newbie question, finding minima and maxima



Is there a simple way to make look Maxima for a (preferably global) 
maximum of a function?
I know of course you can use the derivative(s) and look for critical 
points etc. but because I don't want to "reinvent the wheel" I wonder 
whether Maxima already has a function like globalmax(f(x),[a,b]) or 
something similar which just returns the point for which f(x) has its 
maximum value.

regards,
hugo