ABSTRACT
Premises and contexts now in vogue for discussions of globalization (short term, present tense, futurist, policy oriented, narrowly focused, voluntaristic, purposive) should be supplemented and, to some extent, supplanted by others. Briefly, globalization should be seen as a nested set of processes, including very long-term processes, with deep historical and biological roots, on a wide functional scale, largely driven rather than chosen, towards the uncertain ends characteristic of complex systems.
