfashionable subjects like the politics of trade and money, or cultural imperialism. But their craft still rested firmly on a foundation of archival research amid ministerial files and the private papers of leading policy-makers. David Reynolds has been a brilliant practitioner of this kind of history, and enjoys a high reputation as a specialist on Anglo-American relations during the twentieth century.

But now the field has undergone another

metamorphosis, into something called "global history". This time round, policy-making and crisis management tussle for attention with more intangible factors, such as demography and technology, the resurgence of religion, and alterations in social structure and labour