ABSTRACT
We currently live in a planetary-wide world system. For many, this is something of a novelty. People of this persuasion view globalization as a wholly contemporary process that began only yesterday and seems overwhelming in its potential to disturb long-settled attitudes and expectations. For others, though, globalization is something less than novel. Under way for thousands of years, the contemporary manifestations of a very old process may contain novelty in pace and scope-but the basic substance of growing interdependence is relatively familiar.
