A Historical Perspective on Globalization

Good eventide ladies and gentlemen. So I am taking a graduate course on globalization and the majority of our grade will be based on writing a paper on any aspect of globalization (our choice). I didn't want to do the typical "human impacts" or "social costs" paper, but something a little more original, ruthless, and real. I pitched the idea to the professor and it seems to have passed the giggle test, so I decided this would be a good place to solicit ideas and/or reference sources.

The proposal is to do a case study on globalization from a historical perspective, particularly its commercial and colonial aspects. My off the top idea when I pitched it was Carthage in Iberia in the 3rd/2nd Century B.C.E., but I realize that information on the relationship between Carthage and Iberian tribes is perhaps a bit scarce. What I'd like to submit for input is the following: In the pre-industrial era (I have a strong preference for the EB era because of my enthusiasm for history) I want to show an example of cultural interaction that shows: 1) an exploitative relationship (unequal trading arrangement, etc), involving a cosmopolitan culture (i.e. relatively urbanized, well-developed civic structures) and a more fragmented one(s), 2) a strong information network (most likely roads and/or sea travel) 3) the dominant culture would have to have a broad trade network with much of the then-known world and 4) sufficient documentation to allow me to develop the argument and perhaps argue that what we see today is more of a continuation and expansion of historical trends at a speed that was previously unimaginable, but otherwise not particularly remarkable.

I know that's a lot to digest, but if there are no forthcoming suggestions for cultures, I'd be equally happy with suggestions for good materials documenting the relationship between Carthage and Iberia during the Barcid timeframe.

Would the Delian League be an acceptable topic?

Perhaps Rome's exploitation of Egyptian grain? I honestly don't know that much about the relationship of those two states, but I imagine that since one conquered the other it was. Perhaps the rest of the community can give a yay or nay on this one.

The Delian League was more of a defensive confederation that turned into a coercive military alliance. What I have in mind is something that parallels 19th century imperialism in Africa or 16th Century in the Americas. Start out with small parties of traders, formation of alliances, then domination and material goods exchanges.

Rome with the entire Mediterranean basin would be an appropriate scale and fit, but I have this itch to learn about something I don't know as well.

Other ideas that have come to mind include the Dutch East India Company in the 17th Century, Phoenician trade colonies in the 10th - 8th centuries BCE after the sea people migrations, and the Spanish subjugation of the new world empires. I'd love to keep it in a classical time frame though.

i love how big a topic globalization is, and how some people go nuts over it (in a negative way). all the anti globalization protests/organizations etc etc when in reality its a basic part of human behavior. all human history is globalization, except for the few poor bastards who try to be isolationist and get screwed over by their neighbor. but today its something to cry about because people getting screwed over isn't accepted as matter of fact anymore and isn't PC... oh well

I don't know what the timescale on writing the paper is, but if you have some time a great start would be Noel Cowen's Global History, a short overview. In this work Cowen analyzes the history of the world in a global perspective, starting in the ancient period with the transition from nomadic hunte/gatherers to settled farmers and analyzing the ancient empires before moving on to more modern empirebuilding.

Of particular interest, at least in my opinion, is the chapter labeled 'the religious factor'. In this chapter he describes the ways in wich empires used religion as a stabilising factor, but also how religion inevitably ended up transcending political borders. The rise of christianity is of course a great potential subject here, but other possibility's include Alexander the Greats Hellenism, Persian Zoroastrianism and Buddhism in India.

If you want a more modern subject you could also go for stuff like the impact of technology on the rise of a globalised economy (and make no mistake, this is by no means a recent thing) or maybe even make a comparison between the aforementioned role of religion in ancient empires and the role of ideology in more modern ones.

Now PC applied to history makes me nauseous, but...

Vikings opening trade routes by plunder, exploitation and settlements. Though not ancient period.

Yeah, but the Delian league meets all the criteria you put forth in the OP, and you could just discuss the trade aspect of it.

You seem to be steering your paper towards a certain direction a priori which may or may not fit the time-space frame you choose... Apart from the exploitative predicate (in casu of Carthage, the relation may or may not have been equal but exploitative?), how many actual highly urbanized societies exist which contain a strong center point which has, so to speak, the focus within the society? Remember: even in the poleis, the majority of inhabitants did not live within the actual astu.

Ok this isnt really in the Classical World but surely pre-industrial.

In 1415 Portugal conquered the north african city of ceuta.

By 1542 Portugal was introducing firearms in Japan.

During the 127 years, Portugal managed to gain access and control to the most important commercial routes in East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India and Southeast Asia.

Considering that by 1415 the total population of Portugal must have been around 1.000.000, this means a severe lack of human resources which only allowed the control of several keypoints in Africa, Asia and South America thus, relying in building fortresses and strong armada's to observe its authority.

But of course you can use the dutch and english examples from the mid 16th century onward or the spanish one from 1492.

This author, Charles Boxer, is very good for both the portuguese and dutch empires http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._R._Boxer.

I suppose this isnt exactly what you want but its just an idea. Good luck

If he did that he would have to entail also the Frank- Landes debate, which I really think is a bit over the top for a poor high school student.

Actually I do like both the Delian league and Portugal in the 14th Century because they're very time-restricted and should have ample documentation. Keep the suggestions coming. :whip:

If you want to focus the paper on the ancient world, I would say don't go with Carthage: as you pointed out, there just aren't enough sources. The Delian League has been a good suggestion, but otherwise I would say go with the Roman Empire, either in the Hellenistic East, Egypt, Spain, Gaul, Britain, ect.

The biggest downside to using Rome is that there will be less information about economic exploitation since ancient economics is always shrouded by the vast distance in time and the fact that ancient historians didn't really like talking economics. But there is some information, particularly in the economic subjugation of Egypt and North Africa. Also the coloni, which were ancient serfs or share-croppers, typically made up of local or barbarian inhabitants could provide some examples (I would also look to fourth to fifth century Africa, especially the class origins of the donatists and circumcellions, which drew members from this lower class, and perhaps used these as a way to fight the attempts of imparting cultural unity through catholic Christianity). Or if you want to focus on earlier times in Roman history, the tax farmers of the Republic would work too.

But what a study of Rome especially offers is a look at cultural globalism. Latin displaced all the hundreds of languages in Europe, to the point that many are completely lost. Additionally, Roman culture in the lands they conquered completely displaced the native culture. A good example to look at this would be Gaul: the Gauls were brought over to Roman ways before Caesar by trade, then conquered by Caesar, their elites were educated in Rome, and, by the fourth century, Gaul (specifically Bordeaux), not Rome or Italy, had become the center of Latin literary education (this is really embodied in Ausonius). You could also look at how citizenship and service in the Roman army (like sending soldiers as far from their native lands as possible) were used to impart new Roman cultural identities on people. Or the syncetisicm of Roman pre-Christian religion in brining local cultures to Roman religious practices.

Honestly, as I write this more and more ideas and just occurring to me. I’ll stop now, but there’s a lot more and there are so many directions you could go with such an essay focusing on the Roman Empire.

As far as I know, the globalization is about the removal of isolated markets, making all the world a pool of workforce and goods. I fail to see how Carthage is relevant to this? There was no "opening of borders" beyond the standard conquer-and-exploit fare that has been seen through all of history, and there was no increase in communication, except a relatively small increase in naval capacity.

However, in the economical aspect of today, we see that certain populations migrate from "low-cost" countries into "high-cost" countries and take the low-end jobs. An example from my own country is the Polish people who used to come to Norway to pick strawberries every summer. The strawberries in Poland have tended to rot in the fields as those who choose the work go out of the country. Often these even had qualifications like doctors, but the work pays better than their regular work at home. Now, Lithuanians have taken their place, as they are willing to work for less than the Polish.

Another example would be the outsourcing in the IT industry, moving certain functions to Romania, India, the Philippines or other countries where the expertise is cheaper. Location of the work is less important in these functions, and today's quick communications make a somewhat global market possible, discounting culture clash.

Now, if you'll excuse my comparison, very simplified and taking Europe as the model, you could take a look at the low-cost labor through the times.
Current time: People from poor countries which have recently opened the borders to richer countries
Recent past: Wage slaves working most of their life to pay off debt
Industrialism: Factory workers working for company owners for subsistence
Colonialism: Slaves
Feudalism: Peasants working for the aristocracy for subsistence
Agricultural revolution: Non-land-owners working for peasants for subsistence
Very roughly, dark age and earlier: Slaves

Perhaps you could take such a perspective, seeing the effects increased communication and transport capacity has had on the models of production throughout the times. I realize that it's part of human impacts, however. Not to mention that my knowledge lies primarily in computers, so I just might not know what I'm talking about.

Globalization is actually about a lot more than just economics. It's also about cultural exchange, ecological exchange, migration and pretty much any other kind of large-scale exchange. Polish workers coming to Norway is globalization, but so is the silk road, or Arian invaders in India, or christian missionary's converting native Americans, or even syphilis.
That's the beauty of the subject, it's very broad so you can go a lot of ways when writing an essay like this.

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Originally Posted by the tokai

Globalization is actually about a lot more than just economics. It's also about cultural exchange, ecological exchange, migration and pretty much any other kind of large-scale exchange. Polish workers coming to Norway is globalization, but so is the silk road, or Arian invaders in India, or christian missionary's converting native Americans, or even syphilis.
That's the beauty of the subject, it's very broad so you can go a lot of ways when writing an essay like this.

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That was precisely my thought in asking for input. Globalization is really a terrible term because it is both overbroad and too narrow. It encompasses too many phenomena, so it is too broad. The way most of us think about it is too focused on its present manifestations, so it's too narrow. I wanted to show my fellow attorneys-to-be that there's really a lot more to this stuff than we read about in the economist.

I've gotten some good suggestion here. Keep them coming. Source suggestions to accompany them would be insanely invaluable as well:2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Yyrkoon

Source suggestions to accompany them would be insanely invaluable as well:2thumbsup:

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If you want to do the essay on the Roman Empire, here are some sources to get you started. I've tried to give a good balance of primary and secondary sources:

For the linguistic homogenization of Western Europe: “Ad Infinitum: A biography of Latin,” by Nicholas Ostler is perhaps the best, most readable history of the language I have found.

For Gaul: I can’t think of any primary sources off hand, but for secondary sources, “Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul,” by Greg Woolf. I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t vouch for it, but it’s on my list to read, and it looks promising. The bibliography would also probably give you good primary sources.

If you want to focus on North Africa: I would just pour over St. Augustine. His sermons and even some of his larger works are filled with details about the culture of the region.

For the Late Empire: A.H.M. Jones, in his “The Later Roman Empire,” is perhaps the greatest social and economic historian of the Late Roman era. The work is pretty dense and I recommend you make good use of the index, but it is packed with info.

General stuff:

Tactius, particularly the Agricola and to a lesser extant Germania, provides some great sources, giving a Roman’s sharp critique of his own civilizations’ displacement of other cultures.

As for general secondary sources:
“Globalizing Roman Culture: Unity, Diversity and Empire” by Richard Hingley
“Cultural Identity in the Roman Empire” by Dr Joanne Berry

There are many more sources, but this is a start. Just let me know if you want more.

Oh how do I love thee. Let me count the ways . . .

It'd be interesting to know what kind of "Globalization" was the theme here.

1)The highly specific neo-liberal policies known euphemistically as "Globalization"?

2)Or are you alludding to the more commonly known process of cross-assimilation of societies opening up their borders?

I'm holding a coin on the latter. It's just that the word has been hijacked by the former.

:laugh4:You are correct that I refer to the second one. As I noted earlier, it's a terrible term because it is far too broad, encompassing everything from cross-cultural exchange, to international trade, to economic exploitation, to a rather narrow neo-liberal free market ethos. Peronally I find the neo-liberal economic aspect to be rather uninteresting if for no other reason than its narrow timeframe and myopic conceptualization of the world. The other aspects are far richer and have a wonderful history which I would like to explore. Hell, even some of the more economic aspects of globalization have historical precedent from forcing open markets, to labor differentials, to social systems based almost entirely on trade.

Ok, really this is just a convenient excuse for me to write about historical precedent to modern trends by manipulating a poorly defined term, but it's more fun this way :laugh4:

What about the muslims and their trade with India, chine, thier influence on states as Melakka and the Srivijayan empire. Or India and it spreading culture, religion etc,... in Indochina and the Islands?

Another great one but perhaps unoriginal one are of course the silk routes. Any time after Qin Shi Huang untill the Portuguese works, I think?

Gah! There actually way to many examples I think.

I am surprised how the Achaemenids have received very little mention in this thread. Just looking at the relief-work at the Persepolis palace complex with all the depicted dignitaries arriving to bring tribute reveals how this tapestry was interwoven across cultures, religions and physical differences, all organized under a single political super-structure and framework, with its "moving parts" being propelled by lingua francae, and the vessel being the royally issued currency, the dareikos stater; otherwise known as the Persian daric.

Great canals were dug, great bridges constructed, grand roads established and ambitious expeditions both by land (Scylax of Caryanda) and sea (Sataspes); it is in the Achaemenid era where we can truly say that the Persian empire became the crossroads of civilization. If one must go back to the very roots of "globalism" and a mercantile and transcultural approach to a worldly order, one cannot afford to leave out the Achaemenids.

The Achaemenids occurred to me pretty quickly actually, I just never mentioned it. Know any good sources as a starting point?

Neo-liberal free market? I assume by neo-liberal you refer to liberals of today, who are quite opposite to the classical liberals of the past (such as the Founders of the US and the traditional English libertarians)? Neo-liberals do not believe in a free market.

Globalization in modern terms, though spoken of in economic terms often, has an undercurrent of political force to it. Namely the regionalization or creation of "blocs" (EU, NAFTA, etc.) with a view to estalishing a world government of some kind.

I would argue that prosperity and progress has come largely by independence, by countries acting independently but on friendly mutual terms (eg. USA andf UK) rather than by force (either by war or by the creation of supranationalist entities or empires). There are many examples of this, and I believe Adam Smith mentions them; and of course the US put those ideals into practice and flourished greatly because of them until it started messing around with things (fix'n something that was not broke) in the early 20th Century.

So globalization is perhaps a term that could encompass all, but I think a perspective of antiquity would be a good idea. But how much you dwell on the political and not just the social/economic/cultural would be interesting to see, the two will surely overlap. Rome would be my obvious choice in terms of the political/military.

"Neo-liberal free market? I assume by neo-liberal you refer to liberals of today, who are quite opposite to the classical liberals of the past (such as the Founders of the US and the traditional English libertarians)? Neo-liberals do not believe in a free market."

Actually Neo-liberals are generally thought of as free market libertarians that support such institutions as the WTO and regional (and eventually world) free trade zones. I'm not 100% sure where the "neo" comes from. I suppose it's to distinguish them from political left-liberals.

So far I'm really liking three of the suggestions and once I've done a preliminary scan of sources, I'll list up a few and see if there are suggestions for more or better ones to consult. I think I'm going to lean towards shorter sources if only because the semester is setting itself up to be quite punishing.

If you are still working on this project and decided to do something on Rome, I found a book at the library today that made me remember this thread and want to tell you about it: it's called "Globalizing Roman Culture," by Richard Hingely. It is a discussion of the spread of Roman culture and actually a comparison of this to modern globalization. It seemed like the perfect book. And its only 120 pages.

Ctestwayo the Zulu king said of the British " First come the Missionaries, then come the traders, then come the Red Soldiers"

Pretty much can be said about the Romans (cept maybe the Missionary part)

Certainly Roman traders were very present in much of Gaul when Caesar began his campaigns there

I would pick the Romans as choice as there is a good variety of sources for them..