ABSTRACT
Handbooks written about international business generally pay scant attention to the historical developments which have led to the rise of international trade, commerce, and business and the impact this rise has had on Western society. In particular, the role of Western multinationals in creating the global economy of today is often taken as simple fact and perceived as a linear process and the outcome of a “natural” order. Some argue that this globalization was set in motion with the thirteenth-century Pax Mongolica when international trade of goods and cultural exchange of ideas moved relatively freely (O’Rourke and Williamson 2002). Others share a broader perspective and stress that globalization is a combined process of political, economic, and cultural changes resulting from the massive transnational circulation of goods, capital, ideas, and information through longdistance connections (Waters 1995). Others believe that a single global world economy based on the capitalist mode of production dates back to 1500, and inaugurated a global epoch of world history (Vries 2010).
