ABSTRACT
Many people think of the global system as beginning on the morning of October 12, 1492, when Europeans first established lasting contact with Western Hemisphere people. From a broader perspective, however, Columbus's first voyage was simply one part of a 400-year-long transition to a global society. The 400-year span between the first voyage of the Chinese treasure fleet in 1405 and the first use of steam power to move a vehicle on wheels in 1804 was a crucial turning point in the process of globalization. The Europe was able to seize this historic opportunity was due as much as anything to its ability to exploit the new energy and other resources of the Americas, Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. Perhaps more vividly than any other episode in global history, the Age of Discovery illustrates the central importance of a periphery to which a dynamic core can dissipate its entropy.
