1. The Meaning of Global: Geographies of Connections
Caravans and Galleons
Tutor: Giorgio Riello
Week 2
Wednesday 8 October 2008
The Meaning of Global: Geographies of Connections

2. Today’s Lecture A. What is Galleons and Caravans about?
B. What are the key concepts and methods used in the course?

3. A. What is Galleons and Caravans about?
Team-taught course
- based on the expertise of tutors
2. Chronology:
- organised through themes
3. Geography: Eurasia?
- the geography of connections

6. o o o o o

7. A. What is Galleons and Caravans about?
2. Topics
1. Global History
2. Silk Routes, Maps and Travellers 
3. Diasporas and Migrations
4. Global Cities
5. Global Empires
6. Trade and the European Companies
7. Global Material Culture and Silver
8. Religious Connections
9. Technology and War
10. Global Arts

8. A. What is Galleons and Caravans about?
3. Warnings
Themes must be understood in their chronologies and connected to other themes.

9. A. What is Galleons and Caravans about?
2. Topics
1. Global History
2. Silk Routes, Maps and Travellers 
3. Diasporas and Migrations
4. Global Cities
5. Global Empires
6. Trade and the European Companies
7. Global Material Culture and Silver
8. Religious Connections
9. Technology and War
10. Global Arts

10. A. What is Galleons and Caravans about?
3. Warnings
Themes must be understood in their chronologies and connected to other themes.
The aim is not to know everything, but the ability to know what you need.

11. B. Key Concepts: The Global History Toolkit
1. What is Global History?
Global history is not local history; isn’t it?
Global history is not national history
Global history refers to continents but it is not the history of individual continents
Global history is not always related to the study of the globe as a unit
McNeill defines global history as ‘history in which we know what to leave out’

12. B. Key Concepts: The Global History Toolkit
2. Global History and Globalisation
‘Globalisation’ is often seen as a phenomenon that boomed in the 1990s through:
- new systems of communication (the internet, etc)
- a high degree of economic interconnectedness
- the power of large corporations
- cultural homogenisation
- etc.

13. B. Key Concepts: The Global History Toolkit
2. Global History and Globalisation
We should distinguish between different definitions of globalisation:
- economic connections
- cultural connections
- migrations
- the use of ideas to create power over other people
- environmental connections
- communication and transport
- etc.

14. B. Key Concepts: The Global History Toolkit
3. Methodologies
a. Connective:
- to explain both economic and cultural phenomena.
- connections are not always positive (exploitation, war, slavery, etc.).
b. Comparative:
- especially used in the social sciences
- based on indepth studies of specific localities
- problem of what to compare

15. B. Key Concepts: The Global History Toolkit
3. Methodologies: but also…
c. Holistic:
- the whole world as one unit (in ‘big history’ the whole ‘Universe’, as in David Christian’s Maps of Time (2004)
- use of science and biology
d. Systemic:
- analyzes how different areas (be they localities, states or empires) relate to each other.

16. B. Key Concepts: The Global History Toolkit
4. World Systems
Immanuel Wallerstein in his:
The Modern World-System
vol. 1: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century (1974)
vol. 2: Mercantilism and the consolidation of the European world-economy, (1980)
vol. 3: The second era of great expansion of the capitalist world-economy, s (1989)
suggested how the emergence of a capitalist world in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries structured not just Europe but the entire world.
He distinguished between: cores, peripheries and semi-peripheries.

17. B. Key Concepts: The Global History Toolkit
4. World Systems
Wallerstein’s methodology was very influential for other historians such as:
Frank, Andre Gunder, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, (1998).
Giovanni Arrighi, The long twentieth century: money, power and the origins of our times (1994).
Janet Abu Lughod, Before European hegemony: the world system A.D (1989).

18. B. Key Concepts: The Global History Toolkit
5. World and Global History
‘World History’
(in French ‘histoire mondiale’, in Italian ‘storia mondiale’) has been
- used in the US since the 1960s:
- the teaching of survey courses
- the concept of civilization as central to the narratives proposed.
Patrick O’Brien, ‘Historiographical Traditions and Modern Imperatives for the Restoration of Global History’, Journal of Global History, 1, 1 (2006), pp
‘Global History’
is more used in Europe and in the UK in particular:
- it is more recent: last years
- taught in more specialised courses
- Based on connections, comparisons, theoretical structures, etc.

19. B. Key Concepts: The Global History Toolkit
5. World and Global History
Jounal of World History, since 1990, US-based
Journal of Global History, since 2006, UK-based

20. B. Key Concepts: The Global History Toolkit
6. Divergence vs. Convergence
Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence (2000) introduces the new concept of ‘Divergence’.
Pomeranz compares Western Europe and China from the 16th to the 19th century and he claims that Europe industrialised and modernised because of two factors missing in China:
- Coal, and
Colonies
These allowed Western Europe to diverge from a common Eurasian path of development in which per capita output had been relatively stable for centuries.

21. B. Key Concepts: The Global History Toolkit
6. Divergence vs. Convergence
Pomeranz is criticised by Prasannan Parthasarathi, ‘Review Article: The Great Divergence’, Past and Present, 176 (2002), pp
Previous Weberian paradigms:
David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (1998) [HR 1100.L2]
- E.L. Jones, The European Miracle: Environments, economies and geopolitics in the history of Europe and Asia (third edition, 2003) [HK 200.J6]

22. Next Week What is Globalisation – Hard and Soft Definitions
Was the Early Modern World Globalised
- C. A. Bayly
- Jan de Vries
- Importance of Empires in Global Connections