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Summary Globalisation Book Summery
- Instelling
- Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RuG)
A summery of the Book Globalisation in World History by Stears (the third edition). Completely in English.
[Meer zien]Voorbeeld 3 van de 23 pagina's
Voorbeeld 3 van de 23 pagina's
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CHAPTER 1: GLOBALISATION AND THE CHALLENGE TO HISTORICAL ANALYSISFrom the left: globalisation does not serve the interests of the vast majority of people and is
unsustainable. From the right: it causes hundreds of workers poverty. Globalisation erases
national values and enhances extremist terrorist groups. It is harming us more than it is helping
us. Many argue that it is irresistible but recently people have started saying that it can be
opposed. Because of the belief that it is irresistible it has helped beliefs of nationalism or
radicalism.
Globalisation is the intensification of contacts among different parts of the world and the
creation of networks that increasingly shape human life. Globalisation has shaped the way we
live our lives (example: you can find McDonalds anywhere in the world, kids play with
pokemon).
The term globalisation originated in the late 1980s, back then it was viewed as a good thing. But
how new is globalisation really?
Globalisation cannot be fully understood without historical context about what processes took
place to get to this point.
The ‘new global’ historians argue that globalisation is a huge change, the greatest in human
history. They argue that it started in the 1950s and that it is the great gulf between the present
and the future. Another group of historians (world historians) argue that globalisation started in
the late 19th century. Another group argues that history divides in 1000 CE (na Christus) with
the increasing contact between regions. They call attention to societies in China and the Arab
world instead of the Western view of the other groups. Finally a group had begun to argue that
globalisation has been emerging in phases. The globalisation of trade goes a lot further back
than the globalisation of sports. This is what we focus on in this book.
There are four major turning points: around 1000, around 1500, around 1850 and in recent
decades. It is important to think about the interaction between global and regional factors,
different societies have different reactions to globalisation. An historical approach to this shows
how these differences develop.
The pull to separate and the pull to connect both go far back in human history. Separation
started with the hunters and gatherers, they lived in groups but the space between groups was
huge. This encouraged development of distinct identities. This model did enforce migration
because if a group became too big the population would force some members to migrate. The
isolation should not however be overestimated, groups did have contact with each other and
languages would often develop similarly. But larger contact networks could not develop because
of the distance and the differences between groups. Agriculture enforced these differences
because people didn’t have to move around as much as they had been while hunting and
gathering. However people would travel to obtain for example bronze after 4000 BCE. This way
trade contacts emerged and villages started to specialise in certain products. It became clear
that long-distance contacts could result in learning and so scholars started to travel, the Greeks
went to Egypt to learn mathematics in early Greek history and Chinese people went to India to
,seek Buddhist wisdom. Another reason for travel would be the quest for adventure and new
experience. Finally local conditions could be reasons to leave, crowding or exhaustion of local
resources.
Neither the motivations nor the institutions or technologies existed to create a truly global
outreach but they could produce experimentation and change.
CHAPTER 2: EMERGING PATTERNS OF CONTACT, 1200 BCE–1000 CE: A
PREPARATORY PHASE
Before 1000 BC most regions built networks within larger regions, networks for cultural and
political exchange. Efforts to reach beyond larger regions had no impact for the majority of the
human population.
Migration was the earliest human encounter with long distances but it did not set up structures
of exchange, the migrants usually did not return. They sometimes mixed with other groups but
they did not return. Trade did bring interactions between groups. Overland trade made for the
emergence of the domestication of pack animals. This was crucial for the advance of landbased
travel. Often longer distance trade did not involve direct connections but it operated in
interregional hops. Because of this many societies were unclear about where a product
originated from. Early ventures were often between two neighbouring regions and they often
were interrupted.
There often was hesitation about commercially based contacts because of merchants, they
were vital to the exchange process but were distrusted by many because of their profit motives
and because they seemed to defer from the high-prestige aristocrats. As a result of the low
interregional outreach many promising projects had little outcome, an explorer who went around
the entirety of Africa had no result.
After 800 BCE major civilizations, like China during the Han dynasty, began the stretch over a
large territory. Leaders would try to develop an internal network that would somewhat work as a
coherent whole. In China and India these efforts were quite successful, they created durable
values and institutions that would provide internal coherence and distinction from other major
societies. These efforts took a great deal of energy and focus and would result in discouraging
reaching for wider contacts. The Greeks and Chinese began to call other people ‘barbarians’. At
the same time these huge empires would expand into new territories that had previously not
been in the patterns of exchange. These empires created infrastructure that could facilitate a
wider outreach by making travel easier. The Persian empire began in 556 BCE and would
achieve a great size for at least a century. The rulers created impressive highways that would
connect the empire. The main purpose was to facilitate communication and trade and to move
the military forces easily. The networks also helped foreigners move through the territory. The
Middle East became an entrepot for exchanges between the east and the west. Similar
developments took place in the Chinese and Roman empires. By building the internal
infrastructure for overland travel but also the seaports in both the Indian Ocean and the
Mediterranean, the classical civilizations extended contact with each other. -> Silk Road. Silk
Road trade linked East Asia with other parts of the continent and with Europe. But the trade still
happened mainly through regional hops. In the Indian Ocean spices were the core of trade.
, This economic globalisation developed in three continents and the wealthy consumers
developed tastes for goods that could only be brought long distance. Clear routes were
established. During this time some key habits and specific connections and processes were
established that would build into the world we know today. It set a foundation. There was a link
developed for luxury products. However technological exchange did not happen, neither did
cultural and artistic exchange. Interregional knowledge was limited. People may have loved the
product but they had little knowledge about where it came from.
The collapse of the great classical empires severely threatened the interregional linkages that
did exist. Overland travel became way more dangerous and merchants from Rome or China
withdrew from the Indian Ocean. During the collapse of the classical empires several major
religions began to spread more widely. Buddhism now began to move beyond India and
reached into Southeast Asia and China. Christianity broke from the Roman empire and moved
toward northern Europe and parts of Africa and the middle east. After 600 CE the Islam would
spread even faster. The spread of world religions reflected the wider contacts already
developing among parts of Africa, Asia and Europe. They also encouraged contacts, a shared
religion is a connection you already have. Expanding religions also provided new motives for
travel, people might seek study opportunities in spiritual centres and want to travel to holy sight.
But the emergence of world religions also inspired hostility between people.
Overall the building blocks for later connections were created in the classical periods but further
change was essential for even a primitive form of globalisation.
CHAPTER 3: 1000 CE AS TURNING POINT: BIRTH OF GLOBALISATION?
Around 1000 CE a network had emerged that was wide ranging and with regular contacts. A
world historian had said that before 1000 CE the most important factors shaping human life
were regionally separate and distinctive, contacts only had a small role. After 1000 CE societies
increasingly functioned in response to contacts, communications and imitations. This obviously
was built upon previous links and trade relationships. The networks developed were Afro-
Eurasian, not global. That is why many historians see this period as ‘archaic globalisation’.
However these contacts were crucial for the later extension to the Americas and the Pacific
Ocean, those expeditions were not to find new land but to find a faster route between Asia and
Europe. Long distance travel was after 1000 CE no longer a rarity, that signalled the beginning
of a new era in terms of interregional contacts. Mapping increased, the Arab mapmakers led the
way, these maps facilitated additional contacts. Dependence on long-distance trade increased,
for the Chinese silk continued to be important but the export now also included porcelain (by the
late 7th century porcelain surpassed silk in importance because the Byzantine empire started to
produce silk too). They began to import tea and other food from Southeast Asia. In the middle
east slaves from Africa became a regularity. Indian cotton went to Japan and later Eruopa. In
the 14th century Europe started to import sugar. Some long-distance products began to move
through the whole population, not just the elites. Part of China during the Song dynasty began to
depend on production for export. Before 1000 CE several crucial developments took place: the
Islam rose and spread rapidly, Christianity and Buddhism continued to spread and the Chinese
Empire revived and began to exercise wider regional influence. Arab and Islamic merchants and
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