Читать книгу Globalization - George Ritzer - Страница 35

Nayan Chanda (2007: xiv) argues that “globalization stems, among other things, from a basic human urge to seek a better and more fulfilling life.” This leads him to trace “the initial globalization of the human species, [to] when in the late Ice Age, a tiny group of our ancestors walked out of Africa in search of better food and security. In fifty thousand years of wandering along ocean coasts and chasing game across Central Asia, they finally settled on all the continents.” Chanda’s view that globalization is hardwired into humans is not the one accepted here since we argue that we are now living in a distinctive global age.

Chanda focuses on four specific aspects of globalization that relate to a basic “urge”³ for a better life – trade (or commerce), missionary work (religion), adventures and conquest (politics and warfare). All of these are key aspects of globalization, all can be traced to early human history, and all, as well as much else, will be dealt with in this volume.