This chapter introduces the growing field of world history and its intellectual predecessors to make the argument why Greco-Roman society needs to find its place within this fast evolving discourse. Recontextualizing the classical experience within a wider world history will allow Greco-Roman history to be aligned more closely with the global norm, rather than remain an anomaly in European history. But ancient history does not simply have to be at the receiving end of the putative dialogue. The field has a long prior record of engaging in a creative dialogue both with anthropology and historical sociology. The former favoured the study of culture; the latter promoted societal comparison. Currently, world history is torn between a focus on cultural connection and on historical comparison. Building on the past experience of classics, this chapter will equally show how a glance at Greco-Roman society may help the field of world history both to overcome this division. An Afro-Eurasian arena is identified as the context for parallel and interconnected developments of peasantries and slavery, universal empires, literary cultures, world trade in charismatic goods and rebellions.

Through diplomatic protection, aliens could invest abroad with the expectation that if they were injured in an unstable country, international law would provide an additional framework of protection. The US practice ensured that the content and scope of international obligations would extend beyond ad hoc diplomacy to international arbitration, where professional lawyers began to articulate general principles of state responsibility. The most important of these principles was the minimum standard of care owed to aliens. If a state failed to meet international standards, its legal responsibility was engaged. Latin American lawyers, however, were unhappy with state responsibility being applied in this way. In response to what they viewed as legal imperialism, Latin Americans expanded the doctrine to apply to the US and Latin Americans alike and to the violation of any international obligation and not just alien protection. In this way, what began as a narrow practice in Latin America, grew into a general framework of international law enforcement.