Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past
Jerry H. Bentley is professor of history at the University of Hawai`i and editor of theJournal of World History. His research on the religious, moral, and political writings of Renaissance humanists led to the publication ofHumanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance(Princeton, 1983) andPolitics and Culture in Renaissance Naples(Princeton, 1987). More recently, his research has concentrated on global history and particularly on processes of cross-cultural interaction. His bookOld World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times(New York, 1993) examines processes of cultural exchange and religious conversion before the modern era, and his pamphletShapes of World History in Twentieth-Century Scholarship(Washington, D.C., 1996) discusses the historiography of world history. His current interests include processes of cross-cultural interaction and cultural exchanges in modern times.Herbert F. Ziegler is an associate professor of history at the University of Hawai'i. He has taught courses on world history for the last 19 years and is currently the director of the world history program at the University of Hawai'i. For several years, he also served as the book review editor of the 'Journal of World History'. His interest in twentieth-century European social and political history led to the publication of 'Nazi Germany's New Aristocracy (1990)'. He is at present working on a study that explores uncharted aspects of German society, especially the cultural manifestations of humor and satire in the Nazi era. His other current research project focuses on the application of complexity theory to a comparative study of societies and their internal dynamics.