Globalisation: A Book Analysis

Globalisation is usually taken to be new and modern, a concept that seemingly originated recently with the ‘shrinking of the world’ due to advancements in technology. Many analyses of globalisation have taken the late 20th century as their starting point, yet is globalisation all that new? In Globalisation: A Short History Osterhammel and Petersson, both historians, argue that globalisation started in the 1500s, “… a turning point at which globalisation becomes a central feature of history and of many human experiences” (p. 146). In the book the authors attempt to show how globalisation involves various integrative frameworks that arise from interrelated groups in different eras. They trace these processes from the early modern period (1500s)

From 1500-1750, globalisation was marked by military expansion of empires as well as the start of long-distance trade. New spheres of interaction also formed in this period: in 1557 “the gateway to Asia was open to Europeans for good” (p. 43) and the Americas became the centre for European economic expansion as “the continent of ’unlimited potential’” (p. 47). It was in this period that Europe became perceived as the centre of the world, heralding the emergence of a global consciousness. The second period (1750-1880) was the age of imperialism and revolutions. Politics became a major source of conflict in the Western Hemisphere, and the authors posit that this crisis between Old and New Worlds was “the result of intense processes of integration” (p. 61). The Industrial Revolution that emerged in Great Britain became a motor for integration in other areas of life such as production, transportation and communications. Economically this period characterised the rise of liberalism and free trade, which met with resistance from non-European empires or states such as Japan, China and Siam. The authors also claim that a world economy emerged in this period. The turn of the century and the two World Wars (1880-1945) brought the experience of the global to every corner of the world. For the first time, economics, politics and war became the central integrating experience of peoples found all over the globe. Power in the world then shifted from Europe to the United States of America (USA) to usher in the ‘American Century’. In the final period (1945-1970s) the authors focus on the integration of Europe and institutions of the global economy such as the Bretton Woods institutions put in place after the Second World War. They question the globalisation of sociocultural practices with the hegemony of America bringing ‘Americanisation’ to the world. The age of