This volume begins with a set of preliminary essays that introduce globalization and the large-scale trends that have created the “global state.” While Ilanna Mandel focuses on the globalization of privatized medical care, Sinclair Nicholas examines experts’ opinions on the interrelationship between poverty, disease, and healthcare systems across the world. Mandel builds upon the topic of globalization with her essay on “Health & Medicine in Modern Society,” which discusses how “people across a vast range of cultures create meaning in health and illness” and how the notion of what it means to be healthy varies widely from one society to the next.