The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions

The colonization of the Americas and the expanded trade with Asia also unleashed a new frenzy of consumerism in Europe, marked by soaring demand for spices from Asia and Africa. The most sought after products were tea, silks, and porcelain from China; fine textiles from India; coffee from Yemen; and a trio of addictive products from America’s new c

The period from 3000 to 1000 BCE marked decisive civilizational advances in the Fertile Crescent, including Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. Similar advances occurred in other riverine civilizations (the Indus, the Yellow River, and the Yangtze). Breakthroughs included technological and institutional advances in agriculture, public administratio

By 1259, the Mongol Empire had reached the astounding extent shown in figure 5.11, making it the largest contiguous land empire in history.

Paleo-geneticists suggest that much of Europe’s population in fact reflects the admixture of two populations: the first originating with early farmers from Anatolia and the second with the Yamnaya people, itself an admixture of hunter-gatherer populations.

With that in mind, I want us to consider three great issues for our time as we use our backward gaze at history to gain insights for the future. First, can the world choose a path of shared prosperity, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability in this seventh age of globalization? We can call this the challenge of sustainable development.

As

Language, we can say with some confidence, was the greatest “technological” breakthrough of the Upper Pleistocene. It gave rise to a vastly more complex social life, a societal memory of cultural advances conveyed by word of mouth across generations, and a growing division of labor within society.

As a contiguous land area that has been home to most of humanity, Eurasia has long enjoyed the benefits of scale, long-distance trade, and the innovation and diffusion of technologies. For at least five thousand years, the horse has played a key, even decisive, role in Eurasia’s development, offering unequalled transport services, horse power for a

the high productivity of agriculture, which supported these large populations, also made possible a sophisticated division of labor, the development of writing systems, the rise of scientific knowledge (mathematics, astronomy, metallurgy, agronomy), and the novelty of governance of large populations.