READ: Unit 9 Overview - Globalization, Internationalism, and Nationalism

Before you read the article, you should skim it first. The skim should be very quick and give you the gist (general idea) of what the article is about. You should be looking at the title, author, headings, pictures, and opening sentences of paragraphs for the gist.

Now that you’ve skimmed the article, you should preview the questions you will be answering. These questions will help you get a better understanding of the concepts and arguments that are presented in the article. Keep in mind that when you read the article, it is a good idea to write down any vocab you see in the article that is unfamiliar to you.

By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

Finally, here are some questions that will help you focus on why this article matters and how it connects to other content you’ve studied.

At the end of the third read, you should be able to respond to these questions:

In December of 1991, the Soviet Union broke up into fifteen different countries. Most of these countries quickly embraced some form of a capitalist system of production and distribution, and the Cold War came to an end. Decolonization didn't end quite as neatly, but it probably can be said to have ended somewhere in the 1990s, perhaps in 1997 when the British handed the colony of Hong Kong back to China. So that's that, right?

Well, no. If you've paid attention to this course, you know that true stories hardly ever really end. History has a legacy. The past continues to affect the present. There are still communist states in the world, such as Cuba and (in some ways) China. Many people in the world still believe that socialism is a good idea, despite the Cold War victory of the United States over the Soviet Union. Colonialism has left an even longer legacy. Among other things, this legacy continues to shape ideas and opinions about whose culture is superior or inferior. In global economic structures the ghosts of colonialism have left many former colonies impoverished while the richest companies in the world are based in former imperialist nations.

This unit is about globalization. Okay, the whole course is kind of about globalization, but this is where we follow various types of worldwide connections and networks through time and place, armed with the knowledge and ideas of the earlier units. Like the Cold War and decolonization, historians argue about the dates of this thing we call globalization. We don't argue about when it ended, but rather when it began. Did globalization begin around 1750, when the ideas that would give birth to the Industrial Revolution and liberal political revolutions crisscrossed the Atlantic? Or perhaps 1880, when industrial states rushed to build vast global empires? Did it begin in 1914, with the first truly global war? Wait a minute—what if it's much older, going back to 1492 when ship routes connected Afro-Eurasia and the Americas? Or much newer, starting only after the Second World War with mass media and passenger air travel? To hear some tell it, globalization is as old as sailboats or as new as the Internet.

In this unit, while acknowledging that global connections go way back, we focus on globalization as a story of the last half century or so. This era overlaps with the stories of Cold War and decolonization described in the last unit. But it extends all the way to the early twenty-first century—years in which you have lived—as well. We call this era, from about 1945 to the present, an age of intense globalization. This means that globalization was deeper and wider than ever before. Now we try to understand this intense degree of globalization not just as one big trend, but also in terms of human experiences around the world. We interpret evidence to answer some fundamental questions about globalization: How alike, and how different were people living during this era, and to what degree? And what explains the similarities and differences among them, among us?

Our study of the era of intense globalization starts with a look at issues familiar to anyone who has studied the past two centuries through the communities frame—so you are well-prepared. The political revolutions of the long nineteenth century promised individual and national sovereignty. In reality, such rights have been extended only to a limited reach of people, whether because of race, gender, empire, or other restrictions. These political inequalities continued well after the Second World War. What has happened in the last half-century? Who has rights now, and who does not? And even when people technically have political rights, do their actual experiences let them claim those rights? We explore this question partly through the documents that gave people political and other rights. But we'll also question how, despite those documents, abuses of rights have continued, including several genocides.

In another part of this unit, we look at community in terms of people's identities in the age of intense globalization. Who do people identify with, and who do they feel they are? For better or worse, the long nineteenth century gave us the option of feeling like members of a nation, whether that nation had its own state or not. But the twentieth century also gave us international identities. And we all feel like we belong to smaller communities—whether our towns, or our families, or something else. How has globalization changed the groups we identify with? How is that different in different places? We address this question partly by looking at the options available to people, and also through the specific examples of Israel and Palestine.

The long nineteenth century also produced the Industrial Revolution, and with it the ability to produce more goods, foods, and services, and to distribute them faster. In the last fifty years, this trend only grew, which increased global economic integration. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of communism almost everywhere meant the global economy was now dominated by capitalism. Even the last great communist state, China, became a major player in this system. Almost everyone is now a participant in this global economic system, and money, raw materials, and finished products fly across the world at great speed. But what has this global economy done to each of us? How has it affected people in different regions? In different kinds of jobs? In one lesson in this unit, we try to provide evidence to answer these questions by looking at some specific examples, from China to Latin America to the United States. As the Industrial Revolution remade our world over the past 250 or so years, our changing environment has introduced another issue. Industrialization, a booming human population, and the need to feed our growing population have together caused massive changes to the environment. These changes include increased pollution, the depletion of natural resources, the extinction of species, and—increasingly—climate change. We sometimes call this era in which humans have been the biggest influence on the environment, the Anthropocene. Some people have been more affected by this environmental change than others. The need for natural resources has led to conflict in some regions such as attacks on water tankers in India during a prolonged heat wave. Pollution is making people sicker, but again that depends on where you live. Other people have lost their farms or jobs or homes because of climate change. This is the lesson where we get to study how these changes are affecting different parts of the world.

As the Industrial Revolution remade our world over the past 250 or so years, our changing environment has introduced another issue. Industrialization, a booming human population, and the need to feed our growing population have together caused massive changes to the environment. These changes include increased pollution, the depletion of natural resources, the extinction of species, and—increasingly—climate change. We sometimes call this era in which humans have been the biggest influence on the environment, the Anthropocene. Some people have been more affected by this environmental change than others. The need for natural resources has led to conflict in some regions such as attacks on water tankers in India during a prolonged heat wave. Pollution is making people sicker, but again that depends on where you live. Other people have lost their farms or jobs or homes because of climate change. This is the lesson where we get to study how these changes are affecting different parts of the world.

This final unit brings our course up to date, but you've probably already guessed that it doesn't end the narrative. By now, you should be able to see how the patterns of the past are impacting our own world. Maybe you are interested in the ways that political rights have expanded in some ways—and narrowed in others—since the liberal revolutions of the long nineteenth century. Possibly you are more concerned about the ways that our global economy has grown, but not equally for everyone, since the Industrial Revolution. Maybe you are more compelled by the different ways modern communities have included or excluded people based on national origin, religion, race, gender, or perhaps another aspect we did not discuss here. In many ways, globalization is only the most recent step in all of these processes. Asking how these trends impact us today makes the past not just useful, but usable—and a usable past can help you to orient yourself to the present, and perhaps prepare for the future as the global story continues.

Trevor Getz is Professor of African and world History at San Francisco State University. He has written or edited eleven books, including the award-winning graphic history Abina and the Important Men, and co-produced several prize-winning documentaries. He is also the author of A Primer for Teaching African History, which explores questions about how we should teach the history of Africa in high school and university classes.