How Old is the Global World?
The ‘age’ of global world does not equal to the ‘age’ of human history. From the perspective of Big History (Universal History, Megahistory), which is one of the most groundbreaking fields in historical research viewing the integrated history of Space, Earth, life and humanity on large-scale time spans using the multidisciplinary approach, as well as the co-evolution of inanimate and animate nature, and social systems, the global world emerged with the Big Bang (see Christian 2004). Focusing specifically on the ‘human’ global world, its age again is not equal to the age of humankind as a species. Indeed, throughout the early history humans dwelled in a number of separate societies, the vast majority of which hardly interacted with each other. In other words: there is a clear and long period between the global world and the ‘human’ global world.
In our opinion, the ‘human’ global world emerged with the establishment of stable relationships and systematic interaction between societies (territories) which comprised the vast majority of the world population.
From this perspective, the definition of the global world is close to that of the World-System, the largest ‘suprasocietal system’, which originated in the Middle East as a result of the Agrarian revolution and came to comprise the entire world through numerous cycles of expansion and consolidation. In the course of these cycles, the center of the World-System has repeatedly moved; for many centuries China played this role, then it shifted to Europe, and later, in the nineteenth century, to North America (see Grinin and Korotayev 2009: 131–133). Respectively, in order to determine the age of the global world, we can well rely on the following criteria developed in the framework of the world-system approach:
• Generation and diffusion of innovations (Korotayev 2005, 2007);
• Information networks (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997);
• Trade networks of luxury goods (Frank 1990; Frank and Gills 1993; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997);
• Military-Political Networks (Frank 1990; Frank and Gills 1993; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997);
• Trade networks of mass consumption goods (Wallerstein 1974, 1980, 1988, 2004).
Depending on the chosen criterion, the age of the World System can differ significantly. However, these criteria can also be represented as successive stages of the World System development, reflecting its increasing connectivity, which, after many cycles of expansion and consolidation, allowed the emergence and consolidation of a truly global World-System. If we compare these criteria to the Agricultural (Neolithic), Industrial, and Informational revolutions, and the major economic and technological novelties they brought, it is possible to suggest the following periodization of the global world:
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The formation of the ‘primary’ world system in the Middle East approximately between the ninth and seventh centuries BCE is directly connected with the Agrarian revolution. One can hardly call this primary world system ‘global’ as it covered only the territory of the Fertile Crescent (Palestine, Syria, Northern Iraq and Western Iran). But there were also real (albeit very slow) informational connections, through which the North African and Eurasian region systematically obtained the most important agricultural and craftsmanship innovations from the Middle East, such as domesticated grains, large and small domesticated cattle, horses, ploughs, wheels, copper, bronze and iron products, etc. (Grinin and Korotayev 2009: 131–133; 2013; 2014).
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Considerable consolidation of the world-system and its internal connectivity occurs in the era of agrarian empires. From 1200 BCE to 200 CE, numerous agrarian empires gained power and achieved prosperity, such as the Hellenistic world, the Roman Empire (covering the entire Mediterranean), the Persian Empire, the Achaemenid Empire, the Parthian Empire, the Kushan Empire, the Maurya Empire and the Gupta state in Northern India, the Qin Empire and later the Han Empire in China. The ‘circulatory system’ of this larger World System was based not only on the network of information exchanges, but also on the network of long-distance trade in luxury goods. The Great Silk Road became the central ‘artery’ of this system, linking the Roman Empire with the Han Empire since approximately second century BCE, passing through all regions of the Afro-Eurasian World System. Chase-Dunn and Hall even believe that it is the establishment of trade ties between China and Rome through the Silk Road about 2200 thousand years ago that gave birth to the Afro-Eurasian World System (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997: 149; see also Benjamin in this volume).
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The emergence of the genuinely global World System dates back to the ‘long sixteenth century’.* It was born as a result of a series of expansion cycles of the initial World-System, which grew to encompass more and more new societies. The era of Great geographical discoveries played a central role in establishing stable and intense connections between regions hosting the absolute majority of the world's population. In our opinion, this period can be considered as time of the birth of the global world. At the same time, the discovery of new rich resources of the New world – first of all, silver – and their transportation around the world (through the system of historical and newly laid land and sea trade routes) enhanced the world trade and the connectedness of the global networks in general (Flynn and Giradez 1995, 2012; Maddison 2001, 2010).
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Further development and growth of the World System's global connectivity is directly related to the ‘modernization transition’, that is to the transition from traditional to modern societies. Often the beginning of modernization and the birth of modern societies in this period is associated with the British industrial revolution and its subsequent spread first to Europe and the USA, and then worldwide. However, with all the significance of the industrial revolution, such an interpretation would unacceptably narrow the scope and downplay the significance of many other aspects of modernization transition, affecting all spheres of human life. Among its main components (in different countries they emerged and gained peaks at different times, with different speed and intensity, proceeding unevenly among the population) include the following:
• Energy revolution – an explosive increase in human energy consumption; the transition from muscular energy of humans and animals and natural-organic (water, wind, wood) energy sources to fossil fuels (coal, and later oil and natural gas);
• Scientific revolution – the radical changes in the knowledge about the world, society, and human beings as a result of fundamental discoveries in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, anatomy and chemistry; the emergence of modern science, its principles, methods and institutions;
• Industrial revolution – the transition from an agrarian to an industrial mode of production, from manual labor to machines, from manufactory to factory, accompanied by a rapid growth of productivity and specialization;
• Agricultural revolution – the growth of labor productivity in agriculture, thanks to which, on the one hand, there arose the ability to feed a large population that is not employed in the agricultural sector, and, on the other hand – to free many workers from agricultural labor for industrial production;
• Educational revolution – the spread of mass public education and compulsory primary education;
• Global demographic transition – transition from traditional type of reproduction, characterized by high mortality and fertility rates, to its modern type, characterized by low mortality and low fertility; medical revolution (as well as new norms of hygiene in urban infrastructure) should be particularly highlighted as they made enormous contribution to reducing mortality and changing its structure by establishing efficient control over communicable diseases;
• Political modernization – this comprehensive notion implies the emergence of centralized nation-states; the emergence of bureaucracy (hierarchy of professional state managers); formalization of decision-making procedures; the spread of representative forms of government; the emergence of modern legal traditions, etc.;
• Urbanization – significant increase in the proportion of urban residents among the population (compared to traditional societies, where the majority of the population lives in rural areas); urbanization is dynamically linked with the concentration of population in certain places necessary for the modern industrialized production of goods and services, to changes in the employment structure (the rapid growth in the share of urban residents has been accompanied by rapid employment growth in the modern sectors) and dramatic changes in the lifestyle of the majority of population;
• Revolutionary development in transportation (steamboats, railroads, automobiles) and communications (the telegraph) which increased the World System connectedness and its informational penetrability.
• Financial modernization – the emergence of international credit and foreign direct investments on a truly global scale (formerly limited by the European region); the classic Gold standard; dematerialization of money.
• Cultural modernization – general modernization of lifestyle, the unification of time and space measurement, the emergence of mass culture, the transition from folk culture to professional one.
As a famous Russian historian, Nikolay Kradin stated, there are several waves of modernization:
The primary modernization affected mainly the societies of Western Europe between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The second stage of modernization encompassed the states in Eastern and Southern Europe, as well as Russia, Japan and Turkey. Modern Asia, Africa and Latin America constitute the third echelon of modernization. Most of them are still in the periphery of the modern World System. Some of them managed to make success in the course of modernization (e.g., India, the majority of Latin American states). Finally, some countries (‘Asian tigers’) have made considerable achievements (Kradin 2008: 172).
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