International Economics, Second Edition

CHAPTER 1

A Brief History of Modern Economic Globalization

Introduction

The urge to exchange goods and services is a fundamental characteristic of any economy, and human beings have traded across far-flung locales for millennia. Archaeologists point to Mesopotamia, in modern day Iraq, as the place where Western civilization began. The ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia were inveterate traders with a culture that featured writing, mathematics, laws, and cities. Over the subsequent centuries, trade networks and economic integration grew to cover ever-greater regions of the Eurasian landmass, depending on the stability and reach of existing political regimes. The 4,000-mile “Silk Road,” a network of overland trade routes connecting China to the Mediterranean, ...