David Eaton
David Eaton is Professor of History at Grand Valley State University. He specializes in African and world history, and his book, World History through Case Studies, is now available in its second edition through Bloomsbury.
Grand Valley State University
Session
World history and globalization have long been intertwined. The general narrative of world history as one of intensifying cross-cultural interactions reflects the emergence of the field during the 1990s, when a combination of technological innovations and the end of the Cold War made global integration seem inevitable. The subsequent decades have revealed that this was wildly premature.
One key question that world historians should engage with is the role of capitalism in facilitating global connections. This is obviously a difficult question and requires wading into debates over the origins of capitalism, its presence in different parts of the world, and its very nature. This paper reflects the evolution of my own teaching on the link between capitalism and world history, one influenced by the book A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. In this book, authors Raj Patel and Jason Moore argue that capitalism primarily originated in the systems of war debt and conquest perfected during the Reconquista, and that this system then spread into newly discovered lands across the Atlantic. Capitalist frontiers were structured to generate extraordinary short-term profits through strategies of cheapening, which included cheapening the importance of the natural world (upon which all life depends). They argue that capitalism’s ongoing effects are so great that the modern era can best be described as the Capitalocene.
By focusing on capitalism and its unceasing desire for growth, instructors can help students understand why many people around the world have not embraced globalization. While it is important to acknowledge that there is no single answer for this phenomenon, providing students with a history of the foundation and expansion of capitalism better equips them to understand the present.