SUMMARY:
GLOBALIZATION IN
WORLD HISTORY
Edition 4, Stearns
Made by: Janneke Doff
,Contents
Part 1: Context Page 2
1 Globalization and The Challenge to Page 2
Historical Analysis
2 Emerging Patterns of Contact 1200 BCE / Page 3
1000 CE
Part 2: Early Globalization Page 5
3 The Birth of Globalization? Page 5
4 Transition, The Mongol Period Page 10
Part 3: Protoglobalization Page 10
5 The Main Features of Protoglobalization Page 11
(1500 – 1750)
6 A Late-18th-Century Transition Page 15
Part 4 Modern Globalization, 1850 – 1945 Page 17
7 The 1850s as Turning Point: The Birth hog Page 17
Modern Globalization
8 The Great Retreat, 1914-1945, and a New Page 25
Transition
Part 5 Contemporary Globalization Page 27
9 Contemporary Globalization since the Page 28
1940’s
10 A New Retreat? The Signs of Disruption Page 36
in the 21st Century
11 Conclusion / The Historical Perspective Page 39
1
,Part 1
Context
The argument is simple: Grasping the longer history of globalization, and even
spending a bit of time deciding when it “really” began, improves an understanding of
what the process is all about, why and how it is complicated by different regional
reactions, and why it continues to provoke considerable controversy.
1 Globalization and the Challenge to Historical Analysis
Globalization has long been a subject for dispute. Som observers have seen it as an
engine for economic growth and prosperity, or a framework for protection of human
rights and even a peaceful global community. Others have blasted it as a source of
corporate control and impoverishment. Specific debates also involve its regional
impact in a post-colonial but in a still very unequal world. Globalization is also
gaining ground in counties in different angels. From the left: globalizations promotes
economic and political systems that threaten the progressive goals. From the right:
globalization threatens the national feeling, workers lose their jobs to different
countries and countries lose their precious values.
Globalization provoked some sharp debates and that created different groups with
different opinions on the matter:
1. The new global historians: urges that recent globalization is indeed a huge change,
perhaps one of the greatest in human history. The group tends to opt for a
slightly more generous time span than some non-historians prefer, pointing back
to the 1950s or so for the onset of the contemporary current.
2. World historians: arguing that their “global” history alone captures the uniqueness
of recent change instead of burying it in the catalogue of centuries.
3. Less fiercely another cluster of historians think that the beginning of globalization
is in the later 19th century.
4. Against both, one eminent world historian contends that it’s around the year 1000
CE that human history divides between largely separate or regional experiences
(before) and increasing contact, imitation, and convergence (after); and if this is
true, more recent changes associated with globalization form merely the latest
iteration of this basic and long-standing momentum. is in the later 19th century.
5. A number of historians have begun to argue that globalization should be seen as
emerging in phases (one of the major studies is in fact entitled The Three Waves of
Globalization), rather than trying to pinpoint one burst of innovation.
History does not say, conclusively, whether contemporary globalization is on balance
bad or good, but it can suggest why evaluation has become more complicated and also
why different regions, as well as various political factions, take different positions on
the subject.
Four Major Turning Points: The text identifies important moments around 1000, 1500,
1850, and recent decades, with additional transitions in the 13th and 18th centuries.
These serve as anchors for analysing how global contacts evolved.
2
, Before 1000 CE: While few argue for true globalization before this point, the
groundwork (through trade, migration, and cultural exchange) was already being laid.
Regional Variations and Historical Decisions: Not One-Size-Fits-All: Globalization
affects regions differently. Historical decisions, like Japan’s Meiji Restoration in 1868
or China’s opening in 1978, shape how nations engage with global systems. Timing
Matters: Some regions faced globalization’s core challenges earlier than others,
influencing their current stance and integration.
Human Dispersion Before Agriculture:
o By 10,000 BCE, humans had populated nearly all habitable regions of the world,
except for remote islands like Hawaii and New Zealand.
o Some groups, such as the Aboriginal Australians, remained completely isolated
until modern times.
o Despite isolation, many small groups were part of broader regional networks,
sharing language families and occasionally interacting for trade, defence, or social
reasons.
Agriculture and Local Identity:
o The rise of agriculture anchored people to specific plots of land and villages,
reinforcing local identities and suspicion of outsiders.
o Unlike nomadic hunter-gatherers, agricultural communities were less mobile,
often passing land down through generations.
o Even today, some villagers, especially women, rarely travel far from home,
reflecting deep-rooted localism.
Early Motivations for Wider Contact:
1. Long-distance travel was often driven by the need for rare goods like tin (for
bronze), spices, and decorative materials.
2. Agricultural societies began exchanging crops and animals across regions.
3. Knowledge exchange also motivated travel: Greeks visited Egypt for
mathematics, and Chinese pilgrims travelled to India for Buddhist teachings.
Curiosity and Pressure:
o Some individuals ventured out simply for adventure or personal curiosity, though
their motivations are rarely documented.
o Local pressures like population growth, resource exhaustion, or military
ambitions also spurred migration and invasions.
The Slow Rise of Contact Networks:
o Despite these early impulses, most people remained focused on local concerns,
and broader networks developed slowly.
o These initial contacts laid the groundwork for future globalization, even if the
process was gradual and uneven.
2 Emerging Patterns of Contact 1200 BCE / 1000 CE
This chapter juggles the first set of issues in the effort to put globalization into
historical perspective: the distinction between undeniable and interesting inter-
regional contacts emerging early in the agricultural phase of human history, and the
fact that these contacts cannot be construed, by any plausible stretch of the
imagination, as constituting a preliminary form of globalization
By the 2nd century BCE, long distance trade started. An example of a good trading
path is the Silk Road.
3
GLOBALIZATION IN
WORLD HISTORY
Edition 4, Stearns
Made by: Janneke Doff
,Contents
Part 1: Context Page 2
1 Globalization and The Challenge to Page 2
Historical Analysis
2 Emerging Patterns of Contact 1200 BCE / Page 3
1000 CE
Part 2: Early Globalization Page 5
3 The Birth of Globalization? Page 5
4 Transition, The Mongol Period Page 10
Part 3: Protoglobalization Page 10
5 The Main Features of Protoglobalization Page 11
(1500 – 1750)
6 A Late-18th-Century Transition Page 15
Part 4 Modern Globalization, 1850 – 1945 Page 17
7 The 1850s as Turning Point: The Birth hog Page 17
Modern Globalization
8 The Great Retreat, 1914-1945, and a New Page 25
Transition
Part 5 Contemporary Globalization Page 27
9 Contemporary Globalization since the Page 28
1940’s
10 A New Retreat? The Signs of Disruption Page 36
in the 21st Century
11 Conclusion / The Historical Perspective Page 39
1
,Part 1
Context
The argument is simple: Grasping the longer history of globalization, and even
spending a bit of time deciding when it “really” began, improves an understanding of
what the process is all about, why and how it is complicated by different regional
reactions, and why it continues to provoke considerable controversy.
1 Globalization and the Challenge to Historical Analysis
Globalization has long been a subject for dispute. Som observers have seen it as an
engine for economic growth and prosperity, or a framework for protection of human
rights and even a peaceful global community. Others have blasted it as a source of
corporate control and impoverishment. Specific debates also involve its regional
impact in a post-colonial but in a still very unequal world. Globalization is also
gaining ground in counties in different angels. From the left: globalizations promotes
economic and political systems that threaten the progressive goals. From the right:
globalization threatens the national feeling, workers lose their jobs to different
countries and countries lose their precious values.
Globalization provoked some sharp debates and that created different groups with
different opinions on the matter:
1. The new global historians: urges that recent globalization is indeed a huge change,
perhaps one of the greatest in human history. The group tends to opt for a
slightly more generous time span than some non-historians prefer, pointing back
to the 1950s or so for the onset of the contemporary current.
2. World historians: arguing that their “global” history alone captures the uniqueness
of recent change instead of burying it in the catalogue of centuries.
3. Less fiercely another cluster of historians think that the beginning of globalization
is in the later 19th century.
4. Against both, one eminent world historian contends that it’s around the year 1000
CE that human history divides between largely separate or regional experiences
(before) and increasing contact, imitation, and convergence (after); and if this is
true, more recent changes associated with globalization form merely the latest
iteration of this basic and long-standing momentum. is in the later 19th century.
5. A number of historians have begun to argue that globalization should be seen as
emerging in phases (one of the major studies is in fact entitled The Three Waves of
Globalization), rather than trying to pinpoint one burst of innovation.
History does not say, conclusively, whether contemporary globalization is on balance
bad or good, but it can suggest why evaluation has become more complicated and also
why different regions, as well as various political factions, take different positions on
the subject.
Four Major Turning Points: The text identifies important moments around 1000, 1500,
1850, and recent decades, with additional transitions in the 13th and 18th centuries.
These serve as anchors for analysing how global contacts evolved.
2
, Before 1000 CE: While few argue for true globalization before this point, the
groundwork (through trade, migration, and cultural exchange) was already being laid.
Regional Variations and Historical Decisions: Not One-Size-Fits-All: Globalization
affects regions differently. Historical decisions, like Japan’s Meiji Restoration in 1868
or China’s opening in 1978, shape how nations engage with global systems. Timing
Matters: Some regions faced globalization’s core challenges earlier than others,
influencing their current stance and integration.
Human Dispersion Before Agriculture:
o By 10,000 BCE, humans had populated nearly all habitable regions of the world,
except for remote islands like Hawaii and New Zealand.
o Some groups, such as the Aboriginal Australians, remained completely isolated
until modern times.
o Despite isolation, many small groups were part of broader regional networks,
sharing language families and occasionally interacting for trade, defence, or social
reasons.
Agriculture and Local Identity:
o The rise of agriculture anchored people to specific plots of land and villages,
reinforcing local identities and suspicion of outsiders.
o Unlike nomadic hunter-gatherers, agricultural communities were less mobile,
often passing land down through generations.
o Even today, some villagers, especially women, rarely travel far from home,
reflecting deep-rooted localism.
Early Motivations for Wider Contact:
1. Long-distance travel was often driven by the need for rare goods like tin (for
bronze), spices, and decorative materials.
2. Agricultural societies began exchanging crops and animals across regions.
3. Knowledge exchange also motivated travel: Greeks visited Egypt for
mathematics, and Chinese pilgrims travelled to India for Buddhist teachings.
Curiosity and Pressure:
o Some individuals ventured out simply for adventure or personal curiosity, though
their motivations are rarely documented.
o Local pressures like population growth, resource exhaustion, or military
ambitions also spurred migration and invasions.
The Slow Rise of Contact Networks:
o Despite these early impulses, most people remained focused on local concerns,
and broader networks developed slowly.
o These initial contacts laid the groundwork for future globalization, even if the
process was gradual and uneven.
2 Emerging Patterns of Contact 1200 BCE / 1000 CE
This chapter juggles the first set of issues in the effort to put globalization into
historical perspective: the distinction between undeniable and interesting inter-
regional contacts emerging early in the agricultural phase of human history, and the
fact that these contacts cannot be construed, by any plausible stretch of the
imagination, as constituting a preliminary form of globalization
By the 2nd century BCE, long distance trade started. An example of a good trading
path is the Silk Road.
3
