In our introduction to this Special Issue on early modern cities and globalization, we explore the current place of cities before 1850 in global urban history and address the promise of a greater focus on their role. We argue that the interplay between the large scale and the small scale in the imperial global city is an essential dialogical force in the formation of each city's relationship to the wider early modern world. Furthermore, early modern global urban history can help explain the creation of spaces that facilitated connections between distant, global locations, as well as illuminate the emergence of networks of exchange between city communities around the globe. Yet, it also reveals the tense, messy negotiation of the meaning of these urban spaces, as well as the incredibly diverse communities they harboured.

中文翻译：

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深入了解全球城市的过去

在我们对本期关于早期现代城市和全球化的特刊的介绍中，我们探讨了 1850 年之前的城市在全球城市历史中的当前位置，并承诺更加关注它们的作用。我们认为，帝国全球城市中大尺度和小尺度之间的相互作用是形成每个城市与更广泛的早期现代世界关系的重要对话力量。此外，早期现代全球城市史有助于解释空间的创造，这些空间促进了遥远的全球地点之间的联系，并阐明了全球城市社区之间交流网络的出现。然而，它也揭示了对这些城市空间的意义的紧张、混乱的协商，以及它们所拥有的令人难以置信的多样化社区。