The term globalization has gained widespread popularity; yet most treatments are either descriptive and/or focused on changes in economic interconnectivity. In this volume the concept is seen in broader terms as leading international experts from a range of disciplines develop a long-term analysis to address the problems of globalization. The editors and contributors develop a framework for understanding the origins and trajectory of contemporary world trends, constructing testable and verifiable models of globalization. They demonstrate how the evolutionary approach allows us to view globalization as an enterprise of the human species as a whole focusing on the analytical problem of global change and the rules governing those changes. The emphasis is not on broad-based accounts of the course of world affairs but, selectively, on processes that reshape the social of the human species, the making of world opinion and the innovations that animate these developments. Chapters are clustered into four foci. One emphasizes the interpretation of globalization as an explicitly evolutionary process.
A second looks at historical sequences of such phenomena as population growth or imperial rise and decline as processes that can be modeled and not purely described. The third cluster examines ongoing changes in economic processes, especially information technology. A final cluster takes on some of the challenges associated with forecasting and simulating the complexities of globalization processes. This innovative and important volume will be of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences concerned with the phenomenon of globalization.
Industry Reviews
'The editors of this volume should be highly and widely commended for recruiting so many distinguished natural and social scientists as well as historians to their noble endeavour to bring heuristic perspectives, innovative approaches and theoretical rigour to the study of globalization as an evolutionary process. No scholar who shares their view that historical understanding will help to promote a sense of global citizenship could fail to learn from this unusual but impressive collaborative venture to construct new paradigms for historical research into the origins of the accelerated globalization of our times.' Patrick O'Brien, FBA, Centennial Professor and Convenor of the Network in Global Economic History, London School of Economics, UK 'This single volume codifies the position of the evolutionary perspective as a powerful school of thought in international relations. Setting its analytical sights on explaining globalization, 19 fascinating chapters take the reader from the key theoretical components of an evolutionary orientation through advances in modeling, the impact of information age phenomena, forecasting and simulation. This volume delivers much more than is promised, and concludes with a thoughtful assessment of what has been accomplished and the challenges that remain.' Robert A. Denemark, University of Delaware, USA 'This book makes a significant contribution to the scientific study of globalization. Multidimensional rather than narrowly economistic, social-scientific rather than speculative-polemical, the book collects a diverse set of pieces on the large-scale and long-term in world politics and economy, while yet asserting a definite and distinctive position in the globalization controversy.' David Wilkinson, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, USA 'This book presents a great many thought provoking multi-disciplinary insights into the long-term process of globalization. It offers an excellent contribution to the discussion of how globalization has been proceeding during the past five centuries.' Fred Spier, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
