This essay opines at the outset that ‘the dissection of globalisation must include a careful and critical examination of the term itself.’ (Defining Globalisation Jan Aart Scholte, The Author Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford, p 1471) Thus, any essay purporting to define when ‘globalisation began’ requires a definition – or at least an understanding – of globalisation that is comprehensive enough to encompass its many facets, including economic, political, military, and supraterritorial communications while disentangling the discussion from untenable misinterpretations of globalisation itself: internationalisation, westernisation, universalisation and westernisation being four of these. (Defining Globalisation Jan
…show more content…
(James, Paul (2005). ‘Arguing Globalizations: Propositions Towards an Investigation of Global Formation’. Globalizations 2 Globalism Institute, Melbourne, Australia (2): pp. 193–209) The term as we understand it today originally came to prominence when it was coined by Theodore Levitt in 1983 who wrote of ‘the globalization of markets’ (Levitt, 1983) (Levitt, T. (1983), ‘The Globalization of Markets’, Harvard Business Review, 61, 3, 92–102). Although Levitt was writing from the perspective of his specialism, economics, the term began to gain credence concurrently in other fields. The root causes that were present at the inception of the ‘identification’ of this period of post-modern globalisation were endemic and persuasive enough to drive into the global consciousness a ‘conflated’ (Defining Globalisation Jan Aart Scholte, The Author Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford, p 1483) theory that predicted little and promised nothing, offering only vague notions and ideals of expansion and unity. Moreover, as regards historic periods of globalisation, due to the fact that these were adduced from a modern perspective (Hopkins, A.G., ed., 2003. Globalization in World History. New York City, NY, Norton pp. 18, 20) it is the modern perspective that will likely colour their definition, including such notions as ‘beginning’ dates. All roads, it seems, lead back to what is essentially a social ‘theory’ in the advanced stages of rigor mortis (if this essay were to continue Justin Rosenberg’s analogy (Globalization Theory: A Post Mortem Justin Rosenberg, International Politics 2005)), that of post-modern
(James, Paul (2005). ‘Arguing Globalizations: Propositions Towards an Investigation of Global Formation’. Globalizations 2 Globalism Institute, Melbourne, Australia (2): pp. 193–209) The term as we understand it today originally came to prominence when it was coined by Theodore Levitt in 1983 who wrote of ‘the globalization of markets’ (Levitt, 1983) (Levitt, T. (1983), ‘The Globalization of Markets’, Harvard Business Review, 61, 3, 92–102). Although Levitt was writing from the perspective of his specialism, economics, the term began to gain credence concurrently in other fields. The root causes that were present at the inception of the ‘identification’ of this period of post-modern globalisation were endemic and persuasive enough to drive into the global consciousness a ‘conflated’ (Defining Globalisation Jan Aart Scholte, The Author Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford, p 1483) theory that predicted little and promised nothing, offering only vague notions and ideals of expansion and unity. Moreover, as regards historic periods of globalisation, due to the fact that these were adduced from a modern perspective (Hopkins, A.G., ed., 2003. Globalization in World History. New York City, NY, Norton pp. 18, 20) it is the modern perspective that will likely colour their definition, including such notions as ‘beginning’ dates. All roads, it seems, lead back to what is essentially a social ‘theory’ in the advanced stages of rigor mortis (if this essay were to continue Justin Rosenberg’s analogy (Globalization Theory: A Post Mortem Justin Rosenberg, International Politics 2005)), that of post-modern