Essay on History of Globalization is published for informational purposes only. The free papers are not written by our writers, they are contributed by users, so we are not responsible for the content of this free sample paper. If you want to buy a quality Essay on Essay on History of Globalization at affordable prices please use our essay writing services offered by EssayEmpire.

One big planet, a global community, the vision of everyone and everything together from pictures of the Earth from space first sent back by Apollo 8--globalization can be romantically portrayed as any of these. From the dark side, it can also be seen as something that shatters local communities, takes away individual autonomy, destroys local cultures, and renders everyone helpless in the face of overwhelming power from somewhere else.

That globalization can be seen as both the happy inevitability of a bright future and the dismal gray of a grinding disaster reflects the reality of a significant conflict between opposing perspectives. Globalization can be represented in economic, cultural, sociopolitical, and environmental terms, each of which has its own means of measuring the difference between heaven and hell.

To some extent, globalization has always been with us. Looking to identify the means by which people or cultures have sought to spread around the planet and why, one can argue that the primary means has been military, conquering the world through the use of force. For historical examples, we can look to Alexander the Great, the emperors of Rome, Genghis Khan, and so on. In such instances, the means becomes the object; there is no particular value to be gained by conquest, yet the conquest continues because the military machine, so unleashed, has no particular boundary or end to its use. Like a forest fire, globalization by such means continues until it reaches some natural boundary--like a river or an ocean--or it runs out of "fuel" to sustain it.

On the heels of military globalization, the means by which the gains of conquest are maintained and the benefits accrue to the state or group that initiated the conquest are primarily political. One of the reasons for the failure of Alexander's empire was the fact he absorbed the local political structures, virtually unchanged, into his own; when he died, of course, that was the end of the empire. The Roman Empire, by contrast, brought with it Roman forms of government and social organization, structures that tended to be imposed on the local populations that were controlled and directed by Roman law and institutions. Caesars and other leaders came and went, but the empire continued until the center fell apart, and the institutions--though not the roads--also fell apart. Political organization may be combined with religious organization, however, and, although certain Roman institutions lost their sway in the outlying areas, the religion that was propagated through the military and political structures continued and spread.

With military and political impulses to globalization come economic considerations. In the first instance, to the victor the spoils, for the fruits of conquest are inevitably monetary--someone, after all, has to pay the costs of the operation and make it possible for further conquest. In the second instance, the establishment of political institutions makes an economic return on conquest more than the immediate spoils of war; a steady flow of money back to the state at the center of the empire enables the maintenance of a structure from whose stability everyone benefits, at least to some extent. Trade flourishes in the context of political stability, and military power protects such trade from the natural depredations of those who want to profit through force and not commerce.

Naturally, to maintain this kind of structure in the longer term requires both common currency and common language; in the wake of military and political conquest inevitably comes the standardization of currency (the coin of the empire) and some common language for the exercise of political and economic power. Latin--and particularly Latin script--became the language of the Roman Empire to its farthest reaches, providing a linguistic uniformity and continuity that outlasted the empire itself by a thousand years. With linguistic uniformity comes intellectual constraints; whether it was previously possible to articulate dissent or rebellion in the language of the peoples, over time their linguistic armory is depleted by the acceptance and use of the language--and the philosophy it reflects--of the conquering culture. The longer an empire has control over the political, social, and religious institutions of the areas it has conquered, the less able the conquered people are able to sustain an intellectual culture distinct from that of their conquerors--thus increasing the likelihood that such an empire will continue, because no one can conceive of another way of making things work.

Colonialism--a practice that existed long before the European powers made it an art in the 19th century--was the means by which the empire was not only propagated but also sustained, through the use of military, political, economic, religious, and intellectual tools.

This is a coercive model of globalization, but it tends to be the one first thought of when discussing how to overcome the various geographical, social, and cultural barriers that divide various groups. It is also the model that is reflected most obviously in history, which tends to be a record of the various conquests of one people or nation by another. Is it possible, however, for there to be an impulse to "one planet" that is not inherently coercive? Is it possible for these kinds of boundaries to be overcome through mutual goodwill or a collective self-interest, in which all parties cooperate because it is to the advantage of all players that they do so? This is the million-dollar question, because, in the absence of some way in which such cooperation might take place, all that remains is a coercive model, however well the coercion is disguised.

Bibliography:

Aronowitz, Stanley, and Heather Gautney, eds., Implicating Empire: Globalization and Resistance in the 21st Century World Order. New York: Basic Books, 2003.

De Rivero, Oswaldo, The Myth of Development: The Non-Viable Economies of the 21st Century. New York: Zed Books, 2001.

Easterly, William, The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts To Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Faber, Daniel, Capitalizing on Environmental Injustice: The Polluter-Industrial Complex in the Age of Globalization. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefi eld, 2008.

Franklin, Ursula, The Real World of Technology, 2d ed. Toronto: Anansi, 1999.

Hilton, Matthew, Prosperity for All: Consumer Activism in an Era of Globalization. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009.

Landes, David S., The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.

Saul, John Ralston, The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World. Toronto: Viking, 2005.

Schweitzer, Albert, The Philosophy of Civilization. Translated by C. T. Campion. New York: Macmillan, 1949.

Stiglitz, Joseph, Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.

Stiglitz, Joseph, Making Globalization Work. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007.

Free essays are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can order a term paper, research paper or custom TOPIC at our site which offers professional essay writing services. Get your high quality custom paper at relatively cheap prices. EssayEmpire is the best solution for those who seek help in essay writing related to TOPIC and other relevant topics.