History of globalization

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Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations. A process driven by international trade and investment. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and on human physical well-being in societies around the world.

The first phase of globalization is heavily characterized by the exchange of knowledge and less by the exchange of goods. Notable events during that phase, which took place from the 15th to the 18th century, are the Portuguese and Spanish discoveries of America, the introduction of the Gregorian calendar and the discovery of the heliocentric view of the solar system.
The 18th and the 19th century are usually associated with democracy, industrialization and scientific progress. The American Declaration of Independence in the year 1776 helped the spread of democratic ideals, which many countries use even now.
In the 19th century the industrialization took place, which gave the world significant technological progress and allowed for easier and faster exchange of goods and information between countries. Only a few decades later the phase of imperialism and international expansion started: International trade relations became stronger thanks to the free trade and the first international competitions like the Olympics or the Nobel Prize Awards were held.

The second phase of globalization covers the period of intensive internationalization of transportation systems, communications, commerce and science. During the second half of the 19th century, the Western world experienced a dramatic intensification of international connectivity due to four advancing technologies–trains, steamships, the telegraph, and the postal system. At the turn of the 20th century, an affluent inhabitant of London had access to many products of foreign origin before the events of August 1914 disrupted this world of global connectivity.

The third phase of globalization, which began in 1945, was made possible by the long economic expansion that followed after the end of the Second World War.
The period from the late 1940s to the early 1970s is called the Golden Age of Capitalism. This new global economic order was aimed at preventing a return of the catastrophic economic conditions from the Great Depression of the 1930s. This international order called for close cooperation between nations, as opposed to the destructive economic competitions between nations of the 1930s. New international financial agreements and institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, provided a new kind of global financial stability.
The Golden Age of Capitalism ended during the early 1970s. It has been replaced by slower growth and a series of global financial crises related to the triumph of neoliberal market globalism. The neoliberal globalism is characterized by free trade, deregulation of the corporate sector and competition between certain companies instead of competition between countries. Improved communication, and especially the Internet, accelerated the financial market and the speed of transaction. All those historical phases bring us to the world we are living in today – with easy access to lots of information and the ability to buy goods from all around the world.