What do we mean by globalization? Which are the main features of globalization? And are these historically contingent? This first meeting is aimed at introducing the key topics that we will consider over the course. Please read the assigned readings before the seminar in week 1.

Key Readings

Please read:

Michael Lang, “Globalization and Its History,” Journal of Modern History, 78/4 (2006), pp. 899-only to p. 914. (and via aspire)

David Harvey, “Globalization in Question,” Rethinking Marxism, 8/4 (1995), pp. 1-17. (and via aspire)

A. G. Hopkins, ‘Is Globalization Yesterday’s News?’, Itinerario, 41/1 (2017), pp. 109-128. (via library)

Read a Book

Please read at least one of these books during the first week of the course. They will help you to understand the general historical and theoretical problems that will be considered during the course.

- Peter N. Stearns, Globalization in World History (London, 2017). JZ1318.S73; HY 100.S8 and online book.

- Jürgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Peterson, Globalization: A Short History (Princeton, 2005). HY 100.O8

- Bruce Mazlish, The New Global History (New York, 2006). HY 100.M2

- William R. Nester, Globalization: A short history of the modern world (Basingstoke, 2010). Online book

Definitions

“Globalization constitutes integration of National economies into the International economy through trade, direct foreign investment (by corporations and multinationals), short-term capital flows, international flows of workers and humanity generally, and flows of technology”. Jagdish Bhagwati, In Defence of Globalization (Oxford, 2006), p. 3.

“[Globalization] is a reality that now affect every part of the globe and every person on it, even though in widely differing local contexts. In fact, one could say that much of global history has necessarily to devote itself to studying the factors of globalization in relation to a ‘local’ reality, which can take many forms”. Bruce Mazlish, “Comparing Global History to World History,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 28/3 (1998), p. 387.

“A progressive increase in the scale of social processes from a local or regional to a world level”. C.A. Bayly, ‘“Archaic” and A-Modern Globalization in the Eurasian and African Arena, c. 1750-1850', in A.G. Hopkins, ed., Globalization in World History (2002), pp. 48-9.