Editorial - the roots of global civil society and the interwar moment

This piece, the introduction to a volume which brings together articles covering South and Southeast Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, Africa and the Americas, contends that the concept of global civil society offers a powerful analytical tool to understand the transnational associational life which flourished across these continents in the interwar years. It points to the paradoxical nature of this period, which witnessed both the de-globalisation of the world and a growing sense of global interconnectivity. But it also advocates an approach attentive to the circulation and translation of ideas and practices of civil society, and the ways these were embodied in the public organisations and institutions – from newspapers to peace leagues and cultural clubs – which proliferated throughout the world from the late nineteenth century onward. Finally, it invites scholars to reflect upon the varied, contingent meanings of the global – and the limits to such globalist visions.