ABSTRACT
How are the economic relationships between Europe and North America being affected by the globalization of firms and markets? In attempting to answer this question, this chapter sets it within a historical perspective. It does so because the level and pattern of contemporary transatlantic trade, investment and technology flows are not only the outcome of recent economic forces, but are a reflection of the social and religious values of the European and American people, their institutions and their forms of economic governance, which were initially crafted more than three centuries ago, and which only now are being challenged by the advent of the global village.
