The Origins of Globalization
World Trade in the Making of the Global Economy, 1500–1800

Reveals how global trade shaped early modern economic, social and political development, and inaugurated the first era of globalization.

Pim de Zwart (Author), Jan Luiten van Zanden (Author)

9781108447133, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 September 2018

354 pages, 33 b/w illus. 9 maps 15 tables
22.7 x 15.3 x 1.8 cm, 0.49 kg

'Economic historians have established that the First Global Century was the nineteenth, recording the same globalization dynamic that the world has seen since the Second World War as the Second Global Century. This fine book shows how the years between 1500 and 1800 set the stage. Anyone interested in globalization should read this book.' Jeffrey G. Williamson, Harvard University, Massachusetts and University of Wisconsin

For better or for worse, in recent times the rapid growth of international economic exchange has changed our lives. But when did this process of globalization begin, and what effects did it have on economies and societies? Pim de Zwart and Jan Luiten van Zanden argue that the networks of trade established after the voyages of Columbus and Da Gama of the late fifteenth century had transformative effects inaugurating the first era of globalization. The global flows of ships, people, money and commodities between 1500 and 1800 were substantial, and the re-alignment of production and distribution resulting from these connections had important consequences for demography, well-being, state formation and the long-term economic growth prospects of the societies involved in the newly created global economy. Whether early globalization had benign or malignant effects differed by region, but the world economy as we now know it originated in these changes in the early modern period.

1. Introduction
2. Global connections: ships, commodities and people
3. Consequences of conquest in Latin America
4. Africa and the slave trades
5. Export-led development in North America
6. Global trade and economic decline in South Asia
7. The 'age of commerce' in Southeast Asia
8. East Asia and the limits of globalization
9. Europe and the spoils of globalization
10. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], General & world history [HBG]