History of Globalization.

By Arvie.canada_A
  • 1500 BCE

    Age of Discovery (15th-18th centuries)

    It was in this era, from the end of the 15th century onwards, that European explorers connected East and West – and accidentally discovered the Americas.
  • 700 BCE

    Spice routes (7th-15th centuries)

    trade happened thanks to Islamic merchants. As the new religion spread in all directions from its Arabian heartland in the 7th century, so did trade.
  • 100 BCE

    Silk roads (1st century BC-5th century AD, and 13th-14th centuries AD)

    People have been trading goods for almost as long as they’ve been around.

  • First wave of globalization (19th century-1914)

    This started to change with the first wave of globalization, which roughly occurred over the century ending in 1914. By the end of the 18th century, Great Britain had started to dominate the world both geographically, through the establishment of the British Empire, and technologically, with innovations like the steam engine, the industrial weaving machine and more. It was the era of the First Industrial Revolution.

  • The world wars

    It was a situation that was bound to end in a major crisis, and it did. In 1914, the outbreak of World War I brought an end to just about everything the burgeoning high society of the West had gotten so used to, including globalization.

  • Second and third wave of globalization

    The end of the World War II marked a new beginning for the global economy. Under the leadership of a new hegemon, the United States of America, and aided by the technologies of the Second Industrial Revolution, like the car and the plane, global trade started to rise once again. At first, this happened in two separate tracks, as the Iron Curtain divided the world into two spheres of influence. But as of 1989, when the Iron Curtain fell, globalization became a truly global phenomenon.

  • Globalization

    That brings us to today, when a new wave of globalization is once again upon us. In a world increasingly dominated by two global powers, the US and China, the new frontier of globalization is the cyber world. The digital economy, in its infancy during the third wave of globalization, is now becoming a force to reckon with through e-commerce, digital services, 3D printing. It is further enabled by artificial intelligence, but threatened by cross-border hacking and cyberattacks.