Chapter 21, 22, 23 & 24

WW Part 6 – Ch 21, Ch 22, Ch 23, Ch 24

Chapter 24

I like the way that the book describes globalization as a “ … process of accelerating engagement among distant peoples […] widely known as globalization”. It seems that one of the main purposes of humanity is to “engage distant people”. We were able to see this through the silk roads, the different conquests, the voyages, new discoveries of land, and more. People were able to exchange cultures, religions, technologies, and ways of ruling, along with many other things. Globalization was implemented very early in world history, even though today, people think of globalization as an economic growth at an international level.

After WWII, people introduced a new concept called “re-globalization”, because after the war, people had to re-organize and circulate the goods, capital, and people again (pg. 725). But it seems that history has repeated itself, because now, the economy is in bad shape and it is time to reconsider the term, “re-globalization”.

It is very interesting to see the indicators of re-globalization (pg. 728), and it makes me wonder how much money, more or less, has been made from early 2000’s until now, and what should be done to re-introduce the re-globalization concept.

By looking at the Map 24.2 (pg. 729), I ask my self this question - how come not everyone is benefiting equally from this economic development? You can clearly see the global inequality and the countries that are benefited the most. How can we explain that the higher the population is in a country, the less economic developed they are?

It is also interesting to see how in the book, the United States are referred to as an American Empire, even though the United States don’t see themselves that way. If we compare it to ancient empires, it is true to say that they are not expanding through the conquest of land, but they are actually expanding through their innovations, and different types of products. The books refers to this as an “empire of production” (pg. 733)

But globalization doesn’t pertain solely to the global economy. It also refers to the different ways people had expressed their ideas in a much more global level. These new ideas and concepts had a very crucial impact around the world, one example being the feminist movement, and the wanting of equality as a human being. It is amazing how greatly women were able to fight for the same ideals, even with a distance as a barrier. Also, the spread of religion globally, and the fight to keep the basic and fundamental beliefs, without having modernity interfering with it, is also fascinating to me. And lastly, another concept that intrigues me is the “globalization of environmentalism”. I think people around the world are still trying to grasp the concept of “being green”. This topic is still relatively new, and we need to keep working on it until the concept spreads globally for our benefit.