This review of major debates on globalization shows that different social science disciplines hold quite diverse views on the scope, character, and timing of globalization. The questions of globalization and culture that this book focuses on are part of much wider controversies. This discussion provides a context to the perspective on globalization that I adopt in the following chapters—in brief, a critical, multidimensional, and long-term approach to globalization that is closer to historical sociology, anthropology. history, and global political economy than to mainstream sociology or other disciplines.