History of Globalization and Silk Routes

Globalization's History

• Globalization, often viewed as a recent economic phenomenon, has a long history rooted in trade, migration, and capital flow.
• Throughout history, human societies have become increasingly interconnected.
• Early trade networks, like the Indus Valley trade (3000 BCE) and cowrie shell exchange (used as currency), demonstrate long-distance connections.
• Disease transmission, evident as early as the seventh century, also served as a means of global interaction.
• Representations of ships on memorial stones from the ninth Century highlight the importance of oceanic trade.

Silk Routes

• The Silk Routes represent vibrant pre-modern trade and cultural linkages.
• The Silk Routes facilitated goods (Chinese silk, Indian textiles, spices, ceramics), and ideas (Buddhism, Christianity, Islam) across vast regions.
• The routes connected Asia with Europe and North Africa and existed long before the Christian Era, continuing into the fifteenth century
• Precious metals like gold and silver flowed eastward.

Food Exchange

• Food has played a crucial role in cultural exchange.
• Travellers and traders introduced new crops. Spaghetti's origins, for example, are debated, potentially originating in China.
• New world crops like potatoes, soya, groundnuts, maize, tomatoes, chillies, sweet potatoes revolutionized European and Asian diets, often enhancing health outcomes.

Columbus and the Americas

• Columbus's "discovery" of the Americas (16th Century) dramatically reshaped global trade.
• The introduction of American crops significantly altered European and Asian diets and farming methods.
• European inhabitants were largely immune to the diseases brought from the old world and these diseases decimated indigenous American populations.

The Shrinking World (16th Century)

• Oceanic routes to Asia and the Americas dramatically reduced travel times and distances and created new trade opportunities.
• The wealth from the American mines (silver in particular) enriched Europe and transformed Asian trade.
• Legends of unimaginable wealth, like El Dorado, fueled European exploration and colonization.

Conquest, Disease, and Trade

• European conquest of the Americas was facilitated by the devastating impact of diseases like smallpox, to which the indigenous inhabitants had no immunity.
• The Irish Potato Famine (mid-1840s) exemplifies the impact introduced crops could have on society.
• European expansion redirected existing trade flows and created entirely new commercial pathways.
• The pre-modern world shrunk due to European maritime expansion, and the Americas became a major player in global trade.

European Dominance

• While China once dominated Asian trade, it began to retreat.
• Europe's rising prominence resulted in becoming the global trade center.
• Driven, partially, by economic and religious conflicts, thousands emigrated from Europe to the Americas in search of opportunities.
• Enslaved Africans were put to work on plantations, filling a labor shortage.
• Poverty, hunger, and disease remained in Europe.