What is globalisation and its history?

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  • Created by: becky.65
  • Created on: 04-04-18 21:55

Globalisation describes a process by which national and regional economies, socities and cultures have become integrated through the global network of trade, communication, immigration and trasportation 

In the more recent past, globalisation was often primarily focus on the economic side of the world, such as trade, FDI and international capital flows. More recently the term has been expanded to include a broader range of areas and activites such as culture, media, technology, socio-cultural, political and even climate change

Globalisation is not a purely economic issue, it involves all aspects of humanity

Globalisation is a process, not an event

In 2016 Britain voted to leave the EU and America elected Trump, committed to an 'America First' policy, suggesting an increasing attachment to the nation state rather than the wider world

Globalisation is on the retreat as a cultural idea, but also the economic aspects have reached a plateau - global trade as a proportion of global GDP has declined slightly since the 2008-9 recession

In 1989 the collapse of communism and the Berlin Wall suggested that values of democracy and personal freedoms had triumphed 

In 'The End of History' Fukuyama argued that all countries would soon become mature, liberal democracies, committed to personal choice, free enterprise markets and governments chosen through democratic elections and globalisation would triumph

This has been challenged in two ways:

  • the growth of the Chinese economy since 1980 has been achieved under a one-party dictatorship, suggesting that democracy is not necessary for sustained, economic growth
  • the rise of a violent strain of Islam demonstrates the rise of a competing vision of the world where personal freedoms are largely absent

The History of Globalisation:

There are three key identifying marks of the economic aspects of globalisation:

  • an increase in world trade as a proportion of world GDP
  • increased investment flows
  • increased labour migration

Homo sapiens evolved in Africa about 400,000 years ago, but it is only in the last 100,000 years that mankind is thought to have moved out of Africa and only in the past 12,000 years that humans colonised North and South America

Long before modern nation states developed, humans traded goods such as salt, spices and precious metals over thousands of miles

Bartering was the common method of trade; salt and gold became the de facto currency

Salt is believed to have been traded throughout the Balkan regions of South-Eastern Europe from 4,700 to 4,200 BC

Among many early international trade routes involving salt were camel caravans crossing the Sahara desert from the North African Mediterranean coastline, where salt was common, to the trading centre of Timbuktu south of the Sahara and on into Ghana. Gold, nuts and slaves were traded in the opposite direction from at least the fourth century BC. Some salt trade across the Sahara still takes place

The amber trade is one of the earliest known trading routes and stretched from the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe to Egypt from around 3000 BC. Economic factors continue to drive trade up to…

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