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2.1: Introduction

  • Page ID
    178438
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    Learning Objectives

    By the end of this section, you will be able to:

    • Recognize the importance of increased connectivity among populations for promoting globalization
    • Understand major historical precursors to modern globalization in terms of time-space compression  

    Introduction

    The aim of this chapter is to present a general view of globalization and some of its precursors over time and space. There have been numerous historical events and periods that have impacted globalization, all of which involved places, peoples, technological factors, and ideologies that have worked to increase connectivity among populations, often organized as civilizations. In basic terms, a civilization is a sociocultural construct in which individuals form a community based on a cohesive set of institutions over a given area (Kaplan & Holloway, 2014). By no means does this chapter include all the important moments, processes and characters involved in the history of globalization. Instead, it seeks to provide a brief look at several key points in historical geography and highlight several social paradigms that have made significant impacts in terms of improving people’s ability to migrate, communicate, and interact with others who were previously inaccessible. This chapter is not a history text, per se. Rather it seeks to focus on motivating factors of globalization, and its acceleration via time-space compression, which is the concept that advancements in technology, especially in transportation and communication, have reduced the perceived time and distance between people and places, leading to a sense of the world becoming smaller and more interconnected (Warf, 2008). People have long been driven to interact with each other across large distances, and have been driven to do so by a variety of factors. Whether this be for trade, conquest, or simple curiosity, the desire of humanity to connect with one another have long been active in the world.  


    2.1: Introduction is shared under a CC BY-NC license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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