ABSTRACT
During the late twentieth century and especially since the end of the Cold War, the term globalization* began to appear frequently in connection with all sorts of issues and developments. By the 1990s, observers were noting that world societies were becoming linked in so many different ways that it seemed as if the world was shrinking: diffusion and acculturation were taking place so regularly and rapidly that national borders had less and less relevance to the events taking place within them. Even before the end of the century, it was clear that the era of globalization had arrived.
