------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------  
Published by EH.NET (May 2006)  
  
Jurgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Petersson, _Globalization: A Short   
History_. (Translated from the German by Dona Geyer.) Princeton, NJ:   
Princeton University Press, 2005. xi + 182 pp. $23 (hardcover), ISBN:   
0 691 12165 6.  
  
Reviewed for EH.Net by Kevin H. O'Rourke, Department of Economics,   
Trinity College Dublin.  
  
  
This is a short book on a big topic, and as such is sure to appeal to   
a fairly wide readership. Its aim is to provide a brief introduction   
to the history of globalization, stretching back into the Middle   
Ages, in around 150 pages. Given that aim, it seems a shame that the   
first two chapters are devoted to terminological and methodological   
issues, but this is a book evidently aimed at social theorists who   
worry about such things, rather than at economic historians who are   
content to examine the more tangible dimensions of economic   
globalization -- trade, labor migration and capital flows -- one at a   
time.  
  
Once they get onto the history, the judgment of the authors seems for   
the most part fairly sound. Thus, they emphasize the important roles   
played by the Muslim, Mongol and Iberian empires in creating links   
between different regions of the world, as well as the break-through   
role of the Industrial Revolution. On one or two occasions, their   
perspective does seem to be a little Eurocentric. Thus, they   
characterize the period 1846-80 as an "age of free trade," although   
the republics and dominions of the New World were protectionist   
during this period, and Asia and Africa were free-trading afterwards.   
They also spend a lot of time on the Bretton Woods institutions in   
discussing the 1945-1970s period, thus giving the impression of a   
world increasingly influenced by international institutions, when   
they might just as well have emphasized the dramatic inward turn of   
large swathes of the planet associated with communism or the collapse   
of European empires. Another example comes on p. 117, when the   
authors state that "economic and political cooperation within a   
framework of European structures may even have been necessary for the   
survival of the nation-state model." European inter-state political   
cooperation has indeed been a great success, but even a cursory look   
at the non-European evidence suggests that nation states can indeed   
survive without such structures. On the other hand, whenever this   
reviewer started to sharpen his quill in anticipation of highlighting   
such egregious errors of judgment, he would inevitably find that the   
text implicitly or explicitly acknowledged the contradictory nature   
of the evidence a few paragraphs or pages later.  
  
The main flaw of the book, it seems to me, is the fact that its   
narrative ends some time in the mid-1970s. To most economists this   
will seem like Hamlet without the prince, for it is only since the   
1980s that China, India, and many other developing countries have   
started embarking on radical reform programs leading to their   
reinsertion into the international economy after decades of   
self-imposed isolation. To be fair, this is briefly mentioned in the   
concluding chapter, but more emphasis on the phenomenon would have   
been helpful. However, it is probably no harm for economists to have   
their preconceptions challenged in this way from time to time. To us,   
the Cold War obviously led to de-globalization, but it probably did   
also lead to "a new kind of globalization ... as people slowly   
perceive the world as a ... community of fate threatened by nuclear   
annihilation."  
  
The book is a useful reminder, to those who need reminding, that   
globalization is not new. I liked the authors' emphasis that it is a   
process, not an end-state, and that it is the outcome of a complex   
range of individual and state decisions, as well as a large random   
error component. There is little new here for practicing academics,   
but it might be a useful introduction to the subject for students and   
non-specialists. A final word of warning, however, especially to my   
more faint-hearted American colleagues: if you are the sort of person   
whose blood pressure is likely to rise on reading assertions such as   
the one on p. 144 that "quite a few trends in ... theory that enjoy   
worldwide popularity are created in Italy or France," then this book   
is probably not for you.  
  
  
Kevin O'Rourke is Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin, a   
co-organizer of the CEPR Economic History Initiative, a Research   
Associate at the NBER, and an Editor of the European Review of   
Economic History. He is the co-author of _Globalization and History:   
The Evolution of a Nineteenth Century Atlantic Economy_ (MIT Press,   
1999, with Jeffrey G. Williamson), and is currently working on a   
history of international trade in the very long run (with Ronald   
Findlay) which will be published in 2007.  
  
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