Springer A Big History of Globalization: The Emergence of a Global World System (World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures)

From the Back Cover This book presents the history of globalization as a network-based story in the context of Big History. Departing from the traditional historic discourse, in which communities, cities, and states serve as the main units of analysis, the authors instead trace the historical emergence, growth, interconnection, and merging of various types of networks that have gradually encompassed the globe. They also focus on the development of certain ideas, processes, institutions, and phenomena that spread through those networks to become truly global. The book specifies five macro-periods in the history of globalization and comprehensively covers the first four, from roughly the 9th – 7th millennia BC to World War I. For each period, it identifies the most important network-related developments that facilitated (or even spurred on) such transitions and had the greatest impacts on the history of globalization.  By analyzing the world system's transition to new levels of complexity and connectivity, the book provides valuable insights into the course of Big History and the evolution of human societies. Product Description This book presents the history of globalization as a network-based story in the context of Big History. Departing from the traditional historic discourse, in which communities, cities, and states serve as the main units of analysis, the authors instead trace the historical emergence, growth, interconnection, and merging of various types of networks that have gradually encompassed the globe. They also focus on the development of certain ideas, processes, institutions, and phenomena that spread through those networks to become truly global.The book specifies five macro-periods in the history of globalization and comprehensively covers the first four, from roughly the 9th – 7th millennia BC to World War I. For each period, it identifies the most important network-related developments that facilitated (or even spurred on) such transitions and had the greatest impacts on the history of globalization.By analyzing the world system's transition to new levels of complexity and connectivity, the book provides valuable insights into the course of Big History and the evolution of human societies. About the Author Julia V. Zinkina is a Senior Research Fellow of the International Research Laboratory on Demography and Human Capital at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) in Moscow. She also holds a research position at the Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia. Her current research interests include demographic processes at global and national levels, worldwide social networks, sociopolitical destabilization, macrohistory and long-term trends. She is the author of more than 90 publications including two monographs in Russian.David Gilbert Christian is the Director of Macquarie University's Big History Institute, Australia. He is a member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities, and the Royal Society of N.S.W. In 2004, he published the first monograph on "Big History", Maps of Time (University of California Press). With Bill Gates, he is a co-founder of the "Big History Project", which has developed free online high-school courses in big history. Since 2013, he has been Director of Macquarie University's Big History Institute, and led the collaboration of twenty academics across all faculties to develop Macquarie University's MOOC on big history: "Big History: Connecting Knowledge", on the Coursera platform.Leonid E. Grinin is a Senior Research Professor at the Laboratory for Monitoring of the Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia; the Deputy Director of the Eurasian Center for Big History & System Forecasting and Senior Research Professor at the Institute for Oriental Studies of t