The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions

As of 100 CE, the Roman and Han empires each had a population of around 60 million, and the Indian subcontinent had roughly the same or perhaps slightly more. The population of Parthia might be guessed at around 15 million. Combined, these regions were home to perhaps 200 million of the estimated 225 million world population. The populations of sub

The famed Franciscan friar Bartolome de las Casas argued that the Indians had souls and as such could not be enslaved or mistreated by the encomenderos. Remarkably, the monarchy agreed and in 1542 issued the Leyes Nuevos (New Laws), outlawing the enslavement of indigenous Americans. This act must be regarded as a powerful case of moral reasoning tr

The Mongol Empire began to unravel in the fourteenth century from internal dissension, disintegrating into a number of separate khanates. Those, in turn, soon collapsed. China was recaptured by Han rulers in 1378, ending a century of Mongol rule and ushering in the Ming Dynasty. Other Mongol khanates lasted longer, but generally were overtaken by l

As a contiguous land area that has been home to most of humanity, Eurasia has long enjoyed the benefits of scale, long-distance trade, and the innovation and diffusion of technologies. For at least five thousand years, the horse has played a key, even decisive, role in Eurasia’s development, offering unequalled transport services, horse power for a

Now, instead of emphasizing the harmonization of present and future needs, as in the Brundtland Commission report, sustainable development is now described as meeting the triple bottom line of economic prosperity, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability.

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

In addition to creating a thick network of Mediterranean commerce, the Phoenicians created a twenty-two-letter consonantal writing system for their Semitic language that in turn was adapted by the Greeks in the eighth century BCE and later by the Romans. The Phoenician alphabet itself is assumed to have derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs. The easter

What is notable about geopolitics is how rapid global change can be. Empires rise and fall with stunning speed. In 1914, Britain still ruled the world. By 1960, Britain’s empire had essentially vanished and the Soviet Union seemed to challenge the United States for hegemonic leadership. By December 1991, the Soviet Union too had vanished from the m

If a life of foraging is really better than a life of farm labor, why wouldn’t humanity find a path back from agriculture to hunting and gathering? The best guess is that early farm settlements faced a one-way demographic trap. Here is a simple illustration: Suppose that the first generation of farmers got a boost from farming. Instead of eating tw