This volume presents results of an interdisciplinary research project on the globalization of knowledge. The project is centered at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. It was launched in 2007 at the 97Dahlem Workshop on Globalization of Knowledge and its Consequences, a Dahlem Conference hosted by the Free University Berlin and supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The Dahlem Conferences, with their unique mode of scholarly interaction, have played a key role in fostering an interdisciplinary cooperation that covers a vast array of disciplines, cultures and historical periods. I am grateful to Katharina Ochse, as well as to my colleagues from the Advisory Board of the Dahlem Conferences, for initiating us into the procedures of this workshop model. The numerous documents, papers, commentaries, reviews and discussion statements that have been produced in the process have all turned out to be essential in producing this volume.