"This essay, written with the fluency and liveliness that one has come to expect from Gruzinski, juxtaposes, compares and contrasts two texts, one written in Istanbul and the other in Mexico, offering reflections on early modern history, geography and astrology and showing that the globalization of information has a longer history than is generally thought." Peter Burke, University of Cambridge "Gruzinski's provocative argument explores the linkages of Christian Europe, Islam and the Americas that created a Renaissance global vision, not only through political or economic ties and parallels ,but through the millenarian and apocalyptic hopes and fears of the time. Learned and innovative, this essay explores the process of globalization at the very origins of the modern world." Stuart B. Schwartz, Yale University "Serge Gruzinski offers a brilliant multi-sited comparative study for an alternative history of modernity and globalization. Goa, Istambul, and Mexico City displace Amsterdam, London, and Paris." Jose Rabasa, Harvard University