Archaic globalization
Encyclopedia
Archaic globalization is a phase in the history of globalization
History of globalization
The historical origins of globalization are the subject of on-going debate. Though several scholars situate the origins of globalization in the modern era, others regard it as a phenomenon with a long history. Some authors have argued that stretching the beginning of globalization far back in time...

, often broadly associated with the early modern period
Early modern period
In history, the early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the Middle Ages through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions...

 between the years 1400 and 1600. This term is used to describe the relationships between states and how they were created by the geographical spread of ideas and social norms at both local and regional levels.

States began to interact and trade with others within close proximity as a way to acquire coveted goods that were considered a luxury. This trade led to the spread of ideas such as religion, economic structure and political ideals. Merchants became connected and aware of others in ways that had not been apparent. Archaic globalization is comparable to present day globalization on a much smaller scale. It not only allowed the spread of goods and commodities to other regions, but it also allowed people to experience other cultures. Cities that partook in trading were bound together by sea lanes, rivers, and great overland routes, some of which had been in use since antiquity. Trading was broken up according to geographic location, with centers between flanking places serving as "break-in-bulk" and exchange points for goods destined for more distant markets. During this time period the subsystems were more self-sufficient than they are today and therefore less vitally dependent upon one another for everyday survival. While long distance trading came with many trials and tribulations, still so much of it went on during this early time period. Linking the trade together involved eight interlinked subsystems that were grouped into three large circuits, which encompassed the western European, the Middle Eastern, and the Far Eastern. This interaction during trading was early civilization's way to communicate and spread many ideas which caused modern globalization to emerge and allow a new aspect to present day society.

Defining globalization

Globalization is the process of increasing interconnectedness between regions and individuals. Steps toward globalization include economic, political, technological, social, and cultural connections around the world. The term "archaic" can be described as early ideals and functions that were once historically apparent in society but may have disintegrated over time.
There are three main prerequisites for globalization to occur. The first is the idea of Eastern Origins, which shows how Western states have adapted and implemented learned principals from the East. Without the traditional ideas from the East, Western globalization would not have emerged the way it did. The second is distance. The interactions amongst states were not on a global scale and most often were confined to Asia, North Africa, the Middle East and certain parts of Europe. With early globalization it was difficult for states to interact with others that were not within close proximity. Eventually, technological advances allowed states to learn of others existence and another phase of globalization was able to occur. The third has to do with interdependency, stability and regularity. If a state is not depended on another then there is no way for them to be mutually affected by one another. This is one of the driving forces behind global connections and trade; without either globalization would not have emerged the way it did and states would still be dependent on their own production and resources to function. This is one of the arguments surrounding the idea of early globalization. It is argued that archaic globalization did not function in a similar manner to modern globalization because states were not as interdependent on others as they are today.

Emergence of a world system

Many argue that a world system was in order before the rise of capitalism between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is referred to as the early age of capitalism where long-distance trade, market exchange and capital accumulation existed amongst states. In 800 AD Greek, Roman and Muslim empires emerged covering areas known today as China and mostly Muslim dominated regions. Major religions such as Christianity, Islam and Buddhism spread to distant lands where many are still intact today. One of the most popular examples of distant trade routes can be seen with the silk route between China and the Mediterranean, movement and trade with art and luxury goods between Arab regions, South Asia and Africa. These relationships through trade mainly formed in the east and eventually led to the development of capitalism. It was at this time that power and land shifted from the nobility and church to the bourgeoisie and division of labor in production emerged. During the later part of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth century an international trade system was developed between states ranging from northwestern Europe to China.

During the 1500s other Asian empires emerged, which included trading over longer distances than before. During the early exchanges between states, Europe had little to offer with the exception of slaves, metals, wood and furs. The push for selling of items in the east drove European production and helped integrate them into the exchange. The European expansion and growth of opportunities for trade made possible by the Crusades increased the renaissance of agriculture, mining, and manufacturing. Rapid urbanization throughout Europe allowed a connection from the North Sea to Venice. Advances in industrialization coupled with the rouse of population growth and the growing demands of the eastern trade, led to the growth of true trading emporia with outlets to the sea.

There is a 'multi-polar' nature to archaic globalization, which involved the active participation of non-Europeans. Because it predated the Great Divergence
Great divergence
The Great Divergence, a term coined by Samuel Huntington , refers to the process by which the Western world The Great Divergence, a term coined by Samuel Huntington (also known as the European miracle, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981), refers to the process by which the Western world The Great...

 of the nineteenth century, in which Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

 pulled ahead of the rest of the world in terms of industrial production and economic output, archaic globalization was a phenomenon that was driven not only by Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 but also by other economically developed Old World
Old World
The Old World consists of those parts of the world known to classical antiquity and the European Middle Ages. It is used in the context of, and contrast with, the "New World" ....

 centers such as Gujurat, Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

, coastal China and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

These pre-capitalist movements were regional rather than global and for the most part temporary. This idea of early globalization was proposed by the historian A.G. Hopkins in 2001. Hopkins main points on archaic globalization can be seen with trade, and diaspora that developed from this, as well as religious ideas and empires that spread throughout the region. This new interaction amongst states led to interconnections between parts of the world which led to the eventual interdependency amongst these state actors. The main actors that partook in the spreading of goods and ideas were kings, warriors, priests and traders. Hopkins also addresses that during this time period mini-globalizations were prominent and that some collapsed or became more insular. These mini-globalizations are referred to as episodic and ruptured, with empires sometimes overreaching and having to retract. These mini-globalizations left remnants that allowed the West to adopt these new ideals, leading to the idea of Western Capitalism. The adopted ideals can be seen in the Western monetary system and are central to system like capitalism that define modernity and modern globalization.

The three principles of archaic globalization

Archaic globalization consists of three principles: universalizing kingship, expansion of religious movements, and medicinal understanding.
  • The universalizing of kingship led soldiers and monarchs far distances to find honor and prestige. However, the crossing over foreign lands also gave the traveling men opportunity to exchange prized goods. This expanded trade between distant lands, which consequently increased the amount of social and economic relations.
  • Despite the vast distances covered by monarchs and their companies, pilgrimages remain one of the greatest global movements of people.
  • Finally, the desire for better health was the remaining push behind archaic globalization. While the trading of spices, precious stones, animals, and weapons remained of major importance, people began to seek medicine from faraway lands. This implemented more trade routes, especially to China for their tea.

Economic exchange

With the increase in trade and state linkage, economic exchange extended throughout the region and caused actors to form new relationships. This early economic development can be seen in Champagne Fairs
Champagne fairs
The Champagne fairs were an annual cycle of trading fairs held in towns in the Champagne and Brie regions of France in the Middle Ages. From their origins in local agricultural and stock fairs, the Champagne fairs became an important engine in the reviving economic history of medieval Europe,...

, which were outdoor markets where traveling merchants came to sell their products and make purchases. Traditionally, market fairs used barter as opposed to money, once larger itinerant merchants began to frequent them, the need for currency became greater and a money changer needed to be established. Some historical scholars argue that this was the beginning of the role of banker and the institution of credit. An example can be seen with one individual in need of an item the urban merchant does not ordinarily stock. The product seeker orders the item, which the merchant promises to bring him next time. The product seeker either gives credit to the merchant by paying them in advance, gets credit from the merchant by promising to pay them once the item is in stock, or some type of concession is made through a down payment. If the product seeker does not have the amount required by the merchant he may borrow from the capital stored by the money changer or he may mortgage part of his expected harvest, either from the money charger or the merchant he is seeking goods from. This lengthy transaction eventually resulted in a complex economic system and once the weekly market began to expand from barter to the monetized system required by long-distance trading.

A higher circuit of trade developed once urban traders from outside distant directions traveled to the market center in the quest to buy or sell goods. Merchants would then begin to meet at the same spot on a weekly basis allowing for them to arrange with other merchants to bring special items for exchange that were not demanded by the local agriculturalists but for markets in their home towns. When the local individuals placed advanced orders, customers from towns of different traders may begin to place order for items in a distant town that their trader can order from their counterpart. This central meeting point, becomes the focus of long-distance trade and how it began to increase.

Expansion of long distance trade

In order for trade to be able to expand during this early time period, it required some basic functions of the market as well as the merchants. The first was security. Goods that were being transported began to have more value and the merchants needed to protect their coveted goods especially since they were often traveling through poor areas where the risk of theft was high. To overcome this problem merchants began to travel in caravans as a way to ensure their personal safety as well as the safety of their goods. The second prerequisite to early long distant trade had to be an agreement on a rate of exchange. Since many of the merchants came from distant lands with different monetary systems a system had to be put into place as a way to enforce repayment of previous goods, repay previous dept and to ensure contracts were upheld. Expansion was also able to thrive so long as it had a motive for exchange as a way to promote trade amongst foreign lands. Also, the trading site must be accessible to outside merchants if the trade route wanted to grow.

The spread of goods and ideas

The most popular goods produced were spices, which were traded over short distances, while manufactured goods were central to the system and could not have been aided without them. The invention of money in the form of gold coins in Europe and Middle East and paper money in China around the thirteenth century allowed trade to move more easily between the different actors. The main actors involved in this system viewed gold, silver, and copper as valuable on different levels. Nevertheless, goods were transferred, prices set, exchange rates agreed upon, contracts entered into, credit extended, partnerships formed and agreements that were made were kept on record and honored. During this time of globalization, credit was also used as a means for trading. The use of credit began in the form of blood ties but later led to the emergence the "banker" as a profession.

With the spread of people came new ideas, religion and goods throughout the land, which had never been apparent in most societies before the movement. Also, this globalization lessened the degree of feudal life by transitioning from self-sufficient society to a money economy. Most of the trade connecting North Africa and Europe was controlled by the Middle East, China and India around 1400. Because of the danger and great cost of long-distance travel in the pre-modern period, archaic globalization grew out of the trade in high-value commodities which took up a small amount of space. Most of the goods that were produced and traded were considered a luxury and many considered those with these coveted items to have a higher place on the societal scale.

Examples of such luxury goods would include Chinese silks, exotic herbs, coffee, cotton, iron, Indian calicoes, Arabian horse
Arabian horse
The Arabian or Arab horse is a breed of horse that originated on the Arabian Peninsula. With a distinctive head shape and high tail carriage, the Arabian is one of the most easily recognizable horse breeds in the world. It is also one of the oldest breeds, with archaeological evidence of horses...

s, gems
Gemstone
A gemstone or gem is a piece of mineral, which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments...

 and spices or drugs such as nutmeg
Nutmeg
The nutmeg tree is any of several species of trees in genus Myristica. The most important commercial species is Myristica fragrans, an evergreen tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas of Indonesia...

, cloves, pepper
Black pepper
Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...

, ambergris
Ambergris
Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color produced in the digestive system of and regurgitated or secreted by sperm whales....

 and opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...

. The thirteenth century as well as present day favor luxury items due to the fact that small high-value goods can have high transport costs but still have a high value attached to them, whereas low-value heavy goods are not worth carrying very far. Purchases of luxury items such as these are described as archaic consumption since trade was largely popular for these items as opposed to everyday needs.The distinction between food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...

, drugs
DRUGS
Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows are an American post-hardcore band formed in 2010. They released their debut self-titled album on February 22, 2011.- Formation :...

 and materia medica
Materia medica
Materia medica is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing . The term 'materia medica' derived from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD, De materia medica libre...

 is often quite blurred in regards to these substances, which were valued not only for their rarity but because they appealed to humoral theories
Humorism
Humorism, or humoralism, is a now discredited theory of the makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers, positing that an excess or deficiency of any of four distinct bodily fluids in a person directly influences their temperament and health...

 of health and the body that were prevalent throughout premodern Eurasia
Eurasia
Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...

.

Major trade routes

During the time of archaic globalization there were three major trade routes which connected Europe, China and the Middle East. The northern most route went through mostly the Mongol Empire
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...

 and was nearly 5000 miles long. Even though the route consisted of mostly vast stretches of desert with little to no resources, merchants still traveled it. The route was still traveled because during the 13th century Kubilai Khan united the Mongol Empire and charged only a small protective rent to travelers. Before the unification, merchants from the Middle East used the path but were stopped and taxed at nearly every village. The middle route went from the coast of Syria to Baghdad from there the traveler could follow the land route through Persia to India, or sail to India via the Persian Gulf. Between the 8th and 10th centuries, Baghdad was a world city but in the 11th century it began to decline due to natural disasters including floods, earthquakes, and fires. In 1258, Baghdad was taken over by the Mongols. The Mongols forced high taxes on the citizens of Baghdad which led to a decrease in production, causing merchants to bypass the city The third, southern most route, went though Mamluk controlled Egypt, After the fall of Baghdad, Cairo became the Islam capital.

Some major cities along these trading routes were wealthy and provided services for merchants and the international markets. Palmyra and Petra which are located on the fringes of the Syrian Desert, flourished mainly as power centers of trading they would be the source of supplies for the merchants caravans and policing the trade routes. They also became places where people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds could meet and interact. These trading routes were the communication highways for the ancient civilizations and their societies. New inventions, religious beliefs, artistic styles, languages, and social customs, as well as goods and raw materials, were transmitted by people moving from one place to another to conduct business.

Proto-globalization

Proto-globalization
Proto-globalization
Proto-globalization or 'early modern globalization' is a period of the history of globalization roughly spanning the years between 1600 and 1800. First introduced by historians A. G...

 is the period following archaic globalization which occurred from the 17th through the 19th centuries. The global routes established within the period of archaic globalization gave way to more distinguished expanding routes and more complex systems of trade within the period of proto-globalization. Familiar trading arrangements such as the East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

 appeared within this period, making larger-scale exchanges possible. Slave trading was especially extensive and the associated mass-production of commodities on plantations is characteristic of this time.

As a result of a measurable amount of polyethnic regions due to these higher frequency trade routes, war became prominent. Such wars include the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...

, American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

. and the Anglo-Dutch War between England and Holland.

Modern globalization

The modern form of globalization began to take form during the 19th century. The evolving beginnings of this period were largely responsible for the expansion of the West, capitalism and imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

 backed up by the nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...

 and industrial technology. This began to emerge during the 1500s, continuing to expand exponentially over time as industrialization developed in the eighteenth century. The conquests of the British Empire and the Opium Wars added to the industrialization and formation of the growing global society because it created vast consumer regions.

World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 is when the first phase of modern globalization began to take force. It is said by VM Yeates that the economic forces of globalization were part of the cause of the war. Since World War I, globalization has expanded greatly. The evolving improvements of multinational corporations, technology, science, and mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

 have all been results of extensive worldwide exchanges. In addition, institutions such as the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

, the World Trade Organization
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...

 and many international telecommunication companies have also shaped modern globalization. The World Wide Web has also played a large role in modern globalization. The Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

provides connectivity across national and international borders, aiding in the enlargement of a global network.
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