updated 8mo ago
The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions
Interestingly, the lucky latitudes maintained their good luck even during the fossil-fuel era of the past two centuries. By sheer accident of geology, the lucky latitudes contain major geological reserves of coal. The reason is coincidental: Around 100 million years ago, much of today’s lucky-latitude land was tropical swampland. Dead plant and ani
... See morefrom The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs
China, a proud empire with an astounding 37 percent of the world’s population in 1820, found itself humbled by countries less than a tenth its size. While China avoided direct colonization during the nineteenth century, it did not avoid chaos, military defeat, or European imperial encroachments on its sovereignty. India, with 20 percent of the worl
... See morefrom The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs
The first comprehensive attempt at global governance among the world’s nation-states came in the wake of World War I with the establishment of the League of Nations, heaquartered in Geneva, in 1920. The League was a remarkable breakthrough in concept, giving representation to nations in order to maintain the peace. There were forty-two initial memb
... See morefrom The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs
Economic development is limited by the availability of energy for work, including for industry (e.g., metallurgy), farm production (e.g., plowing), transport, and communications. Primary energy resources include biomass, fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), wind, water, solar, geothermal, nuclear (uranium), and ocean power. The ability to tap
... See morefrom The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs
Even then, China’s turmoil did not end. The new state embarked on a Soviet-style centrally planned economy in the 1950s, but Mao became impatient with the results by the end of the 1950s and launched the Great Leap Forward to accelerate industrialization. The result was chaos and starvation, as farmers were required to leave the fields and devote t
... See morefrom The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs
Columbus stumbled upon the Americas (figure 6.2), though he still believed he had reached India. Vasco da Gama, for his part, sailed from Lisbon and made it to India and back in 1498–99 (figure 6.3). The race was now on, initially between Portugal and Spain, to earn the spoils from these two historic breakthroughs. More fundamentally, these two voy
... See morefrom The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs
There is another crucial advantage to settlements in river valleys: agricultural productivity. Rivers provide fresh water for irrigation, and in traditional riverine farm systems, such as along the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates, annual flooding replenished soil nutrients thanks to the fine-grained sediments carried by the river flow from the
... See morefrom The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs
These civilizations also invented forms of writing that became the precursors of modern scripts. The oldest writing systems in Mesopotamia date from the use of pictographs around 3500 BCE and then the great breakthrough to cuneiform around 2500 BCE. Hieroglyphics in the Nile River valley date from around 3100 BCE, possibly influenced by Sumerian wr
... See morefrom The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs
The second Thirty Years’ War began with World War I. At the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles was supposed to be the peace to end all wars. To later historians, it has become known as the peace to end all peace. The agreements reached in Versailles were so cynical and destabilizing that Europe failed to recover its economic vitality, and
... See morefrom The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs
China’s nineteenth-century story actually begins in 1793, when the Chinese emperor rebuffed a British mission that sought to open British-Chinese trade. The Qing emperor could see no advantage in the request and sent the mission home without result. Another such mission failed in 1816. When Britain next returned, it did so with a vengeance, launchi
... See morefrom The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs