Write a 7 page essay on Does pre-modern globalisation meet the criteria for globalisation.Download file to see previous pages... The Arabs also travelled to Europe and Africa, among other lands, to tr

Write a 7 page essay on Does pre-modern globalisation meet the criteria for globalisation.

The Arabs also travelled to Europe and Africa, among other lands, to trade and explore. In the late 1400s, Christopher Columbus would journey to the North American continent 200 years after Marco Polo, the Venetian traveler had visited China (Gunn 2003). This shows that travel and trade practices among different communities were common even in ancient civilisations. Moreover, it is only in the 19th and 20th centuries that globalisation which was characterised by Westernisation would begin to take root across the world. The implements that were created in Western nations would propel globalisation by facilitating more trade by enabling the quicker transportation of goods to distant locations. What different perspectives are there on the starting date of globalisation and why do people disagree on when it started? Globalisation is defined in different ways by different scholars. Historians like Petersson and Osterhammel will claim that globalisation can actually be traced to the interactive trade activities of people in ancient Chinese, Greek, and Indian civilisations (Kaiser 2003). Eurocentric historians, on the other hand, define the start of globalisation as the moment when European nations acquired the naval skills to navigate the oceans and travel to different nations and continents (Pieterse 2003). For other scholars, true globalisation can only be said to have started in the mid-nineteenth century, when entire continents were suddenly able to have access to information about what was occurring in nations across the sea as a result of the trans-Atlantic communications cables that were placed on the ocean floor. The mid-nineteenth century also marked the beginning of international social movements like the female suffrage movement. The final group of scholars claim that globalisation only truly began in the 1960's, with the production of the earliest computer systems, commercial flight which allowed people to relocate to other continents in a much shorter time than was previously possible, and due to the invention of modernising communications technologies. For each of these groups, globalisation is defined y their area of specialty. A historian, for example, is well aware that trade between nations is something that was not invented in the 19th century with the discovery of locomotives. but existed even when Alexander the Great lived. A modernist, on the other hand, will define globalisation according to when the most modern technological discoveries were first fashioned in such a way that they improved human transportation. Examples of pre-modern globalisation There are numerous examples of ‘pre-modern’ civilisations that encouraged their citizens to engage in international trade- which is the most obvious quality that is identified with globalisation. India, for example, was a globalised society centuries before the European connotation of the word globalisation was coined. In 322 B.C.E., Asoka (304-232 B.C.E) ruled over the great Empire of Maurya (Versluys 2008). The citizens of Asoka’s empire were free to trade with others, and did so across a vast state. The Mauryan Empire stretched from the Bangladesh to the Himalayas. It also encompassed areas such as modern day Pakistan, and Afghanistan. While Emperor Asoka at first used war to expand his empire, he would later resort to religion to keep it together. Asoka became a Buddhist and even encouraged his ethnically diverse citizens to educate themselves and learn philosophy.