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The Evil Eye is an ancient symbol and belief originating in the Mediterranean areas that includes the ideology that an eye will cast supernatural misfortune onto the person through a malevolent glare.

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What historical, social and political perspectives affect the present day interpretation of the expression?

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What historical, social and political perspectives affect the present day interpretation of the expression?

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Consumerism and globalization are both social and economic things, they impact the world socially and economically. Focusing on the social aspects, consumerism and globalization changed the meaning to an object and less of a symbol with deep meaning. It remains as a symbol, but one of basic Greek nature rather than its definition. Moreover, the history of writers and artists interpreting the meaning and publishing it affects the present day interpretation because we take from writing and interpretations of others to form our own.

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What events (historical, social, and political; for example) may have impacted and transformed the expression over time?

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What events (historical, social, and political; for example) may have impacted and transformed the expression over time?

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Well the beginning of Greek antiquity heavily impacted this because it originated in Syria beforehand. Syria and Greece are very inter-connected dating back to the times of Alexander the Great when he conquered Syria - so later on in antiquity, Greek influence was still raging and present in Syria. Furthermore, during the Syrian Civil War and WWII, Greeks and Syrians interchanged between countries to escape both wars and brought their culture with them. So seeing this, it can be seen that Greek traditions became Greek and were brought back to Syria by Greek refugees and it changed based on that. The expression was attempted to be explained by writers such as Plutarch in classic writing which majorly changed the definitions and interpretations of the symbol. Transitioning to modern culture, the evil eye is less known as its purpose and more known as a fashion statement, being worn on bracelets and earrings with the users unknowing of the meaning and having it unfamiliar to them and their culture.

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What factors (for example, technological change, economic development, globalization, epidemics, migration, civil strife, education, mass media, and climate change) may have contributed to the changes experienced by a cultural expression?

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What factors (for example, technological change, economic development, globalization, epidemics, migration, civil strife, education, mass media, and climate change) may have contributed to the changes experienced by a cultural expression?

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Globalization had a major impact on this, as the evil eye turned into a product and an item rather than a symbol with a meaning. Like I said in the last question, consumerism changed it into a product that could be sold around the world and with this, came different interpretations and meanings. Relating back to the last question again, I spoke on the migration and civil strife and how those influenced the cultural expression - how it changed from Syrian to Greek because of the downfall of the Syrian city and how migration brought it back to Syria which in turn, brought it further around the world. Greek people immigrated to North America and fled during wars and brought the symbol with them.

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Globalization Stage 1 (Humanising the Globe) commences
Climate change forced people out of their natural habitats. They began consumption and production.

https://voxeu.org/content/long-view-globalisation-short-part-1-5

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A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5

This blog, and the four that will follow it, draw on Part 1 of my 2016 book, The Great Convergence.

In 1957, my father published a book called Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy. His opening lines:

"Since we are all too much affected by the times in which we live and are prone to generalise from transitory circumstances, we are not likely to gain a clear understanding ... if we simply start with existing conditions and attempt to disentangle the major factors currently at work."

I'd like to borrow his thought and modify it to "a clear understanding of globalisation ".

Today's discussions on globalisation are "all too much affected by the times in which we live". Globalisation's impact on the world economy was fairly steady for 175 years, and this led many to think that it would never change. But, as millions of people now realise, that's wrong.

Globalisation isn't like gravity or the speed of light - something that has always existed, exists now, and always will exist. Globalisation has changed radically in the past, and I think it'll change radically in the future. In short, there's nothing radical about radical changes in globalisation. To understand why this is so, it's necessary to go way back. Not just back to WW2. Not just back to the Industrial Revolution. Not just back to the Age of Discovery.

Let's go back to the beginning - the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa, 200,000 or 300,000 years ago. When we do this, we discover that the magnitude of globalisation's recent changes aren't out of line with their historical (or prehistorical) equivalents.

Five blog posts on the long history of globalisation - the organising principle

To keep things intellectually bite-sized, I've spread the history out over five blog posts. Even so, a narrative covering hundreds of thousands of years will have to skip some of the less important details. To justify the omissions, we need to be clear about what 'important' means in this story. To do that, I'll employ the classic definition of trade as an organising principle. Let me explain.

Trade is what happens when production and consumption are separated geographically. That means:

Really big changes in globalisation will involve changes in the physical co-location of production and consumption.

So what is important is how and when the production-consumption spatial relationship changes.

Starting point and drivers

The first humans were hunter-gatherers. For them, production and consumption took place in the same space. They moved their consumption to the production (production for them meant a naturally occurring food source) because, for people living with stone age technology, it made more sense. Moving consumption to production was easier than moving production to consumption. As technology evolved, this spatial bundling of production and consumption relaxed.

And hence, the second important point:

Exogenous 'shocks' have always been the key driver of the radical changes in the nature of globalisation.

In modern phases of globalisation, man-made barriers start to play a big role, but for most of globalisation's history, technology or climate were the binding constraint. Specifically, production and consumption were bundled due to the high cost of moving goods, ideas, and people. The cost of moving these all three of these eventually fell, but not quickly, and not all at once. The order in which they fell - as we shall see - shaped history.

Four phases of globalisation

In the view I develop at length in my 2016 book, The Great Convergence, there have been four phases of globalisation in human history; here is a brief summary (the follow-on blog posts flesh these out). Climate change launched Phase 1.

Phase 1: Humanising the globe (300,000 BCE-10,000 BCE)

Climate change allowed (or forced, it doesn't matter in this context) people out of Africa, and these people followed their food, fanning out across the globe. Consumption and production were bundled, but not in fixed locales.

The (Neolithic) agricultural revolution transformed Phase 1 into Phase 2.

Phase 2: Localising the global economy (10,000 BCE-1820 CE)

For the first time, agriculture brought the food to the people who wanted to eat it. If you will, production was coming to consumption instead of the other way around. This phase saw the rise of seven ancient civilisations in what are known today as Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, China, India/Pakistan, and Greece/Italy. For the first time production and consumption were bundled in particular locations, so it could be called the 'first bundling'.

The steam revolution shifted Phase 2 to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Globalising local economies (1820-1990)

The steam revolution and Industrial Revolution meant goods could be sent efficiently over long distances by land and sea. Steam thus unleashed spectacular transportation capabilities that made it economical to consume things that were made in far-away places.

This was the 'first unbundling' of production and consumption. It was caused by a steep drop in the cost of moving goods. But, even as production dispersed globally, it concentrated locally at the level of factories and industrial districts. For example, most of Britain deindustrialised during the Industrial Revolution. Cottage industries disappeared, and all the industrialisation took place in a handful of tightly circumscribed regions.

This combination of big markets and hyper-concentration of production would create what Kenneth Pomeranz called The Great Divergence in his 2001 book. In other words, this is when (and why) today's rich nations got rich, while the rest of the world did not.

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Revolution shifted Phase 3 to Phase 4.

Phase 4: Globalising factories (1990-present)

In the fourth stage, the ICT Revolution radically lowered the cost of moving ideas as well as goods over long distances. Therefore, it lowered the cost of coordinating complex activities at distance, which changed - and continues to change - the nature of globalisation. In particular, for the first time, it became organisationally feasible to separate stages of manufacturing production over long distances. Bombardier could make the tails of business jets in Mexico knowing that they'd fit on to fuselages made in Quebec. Factories could be unbundled geographically; I called this the 'Second Unbundling' in my 2006 paper, " Globalisation: The Great Unbundling(s)", that introduced the broader perspective on globalisation that forms the intellectual backbone of my 2016 book.

Once this production unbundling was feasible, the vast divergence in wages that had appeared during the Phase 3 made the separation profitable. Rich-nation firms offshored labour-intensive stages to nearby low-wage nations. As I argued in my 2016 book, this is a critical part of a 'Great Convergence' that is occurring now. It is what some others have called the emergence of emerging economies, or the ' rise of the rest'. It has brought the share of global GDP attributed to the G7 today back down to where it was in 1900.

Figure 1 illustrates what I like to call the 'shocking share shift'. It shows how the first unbundling (from 1820), and the second unbundling (from 1990) have altered the planet's economic geography.

Figure 1 Shares of global GDP
Source: World Databank (GDP in US dollars) and Maddison data pre-1960, with author's calculations.
So, now we have looked at the big picture, in subsequent posts I'll examine Phases 1 through 4

References

Baldwin, R (2006), " Globalisation: The Great Unbundling(s)", Economic Council of Finland 20(3): 5-47.

Baldwin, R (2016), The Great Convergence: Information technology and the New Globalisation, Harvard University Press.

Meier, G M and Robert E Baldwin (1957), Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy, John Wiley and Sons.

Pomeranz, K (2000), The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton University Press.

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A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5

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A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5 This blog, and the four that will follow it, draw on Part 1 of my 2016 book, The Great Convergence. In 1957, my father published a book called Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy .

# data[].attributes.body
Globalization Stage 2 (Localising the Global Economy) commences
Rise of ancient civilizations. Production and consumption were bundled in specific places.

https://voxeu.org/content/long-view-globalisation-short-part-1-5

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5

This blog, and the four that will follow it, draw on Part 1 of my 2016 book, The Great Convergence.

In 1957, my father published a book called Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy. His opening lines:

"Since we are all too much affected by the times in which we live and are prone to generalise from transitory circumstances, we are not likely to gain a clear understanding ... if we simply start with existing conditions and attempt to disentangle the major factors currently at work."

I'd like to borrow his thought and modify it to "a clear understanding of globalisation ".

Today's discussions on globalisation are "all too much affected by the times in which we live". Globalisation's impact on the world economy was fairly steady for 175 years, and this led many to think that it would never change. But, as millions of people now realise, that's wrong.

Globalisation isn't like gravity or the speed of light - something that has always existed, exists now, and always will exist. Globalisation has changed radically in the past, and I think it'll change radically in the future. In short, there's nothing radical about radical changes in globalisation. To understand why this is so, it's necessary to go way back. Not just back to WW2. Not just back to the Industrial Revolution. Not just back to the Age of Discovery.

Let's go back to the beginning - the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa, 200,000 or 300,000 years ago. When we do this, we discover that the magnitude of globalisation's recent changes aren't out of line with their historical (or prehistorical) equivalents.

Five blog posts on the long history of globalisation - the organising principle

To keep things intellectually bite-sized, I've spread the history out over five blog posts. Even so, a narrative covering hundreds of thousands of years will have to skip some of the less important details. To justify the omissions, we need to be clear about what 'important' means in this story. To do that, I'll employ the classic definition of trade as an organising principle. Let me explain.

Trade is what happens when production and consumption are separated geographically. That means:

Really big changes in globalisation will involve changes in the physical co-location of production and consumption.

So what is important is how and when the production-consumption spatial relationship changes.

Starting point and drivers

The first humans were hunter-gatherers. For them, production and consumption took place in the same space. They moved their consumption to the production (production for them meant a naturally occurring food source) because, for people living with stone age technology, it made more sense. Moving consumption to production was easier than moving production to consumption. As technology evolved, this spatial bundling of production and consumption relaxed.

And hence, the second important point:

Exogenous 'shocks' have always been the key driver of the radical changes in the nature of globalisation.

In modern phases of globalisation, man-made barriers start to play a big role, but for most of globalisation's history, technology or climate were the binding constraint. Specifically, production and consumption were bundled due to the high cost of moving goods, ideas, and people. The cost of moving these all three of these eventually fell, but not quickly, and not all at once. The order in which they fell - as we shall see - shaped history.

Four phases of globalisation

In the view I develop at length in my 2016 book, The Great Convergence, there have been four phases of globalisation in human history; here is a brief summary (the follow-on blog posts flesh these out). Climate change launched Phase 1.

Phase 1: Humanising the globe (300,000 BCE-10,000 BCE)

Climate change allowed (or forced, it doesn't matter in this context) people out of Africa, and these people followed their food, fanning out across the globe. Consumption and production were bundled, but not in fixed locales.

The (Neolithic) agricultural revolution transformed Phase 1 into Phase 2.

Phase 2: Localising the global economy (10,000 BCE-1820 CE)

For the first time, agriculture brought the food to the people who wanted to eat it. If you will, production was coming to consumption instead of the other way around. This phase saw the rise of seven ancient civilisations in what are known today as Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, China, India/Pakistan, and Greece/Italy. For the first time production and consumption were bundled in particular locations, so it could be called the 'first bundling'.

The steam revolution shifted Phase 2 to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Globalising local economies (1820-1990)

The steam revolution and Industrial Revolution meant goods could be sent efficiently over long distances by land and sea. Steam thus unleashed spectacular transportation capabilities that made it economical to consume things that were made in far-away places.

This was the 'first unbundling' of production and consumption. It was caused by a steep drop in the cost of moving goods. But, even as production dispersed globally, it concentrated locally at the level of factories and industrial districts. For example, most of Britain deindustrialised during the Industrial Revolution. Cottage industries disappeared, and all the industrialisation took place in a handful of tightly circumscribed regions.

This combination of big markets and hyper-concentration of production would create what Kenneth Pomeranz called The Great Divergence in his 2001 book. In other words, this is when (and why) today's rich nations got rich, while the rest of the world did not.

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Revolution shifted Phase 3 to Phase 4.

Phase 4: Globalising factories (1990-present)

In the fourth stage, the ICT Revolution radically lowered the cost of moving ideas as well as goods over long distances. Therefore, it lowered the cost of coordinating complex activities at distance, which changed - and continues to change - the nature of globalisation. In particular, for the first time, it became organisationally feasible to separate stages of manufacturing production over long distances. Bombardier could make the tails of business jets in Mexico knowing that they'd fit on to fuselages made in Quebec. Factories could be unbundled geographically; I called this the 'Second Unbundling' in my 2006 paper, " Globalisation: The Great Unbundling(s)", that introduced the broader perspective on globalisation that forms the intellectual backbone of my 2016 book.

Once this production unbundling was feasible, the vast divergence in wages that had appeared during the Phase 3 made the separation profitable. Rich-nation firms offshored labour-intensive stages to nearby low-wage nations. As I argued in my 2016 book, this is a critical part of a 'Great Convergence' that is occurring now. It is what some others have called the emergence of emerging economies, or the ' rise of the rest'. It has brought the share of global GDP attributed to the G7 today back down to where it was in 1900.

Figure 1 illustrates what I like to call the 'shocking share shift'. It shows how the first unbundling (from 1820), and the second unbundling (from 1990) have altered the planet's economic geography.

Figure 1 Shares of global GDP
Source: World Databank (GDP in US dollars) and Maddison data pre-1960, with author's calculations.
So, now we have looked at the big picture, in subsequent posts I'll examine Phases 1 through 4

References

Baldwin, R (2006), " Globalisation: The Great Unbundling(s)", Economic Council of Finland 20(3): 5-47.

Baldwin, R (2016), The Great Convergence: Information technology and the New Globalisation, Harvard University Press.

Meier, G M and Robert E Baldwin (1957), Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy, John Wiley and Sons.

Pomeranz, K (2000), The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton University Press.

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A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5 This blog, and the four that will follow it, draw on Part 1 of my 2016 book, The Great Convergence. In 1957, my father published a book called Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy .

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Sumerians (earliest known civilization in southern Mesopotamia) write about water cures for "the evil eye"

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The Evil Eye appears as a symbol in Ancient Ugarit (modern day Syria)

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Appears in Virgils poem Eclogues in 42-38 BCE, though some people speculate that it was around during 35 BCE

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The Evil Eye appears as a symbol in Greek Antiquity, appearing on drinking vials and pots. It is mentioned by authors such as Plato, Theocritus, Plutarch, etc.

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Globalization Stage 3 (Globalising local economies) commences

The steam revolution and the Industrial revolution meant products could be shipped around the world. You could consume things from different cultures and vice versa.

https://voxeu.org/content/long-view-globalisation-short-part-1-5

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5

This blog, and the four that will follow it, draw on Part 1 of my 2016 book, The Great Convergence.

In 1957, my father published a book called Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy. His opening lines:

"Since we are all too much affected by the times in which we live and are prone to generalise from transitory circumstances, we are not likely to gain a clear understanding ... if we simply start with existing conditions and attempt to disentangle the major factors currently at work."

I'd like to borrow his thought and modify it to "a clear understanding of globalisation ".

Today's discussions on globalisation are "all too much affected by the times in which we live". Globalisation's impact on the world economy was fairly steady for 175 years, and this led many to think that it would never change. But, as millions of people now realise, that's wrong.

Globalisation isn't like gravity or the speed of light - something that has always existed, exists now, and always will exist. Globalisation has changed radically in the past, and I think it'll change radically in the future. In short, there's nothing radical about radical changes in globalisation. To understand why this is so, it's necessary to go way back. Not just back to WW2. Not just back to the Industrial Revolution. Not just back to the Age of Discovery.

Let's go back to the beginning - the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa, 200,000 or 300,000 years ago. When we do this, we discover that the magnitude of globalisation's recent changes aren't out of line with their historical (or prehistorical) equivalents.

Five blog posts on the long history of globalisation - the organising principle

To keep things intellectually bite-sized, I've spread the history out over five blog posts. Even so, a narrative covering hundreds of thousands of years will have to skip some of the less important details. To justify the omissions, we need to be clear about what 'important' means in this story. To do that, I'll employ the classic definition of trade as an organising principle. Let me explain.

Trade is what happens when production and consumption are separated geographically. That means:

Really big changes in globalisation will involve changes in the physical co-location of production and consumption.

So what is important is how and when the production-consumption spatial relationship changes.

Starting point and drivers

The first humans were hunter-gatherers. For them, production and consumption took place in the same space. They moved their consumption to the production (production for them meant a naturally occurring food source) because, for people living with stone age technology, it made more sense. Moving consumption to production was easier than moving production to consumption. As technology evolved, this spatial bundling of production and consumption relaxed.

And hence, the second important point:

Exogenous 'shocks' have always been the key driver of the radical changes in the nature of globalisation.

In modern phases of globalisation, man-made barriers start to play a big role, but for most of globalisation's history, technology or climate were the binding constraint. Specifically, production and consumption were bundled due to the high cost of moving goods, ideas, and people. The cost of moving these all three of these eventually fell, but not quickly, and not all at once. The order in which they fell - as we shall see - shaped history.

Four phases of globalisation

In the view I develop at length in my 2016 book, The Great Convergence, there have been four phases of globalisation in human history; here is a brief summary (the follow-on blog posts flesh these out). Climate change launched Phase 1.

Phase 1: Humanising the globe (300,000 BCE-10,000 BCE)

Climate change allowed (or forced, it doesn't matter in this context) people out of Africa, and these people followed their food, fanning out across the globe. Consumption and production were bundled, but not in fixed locales.

The (Neolithic) agricultural revolution transformed Phase 1 into Phase 2.

Phase 2: Localising the global economy (10,000 BCE-1820 CE)

For the first time, agriculture brought the food to the people who wanted to eat it. If you will, production was coming to consumption instead of the other way around. This phase saw the rise of seven ancient civilisations in what are known today as Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, China, India/Pakistan, and Greece/Italy. For the first time production and consumption were bundled in particular locations, so it could be called the 'first bundling'.

The steam revolution shifted Phase 2 to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Globalising local economies (1820-1990)

The steam revolution and Industrial Revolution meant goods could be sent efficiently over long distances by land and sea. Steam thus unleashed spectacular transportation capabilities that made it economical to consume things that were made in far-away places.

This was the 'first unbundling' of production and consumption. It was caused by a steep drop in the cost of moving goods. But, even as production dispersed globally, it concentrated locally at the level of factories and industrial districts. For example, most of Britain deindustrialised during the Industrial Revolution. Cottage industries disappeared, and all the industrialisation took place in a handful of tightly circumscribed regions.

This combination of big markets and hyper-concentration of production would create what Kenneth Pomeranz called The Great Divergence in his 2001 book. In other words, this is when (and why) today's rich nations got rich, while the rest of the world did not.

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Revolution shifted Phase 3 to Phase 4.

Phase 4: Globalising factories (1990-present)

In the fourth stage, the ICT Revolution radically lowered the cost of moving ideas as well as goods over long distances. Therefore, it lowered the cost of coordinating complex activities at distance, which changed - and continues to change - the nature of globalisation. In particular, for the first time, it became organisationally feasible to separate stages of manufacturing production over long distances. Bombardier could make the tails of business jets in Mexico knowing that they'd fit on to fuselages made in Quebec. Factories could be unbundled geographically; I called this the 'Second Unbundling' in my 2006 paper, " Globalisation: The Great Unbundling(s)", that introduced the broader perspective on globalisation that forms the intellectual backbone of my 2016 book.

Once this production unbundling was feasible, the vast divergence in wages that had appeared during the Phase 3 made the separation profitable. Rich-nation firms offshored labour-intensive stages to nearby low-wage nations. As I argued in my 2016 book, this is a critical part of a 'Great Convergence' that is occurring now. It is what some others have called the emergence of emerging economies, or the ' rise of the rest'. It has brought the share of global GDP attributed to the G7 today back down to where it was in 1900.

Figure 1 illustrates what I like to call the 'shocking share shift'. It shows how the first unbundling (from 1820), and the second unbundling (from 1990) have altered the planet's economic geography.

Figure 1 Shares of global GDP
Source: World Databank (GDP in US dollars) and Maddison data pre-1960, with author's calculations.
So, now we have looked at the big picture, in subsequent posts I'll examine Phases 1 through 4

References

Baldwin, R (2006), " Globalisation: The Great Unbundling(s)", Economic Council of Finland 20(3): 5-47.

Baldwin, R (2016), The Great Convergence: Information technology and the New Globalisation, Harvard University Press.

Meier, G M and Robert E Baldwin (1957), Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy, John Wiley and Sons.

Pomeranz, K (2000), The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton University Press.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5 This blog, and the four that will follow it, draw on Part 1 of my 2016 book, The Great Convergence. In 1957, my father published a book called Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy .

# data[].attributes.body
World War I was raging on during this time and Greek people fled to North America and other surrounding countries. Therefore, their traditions were brought with them and things such as the Evil Eye became more common in North American and other European countries.

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Both Syria and Greece were occupied by the Ottoman empire during its reign.

# data[].attributes.body
Greek people fled to Syria and North America during World War 2 and brought their traditions with them yet again (including the evil eye)

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The Greek Civil War was raging and many Greek people fled to North America and neighboring countries again.

# data[].attributes.body
Globalization Stage 4 (Globalizing factories) commences
Factories were globalized and products continued to be shipped around the globe. People from different cultures consumed things from unfamiliar cultures.

https://voxeu.org/content/long-view-globalisation-short-part-1-5

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5

This blog, and the four that will follow it, draw on Part 1 of my 2016 book, The Great Convergence.

In 1957, my father published a book called Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy. His opening lines:

"Since we are all too much affected by the times in which we live and are prone to generalise from transitory circumstances, we are not likely to gain a clear understanding ... if we simply start with existing conditions and attempt to disentangle the major factors currently at work."

I'd like to borrow his thought and modify it to "a clear understanding of globalisation ".

Today's discussions on globalisation are "all too much affected by the times in which we live". Globalisation's impact on the world economy was fairly steady for 175 years, and this led many to think that it would never change. But, as millions of people now realise, that's wrong.

Globalisation isn't like gravity or the speed of light - something that has always existed, exists now, and always will exist. Globalisation has changed radically in the past, and I think it'll change radically in the future. In short, there's nothing radical about radical changes in globalisation. To understand why this is so, it's necessary to go way back. Not just back to WW2. Not just back to the Industrial Revolution. Not just back to the Age of Discovery.

Let's go back to the beginning - the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa, 200,000 or 300,000 years ago. When we do this, we discover that the magnitude of globalisation's recent changes aren't out of line with their historical (or prehistorical) equivalents.

Five blog posts on the long history of globalisation - the organising principle

To keep things intellectually bite-sized, I've spread the history out over five blog posts. Even so, a narrative covering hundreds of thousands of years will have to skip some of the less important details. To justify the omissions, we need to be clear about what 'important' means in this story. To do that, I'll employ the classic definition of trade as an organising principle. Let me explain.

Trade is what happens when production and consumption are separated geographically. That means:

Really big changes in globalisation will involve changes in the physical co-location of production and consumption.

So what is important is how and when the production-consumption spatial relationship changes.

Starting point and drivers

The first humans were hunter-gatherers. For them, production and consumption took place in the same space. They moved their consumption to the production (production for them meant a naturally occurring food source) because, for people living with stone age technology, it made more sense. Moving consumption to production was easier than moving production to consumption. As technology evolved, this spatial bundling of production and consumption relaxed.

And hence, the second important point:

Exogenous 'shocks' have always been the key driver of the radical changes in the nature of globalisation.

In modern phases of globalisation, man-made barriers start to play a big role, but for most of globalisation's history, technology or climate were the binding constraint. Specifically, production and consumption were bundled due to the high cost of moving goods, ideas, and people. The cost of moving these all three of these eventually fell, but not quickly, and not all at once. The order in which they fell - as we shall see - shaped history.

Four phases of globalisation

In the view I develop at length in my 2016 book, The Great Convergence, there have been four phases of globalisation in human history; here is a brief summary (the follow-on blog posts flesh these out). Climate change launched Phase 1.

Phase 1: Humanising the globe (300,000 BCE-10,000 BCE)

Climate change allowed (or forced, it doesn't matter in this context) people out of Africa, and these people followed their food, fanning out across the globe. Consumption and production were bundled, but not in fixed locales.

The (Neolithic) agricultural revolution transformed Phase 1 into Phase 2.

Phase 2: Localising the global economy (10,000 BCE-1820 CE)

For the first time, agriculture brought the food to the people who wanted to eat it. If you will, production was coming to consumption instead of the other way around. This phase saw the rise of seven ancient civilisations in what are known today as Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, China, India/Pakistan, and Greece/Italy. For the first time production and consumption were bundled in particular locations, so it could be called the 'first bundling'.

The steam revolution shifted Phase 2 to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Globalising local economies (1820-1990)

The steam revolution and Industrial Revolution meant goods could be sent efficiently over long distances by land and sea. Steam thus unleashed spectacular transportation capabilities that made it economical to consume things that were made in far-away places.

This was the 'first unbundling' of production and consumption. It was caused by a steep drop in the cost of moving goods. But, even as production dispersed globally, it concentrated locally at the level of factories and industrial districts. For example, most of Britain deindustrialised during the Industrial Revolution. Cottage industries disappeared, and all the industrialisation took place in a handful of tightly circumscribed regions.

This combination of big markets and hyper-concentration of production would create what Kenneth Pomeranz called The Great Divergence in his 2001 book. In other words, this is when (and why) today's rich nations got rich, while the rest of the world did not.

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Revolution shifted Phase 3 to Phase 4.

Phase 4: Globalising factories (1990-present)

In the fourth stage, the ICT Revolution radically lowered the cost of moving ideas as well as goods over long distances. Therefore, it lowered the cost of coordinating complex activities at distance, which changed - and continues to change - the nature of globalisation. In particular, for the first time, it became organisationally feasible to separate stages of manufacturing production over long distances. Bombardier could make the tails of business jets in Mexico knowing that they'd fit on to fuselages made in Quebec. Factories could be unbundled geographically; I called this the 'Second Unbundling' in my 2006 paper, " Globalisation: The Great Unbundling(s)", that introduced the broader perspective on globalisation that forms the intellectual backbone of my 2016 book.

Once this production unbundling was feasible, the vast divergence in wages that had appeared during the Phase 3 made the separation profitable. Rich-nation firms offshored labour-intensive stages to nearby low-wage nations. As I argued in my 2016 book, this is a critical part of a 'Great Convergence' that is occurring now. It is what some others have called the emergence of emerging economies, or the ' rise of the rest'. It has brought the share of global GDP attributed to the G7 today back down to where it was in 1900.

Figure 1 illustrates what I like to call the 'shocking share shift'. It shows how the first unbundling (from 1820), and the second unbundling (from 1990) have altered the planet's economic geography.

Figure 1 Shares of global GDP
Source: World Databank (GDP in US dollars) and Maddison data pre-1960, with author's calculations.
So, now we have looked at the big picture, in subsequent posts I'll examine Phases 1 through 4

References

Baldwin, R (2006), " Globalisation: The Great Unbundling(s)", Economic Council of Finland 20(3): 5-47.

Baldwin, R (2016), The Great Convergence: Information technology and the New Globalisation, Harvard University Press.

Meier, G M and Robert E Baldwin (1957), Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy, John Wiley and Sons.

Pomeranz, K (2000), The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton University Press.

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A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5

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A long view of globalisation in short: Part 1 of 5 This blog, and the four that will follow it, draw on Part 1 of my 2016 book, The Great Convergence. In 1957, my father published a book called Economic Development: Theory, History, Policy .

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The Syrian civil war saw a lot of Syrian people fleeing to Greece.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D9EzAzOzocWbSXLAWhWt8rEzG4iMlYXLmVwK7tf7bG4/edit

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Cashing in on culture - how businesses make money from Europe's history

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Europe is the world's most popular tourism destination. And 40% of that activity is associated with cultural and historic heritage, thanks partly to several European #Businessplanet