Crash Course Big History: Globalization

Introduction to Globalization

• Globalization is a process impacting collective learning for hundreds of years.
• Collective Learning: Process that increases the complexity of societies by accumulating more innovations than are lost each generation.
  • Enabled advancements in agriculture, industry, and technology.
• Key Ingredients: Number of potential innovators and connectivity of information.

World Zones and Migrations

• Humans spread from Africa 64,000 years ago to various parts of the world.
• Major world zones: Afro-Eurasia, Americas, Australasia, Pacific Island Societies.
• Isolated development led to independent cultural evolutions, e.g., agriculture and empires.
• Example: "Fire-stick farming" in Australia.

Collective Learning and Agriculture

• Agriculture arose independently in Afro-Eurasia, leading to agrarian states.
• Silk Roads: Enabled trade and limited transfer of knowledge across Afro-Eurasia.

Early Globalization Waves

• First Wave: Colonization of Americas 500 years ago and Pacific 200-300 years ago.
• United humanity into a single global system, affecting collective learning pace.

Three P's of Early Globalization

1. Printing

• Enhanced the spread of written knowledge, leading to increased connectivity.
• China: Printing began around 200 BCE with woodblocks, movable type developed around 1050 CE.
• Europe: Gutenberg's printing press (1450) revolutionized book production.
  • Led to the Scientific Revolution and rapid exchange of ideas.

2. Potatoes

• Domesticated in Mesoamerica, crucial for agrarian societies.
• Introduced to Europe in the 1500s, playing a role in the Agricultural Revolution.
• Introduced to East Asia in the 1600s, increasing population carrying capacity.
• Negative Impact: Irish Potato Famine and colonial oppression in Africa.

3. Plagues

• Afro-Eurasia: High population densities and animal domestication led to diseases like Black Death.
• Diseases spread via trade routes, devastating populations.
• Impact on Americas: Introduction of European diseases led to a massive population decline, impacting collective learning.

Conclusion

• Globalization linked world zones, accelerating collective learning and complexity transformation.
• Ongoing process with both positive and negative impacts.
• Future globalization could be more positive with informed and interconnected populations.