This book examines prevalent notions of globalization, literary history, genre, and novel. Using close reading and world history, literary criticism and political theory, it intervenes in debates about world, postcolonial, and transnational literature as they've been intensified by critical globalization studies, world-systems analysis, and cosmopolitanism. Essays examine literary genres in relation to broader historical processes, connecting the present state of globalization to a wide range of world-historic events. Innovative readings of the pastoral, travel and sports writing, postcolonial Gothic, chick lit, and other topics make vital contributions to a renewed discussion about genre.