the “crystallization of conceptions of formalized international relations,” a “more concrete conception of humankind,” and “[s]harp increases in conventions and agencies concerned with international and transnational regulation and communication” (1990: 26).3 Take-Off Phase (1870s to the mid-1920s). Among the key developments in this period were the “[v]ery sharp increase in number and speed of global forms of communication. Rise of ecumenical movement. Development of global competitions – e.g. Olympics, Nobel Prizes. Implementation of World Time and near-global adoption of Gregorian calendar. First World war. League of Nations” (1990: 27).
4 Struggle-for-hegemony phase (1920s to the mid-1960s). This period was characterized by war (WW II) and disputes (Cold War) over the still fragile globalization process. The UN was formed during this period.
5 Uncertainty Phase (1960s to the early 1990s4 ). Many global developments occurred during this period including inclusion of the Third World in the global system, end of the Cold War (and bipolarity), spread of nuclear weapons, world civil society, world citizenship, and global media system consolidation. Robertson saw “crisis tendencies” in the global system in the early 1990s, and COVID-19 has more recently exacerbated such tendencies.
Were Robertson to address this issue again, he might find that yet another epoch began at the turn of the twenty-first century. These epochal views tend to contrast with the focus here on the current global age since they do not see it as particularly unique.
EVENTS
A fourth view is that instead of cycles or great epochs, one can point to much more specific events that can be seen as the origin of globalization. In fact, there are many such possible points of origin of globalization, some of which are:
the Romans and their far-ranging conquests in the centuries before Christ (Gibbon 1998);
the rise and spread of Christianity in the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire;
the spread of Islam in the seventh century and beyond;
the travels of the Vikings from Europe to Iceland, Greenland, and briefly to North America in the ninth through the eleventh centuries as examples of, and landmarks, in globalization;
trade in the Middle Ages throughout the Mediterranean;
the activities of the banks of the twelfth-century Italian city-states;
the rampage of the armies of Ghengis Khan into Eastern Europe in the thirteenth century;
European traders like Marco Polo and his travels later in the thirteenth century along the Silk Road to China. (Interestingly, there is now discussion of the development of an “iron silk road” involving a linked railroad network through a variety of Asian countries that at least evokes the image of the lure of Marco Polo’s Silk Road.);
the “discovery” of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Other important voyages of discovery during this time involved Vasco Da Gama rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 and the circumnavigation of the globe completed in 1522 by one of Ferdinand Magellan’s ships (Joel Rosenthal 2007);
European colonialism, especially in the nineteenth century;
the early twentieth-century global Spanish flu pandemic;
the two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century.
It is also possible to get even more specific about the origin of globalization, especially in recent years. A few rather eclectic recent examples include:
1956 – the first transatlantic telephone cable;
1958 – while it was possible to fly across the Atlantic in the 1930s on seaplanes that made several stops along the way, the big revolution in this area was the arrival of transatlantic passenger jet travel with the first being Pan Am’s flight from New York to London (with a stopover for refueling required in Newfoundland);
1962 – the launch of the satellite Telstar and soon thereafter the first transatlantic television broadcasts;
1966 – the transmission from a satellite of the picture of the earth as single location leading not only to a greater sense of the world as one place (increased global consciousness [Robertson and Inglis 2004]), but also of great importance to the development of the global environmental movement;
1970 – the creation of Clearing House Interbank Payment System (CHIPS) making possible global electronic (wire) transfers of funds (now $1.5 trillion a day in 2012) among financial institutions;
1977 – the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) came into being making possible more global transfers of funds by individuals;
1988 – the founding of the modern Internet based on Arpanet (which was created in 1969). While it took the Internet several years to take off, this was a turning point in global interconnection for billions of people;
2001 – the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington, as well as later terrorist attacks on trains in Madrid (March 11, 2004) and London (July 7, 2005), among others. The following is a specific example insupport of the idea that 9/11 can be taken as a point of origin for globalization (at least of higher education): “Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, internationalization has moved high on the agenda at most universities, to prepare students for a globalized world, and to help faculty members stay up-to-date in their disciplines” (Lewin 2008: 8).
2009 – due to the highly interconnected global economy, the Great Recession sent shockwaves throughout the world. Some of its many effects included changes to global migration patterns, declines in global remittances, and explosions in unemployment and debt, and it led to many battles over austerity measures – effects that are likely to continue shaping globalization.
2014 – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its fourth assessment report noting the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming, its human causes, and calls for necessary global responses. According to Ulrich Beck (2016), climate change “has already altered our way of being in the world the way we live in the world, think about the world and seek to act upon the world through our actions and politics.”
2018 –the majority of the world became connected to the Internet. Since the Internet became publicly accessible for the first time in 1991, it took only 28 years to connect half of the globe to this paradigmatic global technology (see Figure 2.1 for Internet usage rates around the world).
Figure 2.1 Internet Usage by Country (% of population). As of 2019, 49% of the world is connected to the Internet. But it varies significantly based on level of income with 16% of people connected in low income countries, 45% in middle income countries, and 87% in high income countries. The countries with the highest and lowest Internet usage are indicated on the map. Source: Data from Individuals using the Internet % of population. Retrieved from: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS.
This focus
