Why You Need This New Edition?
If you’re wondering why you should buy this
new edition of Global Problems, here are six good
reasons!
1. Emphasis on understanding the complexities of new global powers
on every continent, including Brazil, South Africa, and India.
2. New discussions of the global economic crisis, emerging economies
(Brazil, India, China), and issues such as economic struggle, aging,
and debt in many developed economics (US, EU, and Japan).
3. New discussions of the current conflict zones including Afghanistan,
Somalia, Sudan, and Congo, and the “Arab Spring” revolts.
4. New updates on the latest problems such as global climate change,
resource challenges, and recent natural and manmade disasters.
5. New sections titled “Making a Difference” show ways of getting
involved in positive social change and global citizenship.
6. Each chapter concludes with an expanded and updated “Making
Connections” section to draw attention to reliable sources of
additional information.
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Global Problems
The Search for Equity, Peace,
and Sustainability
THIRD EDITION
Scott Sernau
Indiana University South Bend
Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River
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Text Font: Times LT Std
Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook
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Copyright © 2012, 2009, 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United
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Where those designations appear in this book, and the publisher was aware of a trademark claim, the designations
have been printed in initial caps or all caps.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sernau, Scott.
Global problems : the search for equity, peace, and sustainability/Scott R. Sernau.—3rd ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-205-84177-6
ISBN-10: 0-205-84177-5
1. Social problems. 2. Globalization—Social aspects. I. Title.
HN18.3.S47 2012
306.09’051—dc23
2011052097
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 10: 0-205-84177-5
ISBN 13: 978-0-205-84177-6
To those who wish to understand the problem so
that they can be part of the solution
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Contents
Preface
xvi
INTRODUCTION
The Global Century
1
The Call of the World 2
Making a World System 5
Empires in Collision 7
Toward a Global Century 9
Plan of the Book 11
PART ONE
13
Seeking an Equitable World: Issues of Inequality
CHAPTER
1
Class: A World of Rich and Poor
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
15
Bahamas
15
The Global Divide 17
Inequalities between and among Nations 17
Realities of Global Poverty 20
Theories of Class and Economy 22
The Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith 22
The Misery of Nations: Karl Marx 23
Assessing the Views 25
Economic Development: Modernization and
Dependency Theories 30
Modernization Theory: Time to Clean House 30
Dependency Theory: Get Out of My House 31
When Prehistory Repeats Itself 34
Ending Extreme Poverty: Markets and Beyond 36
KEY IDEAS
39
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
40
40
41
vii
viii Contents
CHAPTER
2
Work and Trade: The Global Assembly Line
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
Indian Ocean 42
42
Mauritius (Isle Maurice),
The Division of Labor 43
Adam Smith: Efficiency 44
Émile Durkheim: Solidarity 44
Max Weber: Work Ethic 45
Karl Marx: Alienation 46
The New International Division of Labor 46
The New Frontier: From Hudson’s Bay to
Land’s End 49
Occasional Help Wanted: From Bracero to NAFTA 49
Working the Line: Life on La Frontera 50
Pushed to the Wall: Wal-Mart and the
“Big Boxes” 51
Made by Small Hands 54
Mills and Mines 55
Hooked by the World Economy
57
A Trade Free-for-All 58
David Ricardo: Comparative Advantage 58
Chain of Production around the World 59
Ordering the World Market 61
The International Monetary Fund
The World Bank 62
From GATT to the WTO 63
61
Trade That is Fair for All 65
KEY IDEAS
66
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
CHAPTER
3
67
67
68
Gender and Family: Overburdened Women
and Displaced Men
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
69
India
69
Nietzsche Undone: From Superman to Supermom 72
Masculinity as Vulnerability: The Harder They Fall 75
Tired, Stressed Women and Angry, Alienated Men 76
Contents
Locked In and Shut Out 80
The Feminization of Migration
ix
81
Global Family Changes 83
Marriage and Divorce
Parenting 86
83
Half the Sky 89
The Continued Perils of Being Female
Feminist Theory and World Feminist
Movements 90
KEY IDEAS
89
92
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
92
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
CHAPTER
4
92
93
Education: Access and Success
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
94
India 94
Brazil 95
The Foundations of Education 96
And Who Will Care for the Children? 99
Education around the World 103
Great Britain 103
Japan 105
Russia 107
Mexico 108
India 109
Germany and Northern Europe
China 110
109
Opening Doors, Opening Minds 110
Human Capital Theory 110
The School-to-Work Transition 111
Elite and Popular Education 113
Savage Inequalities at Home and Abroad
Pedagogy of the Oppressed 116
KEY IDEAS
114
118
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
119
120
119
x Contents
PART TWO
121
Seeking a Peaceful World: Issues of Conflict
CHAPTER
5
Crime: Fear in the Streets
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
123
Brazil 123
Seeking Security 125
Street Crime and Youth Violence 128
International Drug Trade 130
Opium 130
Cocaine 132
Cannabis 134
Alcoholism 136
New Recipes: Chemical Agents
137
Incarceration around the World 138
International Crime Cartels 141
Trading in Guns, Drugs, and People
Mexico’s Drug Wars 142
141
In Search of Opportunity and Order 143
KEY IDEAS
144
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
CHAPTER
6
144
145
145
War: States of Terror
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
146
Vietnam
146
How States Made War and War Made States 148
From Limited War to Total War to Cold War 151
Total War 152
Cold War 153
From World War to Regional Conflict 158
The Global Arms Trade 161
Weapons of Mass Destruction 164
Chemical Weapons 164
Biological Weapons 165
Nuclear Weapons 167
Contents
xi
Military Expenditures 168
The Last Great War? 169
KEY IDEAS
171
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
172
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
CHAPTER
7
172
172
Democracy and Human Rights: Having
Our Say
173
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
(Burma) 173
Myanmar
Nationalism and the Nation–State 176
From Bands to States 177
Nationalism and Independence 181
Democracy and Its Alternatives 183
The Age of Democracy 183
Authoritarianism versus Democracy
187
“Dirty Wars”: When Democracy Degenerates 190
The Price of Democracy 192
After the Repression 192
The Right to Be Fully Human 193
KEY IDEAS
196
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
CHAPTER
8
197
197
197
Ethnicity and Religion: Deep Roots
and Unholy Hate
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
198
Brazil 198
South Africa 200
Ethnicity: Ties That Bind and Divide 200
Faith and Fervor: Religious Diversity 203
Tribal Religions 203
Christianity 206
xii Contents
Islam 207
Asian Religions
208
Ethnicity, Religion, and Power 209
Resurgent Fundamentalism 211
The God of the Poor: Liberation Theology
214
Identity and International Terrorism 214
Revolutionary and State Terror 214
The Power and Weakness of Terror 216
Alternatives to Terror 217
Religion as Resilience 217
Ethnicity as Resilience 218
Moral Leadership as Resilience
KEY IDEAS
219
220
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
221
221
222
PART THREE
223
Seeking a Sustainable World: Environmental Issues
CHAPTER
9
Urbanization: Cities without Limits
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
226
China 226
India 228
The Urban Millennium: Worldwide Urbanization 230
Dawn of the City 230
Triumph of the City 231
World Cities 233
Megacities 235
Sprawling and Brawling Contenders
239
Cities as Dynamos: Central Places and Hyperurbanization 241
The Shape of Urban Life 242
Theories of Urban Culture 242
Theories of Urban Structure 243
Fantasy City: Postmodern Theory 244
The Shape of the City 245
Global Ghettos: The Spread of Shantytowns
A Slum with a View 248
246
Contents
Autosprawl
xiii
250
Seeking Livable Cities 252
Cities That Work 252
New Urbanism 252
Sustainable Cities 253
KEY IDEAS
254
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
CHAPTER
10
254
254
255
Population and Health: Only the Poor
Die Young
256
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
South Africa 256
China 259
Counting Heads: World Population Estimates 259
Marx and Malthus: The Population Bomb Debate 260
Demographic Transition Theory 262
Death Rate and Birthrate 263
Life Expectancy 263
Fertility Rate 266
Changing Demographics 267
Population Control 270
Migration 272
Disease 274
Infectious Disease: The Kiss of Death 274
New Threats: HIV/AIDS and Other Diseases
Chronic Disease: Dying by Degrees 280
Health Care Reform 283
United States 283
Canada 284
Sweden 284
Great Britain 285
Japan 285
Russia 285
China 286
Other Asian Countries
287
Living Well, Staying Well 287
277
xiv Contents
KEY IDEAS
288
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
CHAPTER
11
288
288
289
Technology and Energy: Prometheus’s Fire or
Pandora’s Box?
290
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
Japan
290
Power Surge: The Advance of Technology 292
The Fires of Industry 293
Booting Up the Electronic Age 293
Global Cyber-café: The Social Network 297
Planet Hollywood: When Reality is Virtual and Virtual is Reality
The Information (and Misinformation) Age 300
298
Energy: Fire from Above and Below 301
Wood 302
Coal 304
Oil 305
Natural Gas 308
Nuclear Fission: The Power of Ancient Suns 309
Nuclear Fusion: The Fire of the Cosmos 311
Alternative Energy: Sun, Wind, Earth, and Water 312
Chariots of Fire: Automobiles and Transport 314
Turning Down the Heat: Global Warming and Appropriate
Technology 318
KEY IDEAS
320
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
CHAPTER
12
321
321
322
Ecology: How Much Can One Planet Take?
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
India 324
South Africa 325
Food: We Are What We Eat 325
Sowing the Seeds of Civilization 328
Growing Business: Industrial Agriculture
329
323
Contents
xv
Pollution 334
Water: From Open Sewers to Toxic Canals 334
Solid Waste: A Planet in Plastic Wrap 336
Deforestation and Desertification 341
Who Invited You? Invasive Species 346
Ecology and Economy: The Search for Sustainable Futures 348
KEY IDEAS
349
FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
MAKING CONNECTIONS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
CONCLUSION
Index
366
350
351
Making a World of Difference
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS:
References 357
350
Coming Home: Honolulu
352
352
Preface
T
his is an exciting time to be teaching about global issues and social problems. It can also
be a daunting task. There is far more material than can ever be covered in a semester, and
the issues of our time change with each day’s headlines. I hope this book, Global Problems:
The Search for Equity, Peace, and Sustainability, will make the task of engaging global
problems a more manageable one.
We must go beyond the “toe in the water” syndrome. This is seen when a student of a
foreign language learns just enough to say, “No, I don’t speak . . .” in the target language,
never learning enough to use the language and so forgetting it. A similar process can happen
when we learn just enough to feel overwhelmed but never expand our skills and awareness
enough to feel conversant in the ways of the world and at home anywhere on the planet.
We must also get beyond the “blue box” syndrome. This is seen in textbooks, where
a newly realized issue or group is confined to discussion in boxes (often pale blue, but
this depends on the taste of the publisher). For example, the history of the nation is told
largely from the perspective of white men (often politicians and generals), but then there
is a box for “Women in History” or “Great African Americans in History,” as though
this perspective was an afterthought rather than a central part of the story. Global issues
are still often confined to the blue boxes of many texts. The story told is of events and
issues within a single country, and an occasional box is included with information on
“Marriage in India” or “Education in Japan.” One gets the impression that these boxes
provide interesting sidelines and tangents but something apart from the real story. Given
its size and current world dominance, no place has been a greater offender in this area than
the United States. But this denies the reality of our interconnected, interwoven world. A
terrorist cell in Frankfurt today is in Boston tomorrow; a virus in Hong Kong yesterday
is in Toronto today.
The book is divided into three parts, representing what I see as three key dimensions
to the current global situation. The first part begins with the challenges of global inequalities: in life chances, wages and work, and gender and education. The choice to begin with
inequality is not accidental but rather reflects my conviction that inequality lies at the heart
of many global problems. The second section focuses on conflict and violence at all levels:
from crime to politics, terrorism to war. Violence is closely linked to issues of social justice
and human rights, and this connection is made throughout. The final section looks at the
issue of sustainability and the problems of urbanization, crowding, and environmental destruction. These problems are immediate but also call on us to look ahead toward the kind
of world that we are building.
Each chapter of Global Problems begins with a “Global Encounters” vignette. I have
worked for years with overseas study and international education programs and have taught
on Semester at Sea voyages. The opening vignette gives an example of college students
xvi
Preface
xvii
encountering a striking situation and being asked to think about the broader implications of
what they are seeing. The questions raised are central to the topic of that chapter.
I want students to be able to see the interconnectedness of our world and of people
leading seemingly very different lives. Each chapter strengthens this local–global connection. The chapters explore social problems by focusing on key theories and providing
enough history to understand the background of contemporary issues. The approach is both
multinational and multidisciplinary. Often, I identify both the nationality and the discipline
or background of the person cited, so students can get a better sense of the many areas
of study that contribute to the whole. I have avoided burdening the text with a bewildering array of citations and have instead focused on the key insights and studies that most
clearly inform the topic across disciplines. Both classical and contemporary theorists and
writers are noted.
I hope that students will think deeply and care deeply about global problems. At the
same time, I do not want to indulge in gloom and doom to the point that the situation seems
hopeless, for that can breed apathy and inaction. Each chapter includes and concludes with
positive possibilities for global change. The “Making Connections” section at the end of
each chapter offers reliable Web sites for more information. “Making a Difference” sections
offer options for broader and often local involvement. They are also reminders that while
the problems are substantial, there are many people, including students, who are committed
to making a difference. These sections can form the basis for assignments, for further study,
or for a class or group project.
This combination of elements allows Global Problems to serve social problems courses
that seek a truly global perspective and context for analysis as well as courses in global
issues, global studies, Third World studies, and international development.
Supplements for the Instructor
The following supplements are available to qualified instructors who have adopted this
textbook.
Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank (ISBN 0205841864): The Instructor’s Manual and
Test Bank has been prepared to assist teachers in their efforts to prepare lectures and evaluate student learning. For each chapter of the text, the Instructor’s Manual offers different
types of resources, including detailed chapter summaries and outlines, learning objectives,
discussion questions, classroom activities and much more.
Also included in this manual is a test bank offering multiple-choice, true/false, fill-in-theblank, and/or essay questions for each chapter. The Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank is
available to adopters at www.pearsonhighered.com.
MyTest (ISBN 0205860885): The Test Bank is also available online through Pearson’s
computerized testing system, MyTest. MyTest allows instructors to create their own personalized exams, to edit any of the existing test questions, and to add new questions. Other
special features of this program include random generation of test questions, creation of
alternative versions of the same test, scrambling question sequence, and test preview before
printing. Search and sort features allow you to locate questions quickly and to arrange
xviii Preface
them in whatever order you prefer. The test bank can be accessed from anywhere with a
free MyTest user account. There is no need to download a program or file to your computer.
PowerPoint Presentations (ISBN 0205860877): Lecture PowerPoints are available for this
text. The Lecture PowerPoint slides outline each chapter to help you convey sociological
principles in a visual and exciting way. They are available to adopters at www.pearsonhighered.com.
MySearchLab: MySearchLab is a dynamic website that delivers proven results in helping
individual students succeed. Its wealth of resources provides engaging experiences that
personalize, stimulate, and measure learning for each student. Many accessible tools will
encourage students to read their text, improve writing skills, and help them improve their
grade in their course.
Features of MySearchLab:
Writing
• Step by step tutorials present complete overviews of the research and writing process.
Research and citing sources
• Instructors and students receive access to the EBSCO ContentSelect database, census
data from Social Explorer, Associated Press news feeds, and the Pearson bookshelf.
Pearson SourceCheck helps students and instructors monitor originality and avoid
plagiarism.
Etext and more
• Pearson e Text—An e-book version of Global Problems is included in MySearchLab.
Just like the printed text, students can highlight and add their own notes as they read
their interactive text online.
• Chapter quizzes and flashcards—Chapter and key term reviews are available for each
chapter online and offer immediate feedback.
• Primary Source Documents—A collection of documents, organized by chapter, are
available on MySearchLab. The documents include head notes and critical thinking
questions.
• Gradebook—Automated grading of quizzes helps both instructors and students monitor
their results throughout the course.
Acknowledgments
Pearson has a superb team of professionals who have made my life as an author much
easier. Thanks especially go to Karen Hanson, Publisher for Sociology, for her guidance
and gentle encouragement.
I am also grateful to Pei Chun Lee for research assistance in working through, quite
literally, a world of data. I would also like to thank Mohinder Singh at Aptara®, Inc. for
all the good work that went into preparing the final copy for this edition. Finally, special
thanks go to the reviewers, who were generous with their praise of the overall project as well
as generous with their time in doing a careful reading and suggesting important improvements: Christopher Whitsel, North Dakota State University; Stephen Sills, University of
North Carolina, Greensboro; and Gerald Titchener, Des Moines Area Community College.
I N T R O D U C T I O N
The Global Century
W
hen Bob Dylan sang in the 1960s that the times were “a-changin’,” he was quite
right. The times are still changing; only now, they seem to change every year or every few
months. The term globalization was only popularized in the mid-1990s, but it soon became
the favorite label for our age. Our world has been coming together in dramatic new ways.
Globalization is sometimes used to describe only the increasing economic linkages
between countries. Yet it is more than that. Economic globalization is reshaping our world
marketplace. At the same time, political globalization is binding the world together in new
forms of power and authority relations. Cultural globalization means that music, fashion,
media, and lifestyles are transported around the world, reshaping how people live and even
how they think. Economic, political, and cultural globalization are clearly intertwined, but
they are also as distinct as their respective U.S. centers: New York, (economic), Washington, D.C. (political), and Los Angeles (cultural). By the end of the twentieth century few
doubted that globalization, in some form, was here to stay.
Then came September 11, 2001. The world’s most devastating terrorist attack, directed
against seats of global economic power (the World Trade Center) and political power (the
Pentagon), raised new questions. What would the impact of global terrorism be on our
shrinking world? Would fear of terrorism restrict the movement of people and products?
Even that classic symbol of the shrinking world, the jet airliner, seemed somehow menacing.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks were followed in short order by two wars, toppling the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, launched by U.S. government that seemed increasingly eager
to use unilateral power and to avoid international agreements and power sharing.
Some have argued that the first great move toward globalization that began the twentieth century was stopped, even reversed, by the cataclysm of World War I. The great
symbol of globalization of that era, ocean liners such as the Titanic and the Lusitania,
became objects of suspicion, vulnerable to both natural disaster (icebergs) and terror (unannounced torpedo attacks). Is the world of the twenty-first century still coming together, or
is it coming apart amid the flames of nationalism, terrorism, and war?
I firmly believe that globalization will not be reversed in the long term. New concerns
about conflict and terror may even provide a great impetus for global agreements and
actions, just as the short-term interruption of World War I soon forced new international
agreements, such as the League of Nations and the Geneva Conventions. Economic globalization is not easily reversed. Even as U.S. and British tanks were still rolling across the
Iraqi desert, U.S. companies were vying to secure contracts to rebuild the country and
European companies were complaining about being left out. The logic of global capitalism
continues to seek new markets and new opportunities.
1
2 Introduction The Global Century
Similarly, while the Bush administration seemed to prefer a unilateral solution to the
Iraq problem, it nonetheless found itself seeking approval of the U.N. Security Council and
wooing many small nations. The support of these countries didn’t matter much for the
military situation, but it greatly added a sense of legitimacy to the operation. Similarly, some
countries that many people in the United States would find difficult to locate on the map,
such as Djibouti (look north of Ethiopia, next to Somalia), became extremely strategic as
staging grounds for special forces and other military action. Cultural globalization is also
not easily avoided. Many around the world who opposed U.S. action in Iraq were quick to
note that they did not hate Americans or American culture. As one young protestor in
Madrid noted in succinct English, “Bush sucks; Santana rocks!” And as this example
reminds us, even U.S. cultural influence is increasingly multicultural, a commercial reexportation of ideas and art forms from around the world.
The Call of the World
One reason that globalization will not be reversed is that it is ancient. Globalization began
with the first humans to stride out of Africa. The world was first conquered by canoe and
moccasin. Human hunter–gatherers placed strains on their local environments and moved
on in search of new unexploited land. And humans were endlessly adaptable: Furs and fire
could help conquer the cold, new materials could be employed for shelter, and simple vessels could follow coastlines and cross narrow straits. The first human explorers may have
reached Australia, across a strait of open water, by 40,000 years ago. They were in Japan,
the Philippines and the many islands near the Asian coast by 30,000 years ago. People were
in the Americas by 12,000 years ago; by some accounts, as much as 20,000 years ago. Those
who came 12,000 years ago could have walked across what is now the Bering Strait that
divides Alaska from Siberia, following routes opened by the low ocean levels of the last ice
age and corridors between great walls of ice. If people came earlier, they must have worked
simple but effective boats, perhaps a covered canoe or kayak of some sort, along the edges
of the ice through frigid waters. In time, so-called prehistoric and uncivilized humans—that
is, people who lived before the advent of writing and urban life—extended their reach to
almost every point on the globe that wasn’t buried under a mile of ice.
As the climate changed and populations grew, people began to settle in small farming
villages. Some of these places occupied key trade routes and grew into substantial communities. By 10,000 years ago, the great trade centers of the Middle East were growing into
major population centers. As farmers intensified their production, the first real cities arose
around 5,000 years ago. For better or worse, globalization had begun as cities linked to one
another first through trade routes, and soon through conquest as the ambitious and the brazen seized the first empires.
People set out in search of something beyond the horizon, driven by the desire for
commerce (economic globalization), control (political globalization), and sheer curiosity
(cultural globalization). Early civilizations were far more interconnected than we first supposed. We have learned to think in terms of Western civilization (Europe) and Eastern
civilization (China). In fact, the ancient world had multiple interconnected and overlapping
centers of civilization.
Introduction The Global Century
3
Mediterranean society included both the northern (European) shore and the southern
(African) shore of the Great Sea. The idea that Europe and Africa were different continents
would have seemed strange to ancient inhabitants of the Mediterranean region. Rather, they
struggled for control, sought commerce, and explored out of curiosity from a circle of competing and cooperating power centers: Athens, Tyre, Alexandria, Cairo, Carthage, Rome, Venice,
and many others at various times. Because later Europeans would become enamored of them
as cradles of “classical civilization,” Athens and Rome have occupied center stage in our
understanding of the region. But the city on the Bosporus, straddling what we now consider
to be Europe and Asia and variously known as Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul, stood
at the center of Eurasian commerce for a thousand years after the city of Rome fell into decline.
Another cultural hub centered on what Europeans later called the Middle East—the
area bounded by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the Persian Gulf, and the Iranian plateau.
This area included some of the earliest kingdoms on earth: Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria.
Later empires wedded this land more firmly with Mediterranean: The great Persian Empire
encompassed Egypt and threatened Greece; Alexander’s short-lived realm spanned from
Greece to India; and the Parthian Empire rivaled Rome. Starting in the 700s, this land
became the center of Arab realms, based first in Mecca and then Damascus and Baghdad
that stretched across North Africa to include all of Spain and traded with ports on both the
Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. Parts of this area were later subsumed by several
Turkish Empires that turned back the Crusades in the 1200s, conquered Constantinople in
1453, reached all the way to Vienna by the 1600s, and struggled on until World War I.
The northern rim of Africa from Morocco to Egypt has long been bound up with the
Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations with which it shared sea-lanes and caravan
routes. As the great Sahara Desert grew over several thousand years due to climate change
and human impact, ties to the rest of Africa became more difficult. Lakes dried up, and the
great granaries that fed much of the Roman Empire were buried under sand dunes. Travelers with those most durable of beasts of burden, camels, continued to make long and dangerous treks south, trading in places that became symbols of the remote and exotic to the
outside world, such as Timbuktu. But Sub-Saharan African civilization continued to expand
as well. Around the end of the first millennium of our age, West African farmers and traders, workers of iron who spoke a common family of languages known as Bantu, began one
of the world’s great expansions. In the succeeding centuries, they moved across Central
Africa well into the eastern and southern parts of the continent. They often displaced other
ancient African groups to remote deserts or rain forests as Bantu farming and trading communities filled much of the continent. But Africa, with its difficult soil and tropical diseases
that plague both people and livestock, is not an easy place to farm. The Bantu farmers
adapted to life in the tropics with dispersed interconnected communities, a vast network
that later European explorers would fail to comprehend, just as they failed to understand
the complexity of the dispersed village-based networks of North America.
In India, civilization began early along the Indus River. About the same as ancient
Egypt, more than 4,000 years ago, Harappa civilization built great planned cities with streets
laid out in grids and the world’s first sanitary system for water and sewage. Subsequent
power changes, often at the hands of a series of invaders from the north, first brought Hinduism and later mixed it with Buddhism, Islam, and several other faiths but always retained
a particularly Indian flavor.
4 Introduction The Global Century
Finally, for much of the ancient and medieval period, the greatest center of power and
culture was China. Originally, this region comprised two centers: one in the north along the
Hwang Ho or Yellow River and one in the south along the Yangtze River. In time, these
centers merged and drew many of their neighbors into their sphere. Some remained politically and culturally distinct—Japan, Vietnam, Mongolia, Tibet—while exchanging ideas
and influence with the Chinese. Traders came to China on great caravan routes across central Asia and by the sea-lane around Southeast Asia. Sometimes, the Chinese welcomed the
trade; at other times they built great walls, literal and figurative, to protect their empire from
outsiders. In time, the core of East Asia, once no doubt as diverse in language and ethnicity
as India, Africa, or Indonesia, became melded into a vast land with a common sense of
ethnicity, Han Chinese, and eventually a single dominant language, Mandarin.
Each of these centers of power and culture, at one time or another, saw itself as the
center of the world, an oasis of culture surrounded by barbarians, infidels and heathens, and
hostile hordes. Yet while the centers maintained their own cultural identities, they were
always interacting with one another: trading, fighting, and exchanging ideas and innovations,
merchants and spies. The boundaries of cultures, like those of empires, were fluid and often
overlapping. The Great Silk Road connected the Roman Empire and the Han Chinese Empire,
a trade route that, in one form or another, persisted for centuries. Sometimes, they carried on
a vigorous traffic in products and ideas with the very nomads beyond their borders that they
most despised (Weatherford 1994). Once they became seafaring, traders and merchants from
the Phoenicians to the Arabs to the Portuguese carried these products and ideas into exchange
with the coast of Sub-Saharan Africa and the islands of what is now Indonesia.
The greatest seafarers of all may have been the Polynesian (“many islands”) cultures
that spread into the Pacific. Their ancestors had reached Fiji in the South Pacific almost
3,000 years ago (see Smith 2008). By the end of the first millennium, they had navigated
in sailing canoes across thousands of miles of open ocean to reach Tahiti, Hawaii, and
remote Easter Island. By the 1300s, they were settled in the islands of what is now New
Zealand, perhaps the largest landmass outside of Antarctica still to be inhabited.
About the same time that Polynesians were landing in Hawaii, Norse sailors, or
“Vikings,” from Norway and Denmark were making the first connections across the Atlantic in single-sail oar boats. They settled first in Iceland, then Greenland, and finally found a
tenuous foothold on the North American mainland in what is now the Labrador coast of
Canada. In Iceland and Greenland, the Norse sailors encountered other intrepid sailors in
much smaller boats, oceangoing kayaks that could weave in and out of narrow inlets through
the ice-strewn waters. The Norse called them skraelings, meaning “babblers,” since they
couldn’t understand their language. These people were part of a hunter–gatherer culture that
had adapted to life on the edges of the Arctic Ocean in a series of communities that circled
the North Pole. “Inuit” in their language family, and later dubbed “Eskimos,” this group
provided trading partners for the Norse, until they eventually fell into hostilities. The Norse
who landed in North America soon found greater hostilities from groups already there. These
weren’t Eskimos, however, but Amerindians, the northern fringe of communities descended
from those first ice age hikers, who now spanned North and South America. The Norsemen
(they had yet to bring families) had iron axes and swords but no firearms around the turn of
the second millennium. Outnumbered by hunter–gatherers proficient in the use of the bow
and arrow, the Norse retreated from the first cross-Atlantic encounter (Diamond 1997).
Introduction The Global Century
5
After tenuous connections along icy northern routes, open-water seafaring allowed
Europeans to extend their commerce, control, and curiosity to the Americas. Though they
were slow to realize it, what they encountered in the Americas was also a network of empires
and cultures with trade routes that spanned North, Central, and South America and the
Caribbean. Intensive maize (corn) farming in Mesoamerica—what is now Mexico and
Central America—allowed for great cities and realms that would finally end with the Aztec
and Mayan Empires. In South America, a trade network up and down the Andes Mountains
permitted the rise and fall of great civilizations, and finally merged into a single empire of
the Quechua-speakers we have learned to call the Inca. In both North and South America,
the desert, plains, and forestlands provided for myriad villages and the occasional city, such
as Cahokia near present-day St. Louis.
Making a World System
The world of 1450 was one of scattered empires interconnected by a vast web of trade
routes. For most, however, life was local; they lived in towns and villages where farming
could be sustained or in great nomadic groups of hunters and herders across dry and mountainous country on each continent. Then everything changed. For some scholars such as
Immanuel Wallerstein, a whole new system of society and economics, a world system, was
born (Wallerstein 1974). For others, such as Andre Gunder Frank, this was more likely an
intensification of the empires that had been expanding for thousands of years (Frank and
Gills 1993). In 1453, the great city on the straits connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, and the passage between Europe and Asia, fell to the Turkish Empire. Europe was
a varied collection of relatively small states whose nobility had developed a taste for eastern commodities. With the overland routes closed by what they saw as a hostile force,
where would they go?
In small country on a sliver of land facing the Atlantic, a prince dabbled in improving
trade and navigation by sea, earning himself the title of Prince Henry the Navigator. The
prince encouraged ocean exploration, the only way that the tiny country of Portugal could
ever be a wealthy power. His sailors braved open ocean waters to settle in the Azores,
and then turned south toward Africa. They began a series of trading ports along the African coast. Eventually they rounded the Cape of Good Hope, the southernmost part of
Africa, with great new hope as they entered the Indian Ocean. The coast of East Africa
was already dominated by Swahili traders of Arab and East African descent. With slower
but more powerful ships and newly cast cannon, the Portuguese muscled in and dominated
the Indian Ocean trade from Africa to India to the East Indies (now Indonesia) and eventually all the way around to China and Japan. Wealth flowed in. China and Ottoman
Turkey remained powerful, but in terms of control of the world system, the 1400s became
the Portuguese Century.
By the end of the 1400s, Isabel the Catholic of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon were
uniting Spain and driving out the last of its Islamic rulers. After years of war, they needed
money. But the Portuguese controlled the African trade and the sea routes to Asia. When
an Italian-born sailor, whom the English would call Christopher Columbus, showed up with
great bravado and maps that horribly underestimated the size of the planet, he convinced