Origins of Globalization

* Article: Origins of Globalization Leonid E. Grinin and Andrey V. Korotayev. In: Globalistics and Globalization Studies 2013 8–35

URL = http://www.sociostudies.org/books/files/globalistics_and_globalization_studies_2/008-035.pdf

Abstract

“In this article we analyze processes and scales of global integration in historical perspective, starting with the Agrarian Revolution. We connect the main phases of historical globalization with the processes of the development of the Afroeurasian world-system. In the framework of the Afroeurasian worldsystem the integration began several millennia BCE. In it the continental and supracontinental links became so developed long before the Great Geographic Discoveries and thus they could well be denoted as global (albeit in a somehow limited sense). Among some researchers there is still a tendency to underestimate the scale of those links in the pre-Industrial era; thus, it appeared necessary to provide additional empirical support for our statement. It also turned necessary to apply a special methodology (which necessitated the use of the world-system approach). We analyze some versions of periodization of globalization history. We also propose our own periodization of the globalization history basing on the growth of the scale of intersocietal links as an indicator of the level of globalization development. Keywords: globalization, world-systems, Afroeurasian world-system, World System, global communication, cycles of political hegemony, Agrarian revolution, Industrial revolution, technologies.

On Goals and Tasks of the Article:

In the framework of this article we attempt to solve the following tasks:

1) to demonstrate that it was already a few thousand years ago (at least since the formation of the system of long-distance large-scale trade in metals in the 4th millennium BCE) when the scale of systematic trade relationships overgrew signifi cantly the local level and became regional (and even transcontinental in a certain sense);

2) to show that already in the late 1st millennium BCE the scale of processes and links within the Afroeurasian world-system did not only exceed the regional level, it did not only reach the continental level, but it also went beyond continental limits. That is why we contend that within this system marginal systemic contacts between agents of various levels (from societies to individuals) may be defi ned as transcontinental (note that here we are dealing not with overland contacts only, as since the late 1st millennium BCE in some cases we confront oceanic contacts – the most salient case is represented here by the Indian Ocean communication network; Grinin

3) to demonstrate that even prior to the Great Geographic Discoveries the scale of the global integration in certain respects could be comparable with the global integration in more recent periods. In particular, demographically, even 2000 years ago the really integrated part of the humankind encompassed 90 per cent of all the world population.

Our analysis suggests that the abovementioned marginal level of integration within the framework of the Afroeurasian world-system was not something insignifi cant or virtual; it infl uenced substantially the general direction of development, it accelerated signifi cantly the development of many social systems whose rate of development would have been otherwise much slower. It is rather clear that it took signals rather long time to get from one end of the world-system to another – actually, many orders of magnitude longer than now – but still such signals went through the pre-Modern Afroeurasian world-system, and they caused very signifi cant transformations. However, this speed was not always really low. For example, the bubonic plague pandemia (that killed dozens million) spread from the Far East to the Atlantic Ocean within two decades (in the 1330s and 1340s [see, e.g., McNeill 1976; Dols 1977; Borsch 2005]). Such fast and vigorous movements were connected directly with growing density of contacts and their diversifi cation that opened way to rapid diffusion of pathogens. Note that the Mongol warriors went from the Pacifi c zone to the Atlantic zone of Eurasia with a rather similar speed. The article also deals with a number of other issues that are important both for the world-system approach and for the study of the globalization history – such as the typology of the world-system links, special features of the Afroeurasian world-system, the possible dating of the start of its formation, factors of its transformation into the planetary World System, and so on. “