This volume offers an historical and comparative overview of the literature, theory, practices and critiques of what has been variously labelled 'global' or 'transnational' civil society, which includes a broad range of non-state actors, political, social and economic. The volume includes an introductory essay that historicizes and problematizes the relationship of society to state and market and contextualizes the pieces in the volume, while locating the literature in relationship to international relations, political science and sociology.