Perspectives beyond Nation-based Historiography: A Note for the Studies of Global History and Modern History Ryuto SHIMADA This article argues great possibilities of further development of historical studies in Japan, focusing on transnational and global history. Many Japanese historians have recognized the weakness of nationbased historical research, and they are overcoming this weakness by making several types of new attempts. Based on this stance on the situation of Japanese academia, the article provides three new perspectives to accomplish further development of transnational and global historiography. The first perspective concerns world history in the early modern period. The article places a stress of the significance of further research on early modern history of the world, especially Asian history. The period between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries is highly important, as several key factors to the modern society were created during this period. The second one is on the usefulness of the records of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The VOC records scattered in the world are extremely helpful sources for maritime Asian history and for the research of the Euro-Asian history in the early modern period. The third perspective is related to global history writing through survey of particular goods. The article shows immense possibilities of history of materials for the research of global history. As shown by the seminal work by Sidney W. Mintz on sugar, historical writings on particular goods highly contribute to the development of global history. The article, however, argues that not only world commodity but also other materials are able to be excellent objectives for the research of transnational and global history.