When did globalization begin?

There is no single answer; some date intense globalization to the 1990s, while historians like Hopkins trace much older phases, treating it as a long and uneven historical process.

Can recent events count as history?

Yes; contemporary history studies the recent past using available evidence, though historians acknowledge the difficulty of judging significance without the perspective of time.

Globalization and the Post-Cold War World

The end of the Cold War in 1991 opened an era of accelerated globalization, marked by economic integration, new communications technology, and contested visions of a global order.

Definition

The historical study of the contemporary world since the end of the Cold War, centered on globalization and the transformation of the international economic, political, and cultural order.

Scope

This topic examines the contemporary world since roughly 1989: the collapse of communism, the spread of market economies and democratic and authoritarian forms, the deepening of economic and cultural globalization, the rise of new powers and global cities, and the crises—financial, political, and pandemic—that have shaped recent decades. It surveys debates over the meaning and history of globalization, treating recent events as objects of historical analysis with appropriate caution.

Core questions

What changed in the world order with the end of the Cold War?
Is globalization a new phenomenon or a long-running historical process?
How have economic integration and crises reshaped societies and states?
What are the limits and backlashes against globalization?

Key concepts

globalization
neoliberalism
global city
financial crisis
post-Cold War order

Key theories

Globalization in world history: A. G. Hopkins and colleagues argued that globalization has a deep history with successive forms—archaic, proto, modern, and postcolonial—rather than being a wholly recent or purely economic phenomenon.
The global city: Saskia Sassen argued that globalization concentrates command functions of the world economy in a network of 'global cities', reshaping space, labor, and inequality.

History

The end of the Cold War, the spread of market reforms, and the information-technology revolution fueled an intense phase of globalization in the 1990s and 2000s. The 2008 financial crisis, rising inequality, and political backlash later complicated narratives of inexorable integration, as historians and political economists such as Tooze have analyzed.

Debates

Is globalization new: Historians debate whether contemporary globalization is unprecedented or a recent intensification of much older processes of connection, as Hopkins's framework suggests.
Winners, losers, and backlash: Scholars dispute how globalization's benefits and costs are distributed and how to interpret the political backlash and crises of recent decades.

Key figures

A. G. Hopkins
Saskia Sassen
David Held
Adam Tooze
Manfred Steger

Seminal works

hopkins2002
sassen2001
tooze2018

Frequently asked questions

When did globalization begin?: There is no single answer; some date intense globalization to the 1990s, while historians like Hopkins trace much older phases, treating it as a long and uneven historical process.
Can recent events count as history?: Yes; contemporary history studies the recent past using available evidence, though historians acknowledge the difficulty of judging significance without the perspective of time.