Global history is clearly booming. It is time to bother less about cooking books and focus on the actual cooking. In this issue the reader will find survey articles, case-studies, and, in particular, contributions in which practitioners of global history tell us about their career, their points of view and their actual work. Analysing best practices and watching best practitioners is much more informative than trying to formulate and follow general rules and principles. The editor has consciously chosen to try and present a ‘state of the art-overview’, which gives an impression of what is actually going on in global history. The well-known authors who contribute to this issue do live in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, The Netherlands and the United States.