When Did Globalisation Really Beging?
Historian Valerie Hansen on the medieval echoes of our global modernity
We can decide to stay home, but even then, the wider world is always close to our skin. From global trade to ideas that travel across continents, our modern world is a global world.
How did we get here?
There is a modern story about globalisation — a story about telecommunications and aeroplanes and such — but this is the climax of a long process, not its beginning. To find the deeper roots of globalisation, we should turn our gaze to the medieval world, and specifically to events around the year 1000.
Or so argues historian Valerie Hansen.
In this episode, we discuss the various curious developments around the year 1000 that started connecting the world into an interconnected web. From Viking and Polynesian explorers to the Silk Roads across Africa, Hansen offers many fascinating windows into the surprising connections that were linking the medieval world together. We also discuss the spread of inventions and world religions, as well as the deeper forces that Hansen thinks have long been driving world history.
Enjoy!
Listen (47 min): Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Other players
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More reading & listening
The Year 1000 by Valerie Hansen
The Silk Road: A New History by Valerie Hansen
The Golden Road by William Dalrymple
Why the West? Colonies, Fossil Fuels, and the Lessons From China (On Humans with Kenneth Pomeranz)
Restless Humanity: Our Epic Migrations Into America, Polynesia, and…. Beyond? (On Humans with Andres Moreno-Estrada)
Mentions
Names: Erik the Red | Bjarni Herjólfsson | Jacques Cartier | Vladimir the Great | Mansa Musa | William Dalrymple | Kenneth Pomeranz | Andrés Moreno-Estrada | Michael Coe | Mary Miller | Ralph Austen | Richard Davis | Paul Freedman | Thor Heyerdahl
Historical places: L’Anse aux Meadows | Greenland | Newfoundland | Chichén Itzá | the Yucatán Peninsula | the Baltic Sea | the Song dynasty | the Liao dynasty | the Abbasid Caliphate | Baghdad | the Indian Ocean | the Swahili Coast | Mali | Kaifeng | Hagia Sophia
Keywords
global history | macrohistory | economic history | medieval history | early global trade | long-distance trade | Silk Roads | Indian Ocean trade | trans-Saharan trade | maritime trade networks | Viking / Norse exploration | Polynesian migrations | population genetics | pre-Columbian contact | Viking–Maya contact hypothesis | Polynesian–Native American contact hypothesis | Song dynasty | Liao dynasty | Abbasid Caliphate | medieval Africa | Swahili Coast trade | medieval slavery | trans-Saharan slave trade | slavery and serfdom | slavery in China | spread of world religions | Christianisation of Europe | spread of Islam | Buddhism in Asia | diffusion of technology | history of inventions | paper, printing, gunpowder and the compass | Indian numerals and zero | Maya mathematics | history of food
…and here is the episode again! Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Other players
I think it is interesting to float the idea that Vikings made it to the Yucatan, but dismiss the widely accepted idea that Polynesians made it to at least South America.