Along with the support of other foundations and institutions, the Toynbee Foundation sponsors international conferences on important historical questions that arise from, or are freshly addressed through, global history approaches.
This initiative began with an international conference funded by the Culpeper Foundation and held in Bellagio, Italy, in 1991. There, participants sought to conceptualize the new sub-field and to suggest ways to implement it. The results of the conference were published as Conceptualizing Global History, ed. Bruce Mazlish & Ralph Buultjens (Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Press, 1993).
Since that first conference and the publication that grew out of it, the Foundation has sponsored several other international gatherings that reflect the growth of interest in global history. Our Officers are always open to new ideas for future conferences. Interested parties may direct inquiries to officers@toynbeeprize.org.
- 1993: “Global Civilization and Local Cultures” (in Darmstadt, Germany, funded by the Technische Hochschule and the Thyssen Foundation, with articles published separately)
- 1995: “Global History and Migrations” (in Hong Kong, funded by the University of Hong Kong, with results published in an eponymous a book edited by Wang Gungwu)
- 1997: “Food in Global History” (in Ann Arbor, Michigan, funded by the University of Michigan and the Toynbee Foundation, with results published in a book of that title edited by Raymond Grew)
- 2003: “Mapping the Multinationals” (in Pocantico Hills, New York, funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund)
- 2003: “Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and the New Global History” (in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with results published in a book edited by Alfred D. Chandler and Bruce Mazlish, with graphs and quantitative data published in book entitled Globalinc, edited by Medard Gabel and Henry Bruner.
- 2003: “The Paradox of a Global USA” (in New Haven, Connecticut, with results published in an eponymous volume edited by Nayan Chanda, Bruce Mazlish, and Kenneth Weisbrode)
- 2003: “New Global History and the City” (in St. Petersburg, Russia, with papers published in a book edited by Elliott Morss)
- 2004: “Globalization, Philanthropy, and Civil Society” (in Pocantico Hills, New York, with papers published in an eponymous book edited by Soma Hewa and Darwin H. Stapleton)
- 2005: “Childhood in Global History” (in Fairfax, Virginia, with papers published in special issue of the Journal of Social History)
- 2012: “Law and Human Rights in Global History” (in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with papers published in the December 2012 issue of New Global Studies)