Globalization and the challenge to historical analysis | 5

ABSTRACT

Globalization: in its literal sense the “process of transformation of local phenomena into global ones … a process by which the people of the world are uniﬁed into a single society and function together.” This process is a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces, though globalization terminology is often used to focus primarily on economics – the integration of national economies into an international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital ﬂows, migration, and the spread of technology. The formal deﬁnition risks being too abstract (and the reference to “a

single society” may be overdoing things a bit, at least so far). But the process has real human meaning. It refers (in the ﬁnancial crisis of 2008) to Americans who wake up at 3 a.m. to check Asian stock markets, because they know these will inﬂuence and foreshadow Wall Street later in the day. It refers to global McDonald’s, with 31,000 locations worldwide, all with a common emphasis on fairly greasy food served quickly and (in principle at least) cheerfully. It refers to a quarter of the world’s population (regardless of the time zone) glued to televised accounts of World Cup soccer. It refers to the millions of American kids playing with Japanese toys like Hello Kitty or (not too long ago) Pokémon, or the charitable contributions from around the world pouring into disaster areas like tsunami-hit southeast Asia or Katrinadevastated New Orleans. It refers … – the list is long indeed, with an impressive range of arenas and activities. The term globalization is quite new, widely introduced only in the late

1980s/early 1990s, though the Japanese used an equivalent concept in the 1960s. (My computer spellchecker still does not recognize the word, and keeps urging me to remove it – but I’m writing a book about it instead.) The term, and the concept behind it, were not coined by historians, but rather by other social scientists, with economists in the lead. These theorists in turn, implicitly or explicitly, argued that globalization identiﬁed a phenomenon whose nature and consequences were quite novel, leading to very diﬀerent inter-regional interactions and human experiences from anything that had occurred before. Most of them also contended that this global innovation

was largely a good thing, producing not only a diﬀerent but also a better world; but it was also possible to make the same claims about novelty but conclude that the results were unfortunate – the world is indeed diﬀerent and getting worse. Primary attention, in other words, tended to focus on the quality claims associated with globalization, the list of advantages and drawbacks, which is indeed a vital topic. Thomas Friedman, for example, an articulate popularizer of the globali-

zation idea, came up with the dramatic statement that no two countries that have McDonald’s restaurants have ever gone to war with each other – meaning that societies that successfully participate in global consumerism will become much more cautious about belligerence, because they will have other pleasures they seek to protect and a lot to lose. Others, convinced that the global economy and global connections will lead to new wars over access to scarce resources, also assume that globalization brings change, but simply paint an opposite picture of probable impacts. What tends to get buried in these types of debate is the equally important

question about the innovation claims associated with the globalization concept, which is where historians and historical perspectives come in. How new is globalization, compared to previous patterns of contact among societies in diﬀerent regions of the world? What’s the diﬀerence between a multinational corporation – one of the bearers of globalization today – and the international corporation of the late 19th century, or indeed the international trading company of the 16th century? No one can contest that contemporary globalization harbors unprecedented features – the Internet is purely and simply new; the capacity for a quarter of the world’s population simultaneously to watch that same sports event is purely and simply new. But claims about globalization as a huge departure in the human experience go beyond these narrower examples, and they should depend on a very careful assessment about how the globalization process stacks up against earlier changes in contacts and their results. Figuring out more explicitly when globalization began is also an essential

component of determining what caused it. Some discussions of globalization seem to assume that it dropped out of the sky, with at most a few generalized references to changes in technology. In fact, of course, a variety of very conscious human decisions are involved, for example in determining not only what technologies to use but how local policies are meant to coordinate, or not coordinate, with potential international arrangements on issues such as immigration or foreign investment. Wrapped up in the discussion of the newness of globalization is an analysis of how its timing can be explained. One way to ask about origins, in fact, is to determine the point at which the motivations to accelerate global exchanges became so compelling that further expansion of actual contacts was virtually assured. It’s at least possible that attention to causes and motivations will push chronology back a bit, without ignoring the importance of more recent developments, like the Internet,

in shaping an additional stage in the globalization process. Root causes, in other words, may predate important but more surface manifestations. Even the debate about the quality of globalization’s eﬀects – the debate

about advantages and drawbacks – hinges in part on the assessment of novelty. McDonald’s as an international restaurant chain is new, but the sharing of food habits and products across boundaries goes farther back in time (and did not turn out to prevent war). So are McDonald’s and contemporary consumerism new enough for us to assume that older human tendencies, like war, will be submerged; or should we be more cautious in these assessments? The same applies to the pessimistic side: recent globalization probably has increased economic inequalities among diﬀerent parts of the world, but the process of creating regional economic inequalities goes much farther back in time – so are we really heading toward some new kind of global perdition? We need a more focused historical discussion to help sort this all out. This said, we must also oﬀer a few confessions about historians and his-

torical study. Historians as a breed tend to love to fuss about origins, sometimes to the point of tediousness. Any study of globalization in historical perspective must talk about origins, entertaining arguments that the eﬀective beginnings of globalization occurred earlier than current theorists posit. But the real point of the analysis is not, in fact, to argue that we have to push globalization’s origins a few decades or perhaps a few centuries earlier. Rather, the goal is to use a discussion of globalization’s relationship with prior patterns of inter-regional contacts to determine more precisely what is really new about the recent developments, particularly beyond speciﬁc technology, and whether the current changes constitute in fact a huge jolt of the unexpected or, rather, an acceleration of experiences to which many societies had already adjusted. Historians (like most scholars) also like to argue. Thus one group, calling

themselves 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 nonhistorians prefer, pointing back to the 1950s or so for the onset of the contemporary current. But they’re adamant about seeing the phenomenon as a great gulf between present and future conditions, on the one hand, and the bulk of the human past on the other. Indeed, they like to distinguish themselves from world historians, arguing that their “global” history alone captures the uniqueness of recent change instead of burying it in the catalogue of centuries. Against this, though somewhat less ﬁercely, another cluster of historians has begun to urge that it’s the later 19th century, not the later 20th, that should be seen as the true globalization seedbed. 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. Then of course there’s a small but vocal contingent who argue that it’s not

globalization and convergence at all that are shaping our present and future, but an ominous “clash of civilizations” that will pit the West against Islam, with societies emanating from the Confucian tradition possibly a third competitive force. This group, championed by a Harvard political scientist, would not necessarily deny the importance of new contacts and globe-straddling technologies, but it would argue that the looming conﬂicts override this system in determining what will really aﬀect most people. Finally, and most recently, an important cluster of books has begun to

emerge that really does venture a more systematic historical look at globalization, generally arguing that relevant changes should be seen as emerging in phases (one of the major studies is in fact entitled The Three Waves of Globalization). These books have the great merit of moving our vision away from an exclusive focus on essentially contemporary developments, as in the new global history approach. They do tend, however, still to focus primarily on relatively recent change. The Three Waves, for example, turn out to be the 1750s, 1850s, and late 20th century. This may involve a neglect of earlier possibilities, as in the argument about the trans-regional network that had emerged in 1000. It also, and in related fashion, tends to focus quite heavily on contributions or burdens brought to the world by purely Western commercial and technological initiatives, whereas a somewhat more open view places greater recognition on Chinese and particularly Islamic innovations. So debate inevitably continues. This book seeks to add to the slim available literature in several ways: it

emphasizes the transcendent importance of globalization, as against the clash of civilizations approach, while recognizing however regional variations and disputes at every point in the process. It picks up on the idea of stages or waves of particularly important changes, but adds greater attention to chronologically earlier precedents; and by the same token it puts Western involvement in a somewhat larger perspective. Finally, as against any single schema, it urges the need for continued debate, for recognition of the complexities in picking any point of origin. It’s far more important to see the basic issues involved in assessing what globalization meant in any of its phases, and how it diﬀered from previous phases (particularly, of course, how present changes relate to those before), than insisting on any single formula. It is of course inevitable that the various existing approaches and debates,

like any arguments, have some sterile and nit-picking features. At base, however, they are genuinely important in guiding what kind of past perspective we apply to what’s going on today (which in turn is, at base, why history is not only worth studying, but must be studied). Judging the degree of change involved in a major phenomenon such as globalization is a key

application of historical analysis, vital to assess the amount of adjustment and dislocation that can be expected. And of course if the clash of civilization doomsayers are right and globalization doesn’t head the future agenda after all, it’s even more important to apply as much perspective as possible on recent historical trends and their probable relationship to the future. Establishing a historical ﬁx on globalization contributes as well to the thorny questions of costs and beneﬁts, the other established debate which suﬀers when globalization is pulled away from historical roots. There’s an additional twist here. In my experience, even fairly sophisticated

world history students, interested in globalization, don’t easily understand the speciﬁcs involved in assessing change when such a big phenomenon is involved. I’ve several times asked my college class when, in light of their work in world history, they would argue that globalization began, and almost always they come back with 1000 CE. This reﬂects the emphasis I’ve placed on the acceleration of inter-regional interactions at that time, and it’s a perfectly defendable conclusion. But it does not reﬂect (I fear) an adequate consideration of the options, or really a full understanding of how to measure the magnitudes of changes in a complex subject area like this. So I think a more explicit discussion will be useful, not in deciding the case once and for all but in facilitating more informed discussion and clearer awareness of the empirical and analytical issues. Other audiences can be involved as well, for globalization impinges on far more people than students alone. This book, then, will consider major changes in global contacts and pro-

cesses from 1000 CE onward, with particular attention to four major turning points: around 1000, around 1500, around 1850 and of course in recent decades. No one has yet clearly argued for globalization before 1000 (but as we will see there are some diﬀuse gestures in this direction), though even here there are a few issues to consider and certainly the need to establish a backdrop for the greater complexity in trading and contact patterns thereafter. The goal is to show how globalization in part ﬂows from prior change – to see it as part of a sequence of developments, with some ongoing motives and impacts attached – but also, through the same approach, to highlight features that are demonstrably and signiﬁcantly novel. This approach will also open some other kinds of discussion that an all-

or-nothing approach to globalization – either dramatically new or old hat – tends to obscure. In the ﬁrst place, it can help sort out regional experiences. Every serious analyst of globalization, even the most enthusiastic, urges interpretation that recognizes the interaction of the regional and the global. And it’s quite clear that diﬀerent societies have diﬀerent reactions to globalization, as a whole process and in terms of some of its constituent parts (like immigration, or consumer culture). A more explicitly historical approach shows how these diﬀerences develop, and even suggests that some societies formed basic commitments for or against globalization at diﬀerent points in time. Japan, for example, made key decisions on relationships with the rest

of the world after 1868 that have clearly conditioned its responses to the more recent rounds of globalization later in the 20th century. Parts of the Middle East and Africa, in contrast, have probably faced core issues more recently, while China arguably postponed full consideration of globalization until 1978. The historical approach also assists in disaggregating globalization in

terms of its constituent parts, each with a somewhat diﬀerent historical background. Migration and disease exchanges, for example, are important parts of contemporary globalization, and as such they should be analyzed in terms of how they contribute to change; but as basic processes, they go way back in human history. Global environmental impact (as opposed to more purely regional results of human activity), on the other hand, and global movements to protect the environment, are much newer. Deﬁnable global political arrangements (as opposed to more traditional relationships among nations) fall a bit in-between, older than global environmentalism but younger than disease exchange. Looking at globalization as the accumulation of diﬀerent types of connection helps to focus the relationship of current developments to the past. For globalization is both an intensiﬁcation of the range and speed of

contacts among diﬀerent parts of the world and an expansion of the kinds of activity intimately involved in global interactions. Both aspects help explain why global developments play an increasingly active role in shaping human lives, which is the key reason to study the phenomenon in the ﬁrst place. They explain also why globalization, even if ultimately judged to be a novel force, is not entirely new. We know most, of course, about the recent manifestations – the Internet

use, the speed of jet travel, the global popularity of media stars like Britney Spears. But it was several hundred years ago that many Europeans developed such a passion for a product they could not themselves produce – sugar – that they not only organized new trade routes to obtain it but actually seized both land and slaves in distant places in order to assure its output. It was a century and a half ago that it became apparent that a bank crisis in one place – more often than not, the United States – could topple ﬁnancial systems in other parts of the world. It was a century ago that a British economist, John Maynard Keynes, noted that “the inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea, the various products of the whole earth, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep,” even as the wars in other parts of the world seemed to be “little more than the amusements of his daily newspaper.” The question of when globalization began cannot be answered simply on the basis of our knowing more about the present. Contacts among diﬀerent societies have increasingly become the key focus

in world history scholarship and teaching, for they commonly involve such interesting tensions and attractions and so often produce changes in all the

societies involved. Globalization connects this core interest to the present, by forcing analysis not just of speciﬁc contact episodes but of how contact patterns built up into durable systems and motivations. Globalization today is partly the result of conscious planning, but it partly reﬂects the ambitions and daring of many people who knew they wanted to reach out for new goods or new ideas or new conquests without having any idea that what they were doing would some day amount to a new world system. By the same token, explicit resistance to globalization also builds on the past, on earlier eﬀorts to argue that too much contact risked loss of identity and loss of control.